Foundation

Foundation is an application shell component for 4D: it supplies the menus, windows, forms, find, sort, preferences and other parts of an application around your own tables and forms.

Foundation 6.0.0-beta.2

Foundation 6 has been in private beta since 1 November 2026. The current release is 6.0.0-beta.2, from 8 November 2026. It is free, under the MIT licence, and there is nothing to sign or register. The compiled component for each supported 4D is on the download page; Getting started lists the installation steps and the Developer Guide explains how to build a database on Foundation.

The source repository, github.com/open4dshell/Foundation-Shell, is private until 1 December 2026, when it becomes public. The demo database, Foundation Product Sales, is public now at github.com/open4dshell/Foundation-Product-Sales; please report problems in its Issues, giving the 4D version and the target you used.

Requirements

• 4D 20 LTS or later, on macOS or Windows.
• Builds for 20 LTS, 20 R10, 21 LTS and 21 R, each as a notarised DMG for macOS and a ZIP for Windows.

Demo

Foundation Product Sales is a demonstration database built on Foundation and the worked example throughout the Developer Guide. It is public at github.com/open4dshell/Foundation-Product-Sales and ships without the component: install Foundation from the download page first.

Licence and provenance

Foundation is released under the MIT licence. Provenance records the chain of title.

History

Dave Batton created Foundation in 1993. Walt Nelson carried it from 2008, including Foundation 5 for 4D v11. On 11 September 2026 it was assigned to Wayne Stewart by deed for release under the MIT licence, with the credit to Dave Batton and Walt Nelson kept permanently.