dummzeuch

patch (from @Achim Kalwa) applied in revision #3811

Which opens a new can of worms...

There's always delphibasics.co.uk and of course there is the offline help in chm format. Still, I would be really embarrassed if that was my company. In particular I would try my best to communicate to my customers that I am working on the issue as hard as possible.

I still think that the "A" prefix looks bad. I prefer to use "_", which luckily I can get away with, because I'm the lead developer in our company. I'm also with some others here who think that the upper case prefixes, "F" in particular, reduce readability so a lower case "f" should be used instead (but I don't put that into practice). But somehow this feels like an age old discussion, that has been abandoned without a result many times only to start again when an opportunity comes up. And I'm really tired of discussing these non-problems.

I looked into two problems with GExperts Grep and DFM files. While it is possible to fix both, the fixes have side effects: Grep Search does not find strings in DFM files that are split in multiple lines (#49) Searching for text that gets split in multiple lines can be solved by first joining these lines: object l_Test: TLabel Left = 8 Top = 8 Width = 434 Height = 13 Caption = 'Dies ist die Ueberschrift, und sie ist sehr lang, damit es einen ' + 'Umbruch in der DFM-Datei gibt' end So instead of searching "einen Umbruch" in two lines and not finding it, we join these lines into one and then we will find it. 'Dies ist die '#220'berschrift, und sie ist sehr lang, damit es einen Umbruch in der DFM-Datei gibt' This works fine but breaks the preview in the result window. But that could probably be fixed too. But what about this: object m_memo: TMemo Left = 8 Top = 104 Width = 281 Height = 193 Lines.Strings = ( 'first line' 'second line' 'third line' 'and a ' 'veeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyyy' 'yyyyyy long line at the end that should get wrapped.') end There are three lines that are short and then a very long fourth line that gets wrapped into 3 separate lines in the DFM file. I can see no way how this could be detected. I wonder how the Delphi streaming mechanism handles this. (Actually it doesn't. When I load that form, I get a memo with 6 lines. At least in Delphi 2007. And that's a bug.) EDIT: Something apparently went wrong in my first test. I cannot reproduce the problem any more. Now, if I add long lines, the DFM file looks like this: object m_memo: TMemo Left = 8 Top = 104 Width = 281 Height = 193 Lines.Strings = ( 'first line' 'second line' 'third line' 'and a ' + 'veeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyyy' + 'yyyyyy long line at the end that should get wrapped.') end And that can easily get parsed. Grep search fails to find some words with Umlaut in fmx files (#112) (which also applies to DFM files) object l_short: TLabel Left = 8 Top = 80 Width = 83 Height = 13 Caption = 'Kurze '#220'berschrift' end Any non ASCII character apparently gets converted to its #<number> representation. Again, a fix would be to parse theses strings and convert them back: 'Kurze Überschrift' Which then would be found when searching for "Überschrift". But then, how do we search for 'first line'#13#10'second line' ? The proposed fix would convert the #13#10 numerical representation to a carriage return and line feed character respectively. Searching for "#13#10" would no longer find these. Searching for "\r\n" with Regular Expression turned on, also doesn't find it, but that might still be a bug in my code. So, after spending a few hours on these "bug fixes" I am not sure whether I want to commit them. They might break more than they fix. Any ideas on this?

I hadn't noticed. In that case it's OK to post it.

Don't. Either he will put it back online himself, or he won't. It's his work after all.

When posting something's like this, one has to expect feedback. And usually negative feedback more than positive. It's difficult to deal with that if you have no experience. Most people have no idea how much work is takes to write a book. (I don't either, I only write blog posts and wiki articles.)

Somebody in the German Delphi Praxis claimed they are working on it. Unfortunately I don't remember who it was and whether he mentioned the source. One would expect Embarcadero to at least post a message on their site that they are aware of the problem. But on the other hand experience shows that communication from Embarcadero revolves mostly about sales.

Actually it isn't (I just looked), which explains why I missed your blog post. I suggest it for inclusion.

The Delphi 2007 IDE has an annoying bug that causes the width of the name column in the Object Inspector to shrink over time so that it is no longer possible to actually read the property names. I have no idea what causes this and it doesn’t happen in any of the more recent IDEs. It might well be an effect of one of the other plugins I have installed (GExperts, cnPack, IDE Explorer, DDevExtensions and the Ide Fixpack). The dzObjectInspectorFix plugin fixes that annoyance by periodically checking the width of that column and setting it to the configured minimum (Default: 150 Pixels). (read on in the blog post)

A few weeks back something happened with my Delphi 6 installation which now results in an access violation every time I start the IDE. I tried for several hours to find and fix the problem to no avail. It’s not GExperts related, disabling the DLL was the first thing I tried. Now I’m giving up. This will mean that while GExperts will still continue to support Delphi 6 and I will compile a dll with every release (as long as the command line compilation still works), I will not be able to debug and fix any issues. If you are still using Delphi 6 you are invited to take over this task. read on in the blog post

I knew about these controls, but not about the keyboard shortcuts. And somehow I missed your blog post even thought I am subscribed to the BeginEnd RSS feed. Thanks for mentioning it.

They probably all vanished in an empty except-end block. ... which they introduced into the code.

For my professional work, I don't mind paying for the tools (or rather my employer paying for them), as long as they provide value for that money. But for my hobby, I'm not prepared to pay > 1000 Euros for a development tool. I'd either use something that's free or stop programming in my free time. (btw: My salary isn't paid from the "products" I create but rather from the services my company provides with the help of my software.) As for paying for smartphone apps: There are a few that I'd pay for, but most are not even worth "paying" for by looking at ads. I had about 20 Euros to spend on Google Play which otherwise would have been lost. I found nothing worth buying for that and the money is gone now. In my experience, freelancers who offer to work for a few bucks an hour are usually not worth even those few bucks. When you then try to use their "product", you find that it doesn't solve the problem and creates new ones. Of course, there are probably exceptions to that rule, but I have yet to come across them.

I was about to post something similar, when I realized that David was talking about the Delphi 11.1 release.

Welcome to assisted emailing, a new service brought to you by the people who invented the seat belt beep.

The formatter in GExperts can do that, the built in one can't as far as I know.

I'm surprised that GMail actually lets you transfer any executable (or even zip file containing an executable). Last time I tried it simply refused to accept that attachment. As for virus scanners flagging Delphi executables as viruses: That happens to me regularly and I got tired of trying to get these false positives to be removed. Good thing I'm not making my living from selling software.

My guess would be that the on in the Delphi Wiki is older than Delphi 10.3.

Are you aware of the (outdated) grammar at https://delphi.fandom.com/wiki/Object_Pascal_Grammar ?

I have been using it for several years to sync my photos and notes (from the DenkZettel app) on my smartphone to my desktop PC (via an old notebook running 24/7 which also runs pihole). Works very well. As to how fast it is, I have no idea. It simply runs in the background (as a service) and does its job.

Is any modern Delphi on the supported applications list for Wine? The last time I looked (which admittedly was many years ago), only Delphi up to version 7 was supported. OK, I just looked for supported Delphi versions. The latest officially version apparently is Delphi XE8, and that even with "Gold" Status: So, chances are, that the Delphi 11 installer will need the same workarounds. They are listed on that very page. I haven't tried it though.

If that's the only reason to install GExperts, you could get the same functionality with a Live Template (built in feature of the IDE) similar to this one: convert typo ";=" to ":=" This will convert a common typo where you type ";=" but really meant ":=" to what you meant. TEMPLATE FILE NAME: semicolon-equals-typo.xml <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <codetemplate xmlns="http://schemas.borland.com/Delphi/2005/codetemplates" version="1.0.0"> <template name=";=" invoke="auto"> <description> convert typo ;= to := </description> <author> twm </author> <code language="Delphi" delimiter="|"> <![CDATA[:= |end|]]> </code> </template> </codetemplate>

There seems to be a new lossless image compression format called "Quite OK Image" or QOI in short, which according to its creators not only compresses better but is also faster than PNG in compression and decompression. There are various implementations on Github https://github.com/phoboslab/qoi , one of them is even for Turbo Pascal. Is anybody maybe already working on a 32 bit Pascal/Delphi implementation?