dummzeuch

Scaling bugs are sometimes hard to track down because they can depend on hardware (number of monitors and their resolution), operating system (Do you test your programs on Windows 7, 8.1 and the various current versions of Windows 10?) and user settings. I have been bitten by these several times and most of my programs only run on Windows XP, 7 and 8.1 (I develop on 8.1). Windows 10 was only recently added to the mix and has caused quite some headaches (The parent company switched to Windows 10 and nobody bothered to check whether our programs are compatible to Windows 10. In contrast they were worried if the measurement hardware's power consumption might overload the new notebook computers. That was never an issue. </rant>).

Fun fact: There was a prototype Delphi compiler that created JVM code. That was back when the Borland JBuilder still existed (about 20 years ago).

I have just discovered a bug in TJvCustomAppIniStorage.DeleteSubTreeInt and fixed it. So now I would like to contribute it back to the JVCL. Just so I am sure I understand what I need to do to create a pull request for a bugfix in the JVCL: Create a GitHub account (done) Create a repository on GitHub Clone the existing JVCL repository to a local directory using git Change the parent repository to my repository somehow on the command line Make the change Commit and push it to my repository Somehow (I am not quite sure how yet), create a pull request on that using the github website. And all that so somebody can actually look at it and decide that it is a bug and copy my code to fix it? Is it really that complicated or am I missing something here?

That's just the thing: I don't really want to use a pull request, I'd rather send a patch. But I was told by one of the maintainers that he won't accept a patch but only pull requests. So I tried, and after realizing how much work that involves for even a one liner, I will probably no longer bother and phase out or at least reduce the use of the Jedi code at work.

Or in other words: In order to create a pull request, you must first become a master of git. It's really annoying that it is that complicated. A pull request basically is a patch, with a comment. Something that would be possible to create with a text editor (at least for the simple cases I am talking about). Today I found lots of issues which I fixed with my local copy of jvcl / jcl years ago. I am sure I filed bug reports including patches back then. Aparently nobody ever looked at them, because they are still there in the current version. Examples: * Missing raise for a ESomeException.Create * missing Create in raise ESomeException(SomeString) I get the impression that "Project Jedi" nowadays is down to a single person or maybe two (I see commits by obones and ahausladen) who are simply swamped with requests. And that's not just Jedi, there is also dxgettext which is unmaintained for all practical purposes (I have been the only contributor for years and that's only because I still have got write access to the repository, which is more of an accident than planned, and I only sometimes make changes to it because that's the tool we use at work). Other projects are obviously unmaintained. My impression is that there may still be many Delphi developers, maybe their number is even raising, but the "Delphi Community" of 20 years ago no longer exists. </rant>

Hm, my pull request is still open, but at least it has gotten some comments. JVCL seems rather inactive nowadays. Now, I would like to add another pull request for the same file but an unrelated change. Again I seem to be too stupid to do that. Every time I try it I end up with the existing pull request.

Actually, since qry.next will be executed at the end of the loop, I think the C style for loop syntax is inconsistent. (For whatever reason I cannot delete the first code section of the quoted text on mobile.)

There is also the GExperts Convert Strings editor expert. Unfortunately I just realized that it does not cover this excact case. Hm, time for an improvement: Add a suffix in addition to the existing prefix option for each line. Btw: Another solution would be to create a keyboard macro for this case. I would require one Shift+Ctrl+P keypress per line though (still better than repeating the required key sequences for every line). I have attached such a macro in case anybody is interested. It can be imported into the Keyboard Macro Manager. AppendComma.gxm

So is trying to get the Delphi compiler open sourced.

If you have never used a goto, you have never written complex code. 😉 (I usually prefer Exit over goto, but Exit is also considered evil.)

I won't disagree here.

Not only IT-designers. It's designers <period>. Show me an unusable product and in 90% it will turn out that it was perfectly usable when the engineers finished. And then the designers ruined it. There used to be a credo "form follows function", but today it's "it doesn't matter whether it works, let's make it flashy." </rant>

While the Component to code expert works with many controls, it does by no means support every single one. But it's good enough for most use cases.

I usually just give them the "disabled" color (ParentColor = True). But of course nowadays with Windows 10 that is nearly indistinguishable from the normal state.

As I wrote: That's what I mean by active. The lurkers are an important part of a community as well as those who are posting. The people who sign up and then never log in again don't count (is there a good English translation for "Karteileichen"?).

Shameless self promotion: On StackOverflow somebody asked the question in the title and I answered it. And as you might have guessed, I am might proud of having had that idea. It might be interesting to know that this is how GExperts fixes some of the IDE bugs and enhances some forms: It creates a TComponent descendant which hooks some events of the form to implement the fixes or enhancements. And since it is added to the form, it automatically gests freed in the form’s destructor. https://blog.dummzeuch.de/2019/04/03/extend-the-event-onclick-of-all-menuitems-in-the-screen-to-execute-another-block-of-code/

Is there also a statistics about active members? Those that visited at least once and those who posted at least once in the last month? I have got the feeling that even though the number of members is still raising, the activity is not raising but actually falling.

Just in time before April fools day 2019 there is the new GExperts release (it’s still 2019-03-30 so you are safe 😉 ). Please be aware that I mostly work with Delphi 2007, so this version can be regarded as tested quite well, followed by Delphi XE2. The others are only known to compile and new features are usually tested superficially with all versions. This is particularly true for Delphi 6/7 and 2005/2006. If you want to help by testing new versions before I release them, please contact me [...] https://blog.dummzeuch.de/2019/03/30/gexperts-1-3-13-experimental-twm-2019-03-30-released/

I had to look them up myself, so it took a while but here they are, the changes, bugfixes and improvements between the GExperts 1.3.12 (released 2018-12-22) and 1.3.13 (released yesterday, 2019-03-30😞 https://blog.dummzeuch.de/2019/03/31/changes-between-gexperts-1-3-12-and-1-3-13/

GExperts has recently gained a few new features: Two new experts to start/stop recording and to replay a keyboard macro. These are minimal experts which allow you to add additional keyboard shortcuts to the existing IDE functionality. The idea and the code were contributed by Dejan M. Goto Previous / Next modification Editor Experts. These again ... https://blog.dummzeuch.de/2018/12/15/new-features-in-gexperts/

fixed

Or you could compile to the application folder and (re) move the other files in a post build event. That way the debugging still works.

Embedding a DLL can be done without extracting it (at least for some DLLs for 32 bit Windows programs). But I am not sure whether this would work with that DLL. My dzlib contains a unit for that: u_dzRessourceDllLoader.

I think you found all options. There are no others. I would Kick the person who bought this component without source. (Who was / is an idiot, nobody did that even back when Delphi 7 was new.) Suggest not updating to Delphi 10.3 but 10.2 (which will be rejected) Go with the DLL solution.

OK, so what I originally wrote was basically correct: Fork the original repository to create your own copy of it on GitHub Create a local clone of your own fork using e.g. GitHub Desktop Make the change. Commit it Push it to GitHub On the repository's website create a pull request. I just did that, let's see what happens. https://github.com/project-jedi/jvcl/pull/74 Thanks everybody who helped. The crucial step is to first *fork* the original repository on GitHub rather than clone it. (OK, maybe I am not to stupid to use git after all.)