PeterPanettone

Well, past or present purpose - in any case, there is a purpose.

This sentence contains a lot of revealing meta-information.

I have added @Anders Melander to my ignore list. So in the future, it's useless for him to write comments directed at me.

Why do you waste your time criticizing things which are out of your reach?

IMO, the logically correct conclusion would be: There is nothing in the IDE that has no purpose. So most likely the grey panel (invisible or not) has a purpose. (Please provide convincing evidence to the contrary if you can)

That is clearly a RHETORICAL QUESTION. But it doesn't answer the question about the grey panel.

The FACT is: The Delphi IDE contains a GREY PANEL that was previously INVISIBLE and now for some unknown reason has become visible. What could be the PURPOSE of the grey panel?

I want to have public quality reports handled PUBLICLY, not thrown into a "laundry basket".

Why would they want to keep this "panel affair" SECRET?

Thank you very much! The JIRA comment says: "Internal copy (RS-100122) of this issue is closed as duplicate of internal issue RS-100117 by Calvin Tang on May 13, 2020. This issue is re-linked to internal issue RS-100117" What does this mean?

Does GExperts have a built-in function to set the ParentFont property of ALL controls on the Form or application-wide to TRUE?

I have found the very flexible Property Corrector in CnWizards.

I agree. It would be very useful if the MESSAGE DIALOG wizard would remember its size, also between sessions! It should also have a SIZE GRIP in the bottom right corner for easy resizing.

I find Pascal Expert particularly useful: https://www.peganza.com/products_pex.html https://www.peganza.com/find-bugs-early-with-pascal-expert.html It has a very large set of configurable reports about your code health and code quality. I consider it the "medical doctor and therapist of trust" for my code.

In the Delphi 10.4 STRUCTURE PANEL, I select a TCard container control (containing several controls) and try to copy it to the clipboard with CTRL+C. It does not work. Even in the EDIT sub-context menu, the Copy item is disabled: Restarted the IDE. Tried again and again. Can anyone confirm this further annoying IDE bug?

If true, this would confirm my complexity hypothesis. (See above).

Eureka: I have found a solution at Stack Overflow: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/63336038/from-the-ides-structure-panel-how-to-copy-a-tcard-to-the-clipboard/63338826 Please vote for it!

I fear it is MUCH OLDER. Shall we call it PREHISTORIC?

Please calm down. Everything is OK. You are being loved and we like you.

The FUNDAMENTAL BUG here is that with specific controls like TCard (is that a TControl?) the control is synchronized (and therefore focused) in the Object Inspector BUT not in the Form Designer. I suspect that the causal chain does not go directly from the Structure Panel to the Form Designer but in this way: Structure Panel → Object Inspector → Form Designer and that Object Inspector is the real culprit for the chain interruption for containers like TCard. This is a typical bug that occurs when the complexity of the interacting objects surpasses the developer's capabilities in mastering this complexity.

Alternative solution: 1. First select the TCard in the Structure Panel 2. Then click on the Form Designer's TAB to focus the TCard in the Form Designer 3. Then press CTRL+C to copy the TCard together with all its sub-controls to the clipboard!

You are almost right: After showing the EDIT context menu directly in the Form Designer (right-click on a visual control in the Form Designer) the "Copy" item is enabled. Then showing the EDIT context menu for the same control in the Structure Panel shows the Copy context menu item still enabled but it is not working when clicking on it or when pressing CTRL+C! Therefore, the trick to copy a TCard with all its sub-controls is as following: 1. In the Form Designer, if the TCard is not visible because covered by a full-size control (e.g. a TPanel), click that TPanel and press the ESC key until the TCard is focused. (Look in the Object Inspector). 2. Then press CTRL+C to copy the TCard together with all its sub-controls to the clipboard. General rule: To copy a complex object structure, don't use the faulty Structure Panel but use the Form Designer!

Didn't somebody recently say that computers are DETERMINISTIC? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism As long as you have only a button on the TCard, this is easy. Try that with MANY controls and sub-containers on the TCard...

From your screenshot, you copied a TCardPanel. Not a TCard.

That's the moment when the fear of your own imagination increases the suspense in good horror movies.