Delphi 11.3 lite. dosent work code completion

[NBilov 0]

I use delphi 11.3 Alexandria, lite. But there unlike previous versions i worked with (Delphi 2010, Delphi 10.4.2), dosent work code completion. When I am typing i need to press ctrl + space everytime I need a list of variants. Maybe i name this feature improperly, probably it names "auto invoke". I tried to set a parameter somewhere in tools- options -language . But it didn't change this behavior.

And one more disadvantage in this new version. In this list of variants code templates (for, class ... etc.) are under everything other ( functions, variables etc .) . Can i change this sorting order too ?

[dummzeuch 1505]

What is "Delphi 11.3 Alexandria, lite"? That does not sound like something Embarcadero offers.

[David Heffernan 2345]

3 hours ago, NBilov said:

delphi 11.3 Alexandria, lite

This is cracked software, right? 

[NBilov 0]

Possible 

[NBilov 0]

I am sorry, i have been forgetting its right version number constantly. I will look into it again soon.

[Mark NZ 0]

For us sometimes code completion works in Delphi (very small projects), that's the paid enterprise version, most of the time it doesn't - you just get use to it with Delphi.  Yes it and lots of other bugs are frustrating but if you're stuck with a legacy code base you don't have much choice until the cost of using it just gets too great 😞

 

[Vandrovnik 214]

12 hours ago, Mark NZ said:

For us sometimes code completion works in Delphi (very small projects), that's the paid enterprise version, most of the time it doesn't - you just get use to it with Delphi.  Yes it and lots of other bugs are frustrating but if you're stuck with a legacy code base you don't have much choice until the cost of using it just gets too great 😞

 

For me, code completition works almost always fine in Delphi 11.3.1 Pro.  Project size is over 1 000 000 lines of code.

[Mark NZ 0]

12 hours ago, Vandrovnik said:

For me, code completition works almost always fine in Delphi 11.3.1 Pro.  Project size is over 1 000 000 lines of code.

We have smaller projects ranging from 500 000 lines to larger ones around 2.4 million, about 30 regularly used projects and code insight problems with most of them.  Code insight is getting better but the whole IDE is bad enough that two of the 5 devs here have given up on it and are using Visual Studio Code for editing Delphi and only switch back when they really have to for debugging or form editing.  I've been working on a a non Delphi Linux project for large chunks of the past year so haven't invested any time in switching but have tried VS Code and I think once I learn to use it quickly I'll switch as well as it doesn't crash like the Embarcadero IDE.  If VS Code had a form designer and Delphi debugger it would make the Delphi IDE completely redundant, especially if the debugger worked properly (Embarcadero debugger is frequently problematic for us in x64 which is the platform we need to use, again better than it was a few years ago but still lots of problems)

[Vandrovnik 214]

9 hours ago, Mark NZ said:

We have smaller projects ranging from 500 000 lines to larger ones around 2.4 million, about 30 regularly used projects and code insight problems with most of them.  Code insight is getting better but the whole IDE is bad enough that two of the 5 devs here have given up on it and are using Visual Studio Code for editing Delphi and only switch back when they really have to for debugging or form editing.  I've been working on a a non Delphi Linux project for large chunks of the past year so haven't invested any time in switching but have tried VS Code and I think once I learn to use it quickly I'll switch as well as it doesn't crash like the Embarcadero IDE.  If VS Code had a form designer and Delphi debugger it would make the Delphi IDE completely redundant, especially if the debugger worked properly (Embarcadero debugger is frequently problematic for us in x64 which is the platform we need to use, again better than it was a few years ago but still lots of problems)

I wonder what is the reason that we have so different user experience with IDE. Maybe third party components? Some IDE wizards/experts? Or you are using a part of Delphi language, which I do not use, such as types defined inside a class, inline variables etc.? For debugging, I compile to 32bit, because 64bit debugger was very slow and I do not check with each new IDE version, whether it is already better.

[KenR 29]

I have problems but only with very large projects!

[Mark NZ 0]

16 hours ago, Vandrovnik said:

I wonder what is the reason that we have so different user experience with IDE. Maybe third party components? Some IDE wizards/experts? Or you are using a part of Delphi language, which I do not use, such as types defined inside a class, inline variables etc.? For debugging, I compile to 32bit, because 64bit debugger was very slow and I do not check with each new IDE version, whether it is already better.

 I prefer to have GExperts/CNPack to add missing IDE functionality whenever possible but we have problems with/without it, most of us normally don't have extra components apart from  VirtualTreeView, a small number of our own GUI controls for forms and our own internal debug evaluators installed (they're something else that's been a problem to get working in various Delphi versions due to Delphi bugs).  If you only use 32bit then that would have saved you a LOT of problems with the debugger over the years, yes there have been problems with inline variables but they are pretty much okay now.  The IDE AV's when compiling (compile is almost useless, need to use build).  We've had to switch between Delphi and msbuild at times on some of our projects to get them to build and currently use a mixture. Problems with 4k screen, toolbars corrupting, code jumping not working, code insight, ide crashes (they can be occasional but have recently had days where I gave up editing in Delphi and used another editor as was happening a lot with certain files), IDE not responding for seconds (eg frequently with find in files), tools that don't work (eg Find Class which crashes, Find References which is mostly greyed out, Refactor which misses things), debugger showing incorrect line in code (usually be a few lines but can be 20 or so out), debugger not able to show/evaluate values, the Parnussus parallel debugger looked great but was an unusable failure, we gave up on the Delphi parallel library and use OTL, use another JSON library due to bugs encountered in the Delphi one.
Luckily we've been able to generally patch the Delphi libraries when bugs have been found that effect us - unfortunately got a new one in Delphi 11.3 System.pas where they've made a notification change that causes a runtime crash for us which I think is a bug but have left it to my co-worker to investigate and try and build a simple test case for Embarcadero.  This bug might be harder to work around as we can't simply put a patched System.pas into our patches search path folder as Delphi won't allow you to (re)compile System.pas (that applies to several other units as well).  Bugs take years to get fixed (or don't get fixed) when given simple reproduction steps and/or a patch to fix them.  We had one where they relatively quickly 'fixed' a bug and they included incorrect comments and introduced a new obvious memory leak.

Edited September 12, 2023 by Mark NZ

[Vincent Parrett 750]

Something that has helped for me with previous versions is to delete any .identcache files in your source folders before opening the project. I thought that was a thing of the past... but 11.3 codeinsight etc stopped working for me today in 11.3 (only showing templates in the dropdown) and doing that brought it back to life again.