Delphi 11.1 - a month later

[Mike Torrettinni 198]

Pretty impressed by Delphi 11.1!
Upgraded most of my projects from 10.2 and finally I can say that this is version stable enough to move from 10.2. Versions 10.3 and 10.4 were just not ready.

 

A few observations:
- IDE crashes a lot less (perhaps only 2 crash & close so far)
- still occasional F2084 Internal Error, but at least it doesn't close IDE and you can just compile again (10.2 would crash and close most of the time on these errors)
- The LSP works pretty good, there's constant delay, but is worth waiting because it works correctly most of the time

- I was hoping the IDE would be slightly faster, but there is a constant slight delay (I assume LSP is kicking in)

- ctlr+click works better, almost always
- faster handling big main form (open, close)

- commenting lines works without a glitch (10.2: sometimes when I want to comment a line, as soon as I press CTRL+/ the cursor jumps up and down and it comments the first line in the unit. very annoying)

- 64bit compiler compiles faster and always (10.2 would crash often)
- error insight is improved and more accurate
- Structure view improved, faster and less jittery (10.2 would occasionally hang for a bit on large form)
- compiler hints improved, more are shown right from the start so you can sort them out (10.2 would suddenly surprise you with a few more that were not shown before)
- I like the new Options window, the size persists, especially Library window

- context option to close units: Close - All to the right, is pretty nice, too!

 

They did break one thing (well, it was broken in 10.3 already, still not fixed), but is not a deal breaker (at this point):
- Debug Watch list evaluator is broken for some simple cases ( https://en.delphipraxis.net/topic/6751-simple-debugger-bug-in-111/ )

 

Embarcadero did a good job with D11.1!

 

 

[Martin Sedgewick 30]

Agreed that they have done a good job. The cumulative effect of the last few releases being more focused on bug fixes, IDE improvements is now paying off. 

 

F2084 Internal Error - I forgot about that one as I have not seen that in a while now! Thankfully 🙂

 

I also like the more regular patching, and hope they continue to drop bundles of fixes more often. Keeps people happy when they see progress on the things that are blocking them.

 

Would be great to see a roadmap too. No idea what is happening next!

[Darian Miller 361]

I agree with most of your observations and 11.1 is a lot better in may ways - but for me, ctrl-click is failing most of the time and some of the automatic code completion gets in the way more.  I've increased the delay and rely on it less.

 

It seems almost what 10.4 should have been.

 

 

 

[Mike Torrettinni 198]

1 more observation: in 10.2, when ctrl+click worked, it worked even if code in other part of the project didn't compile. 11.1 needs compiler to not fail and ctrl+click works.

Example: working on UnitA and try to compile and it fails.. perhaps a type is missing or used incorrectly. Open UnitB and check some info, use ctrl+click to jump around. In 10.2 the ctrl+click will work in UnitB. In 11.1 the Ctrl+click will not work anywhere, it stops working for the whole project, because the last compile failed. It starts working as soon as compile is successful.

 

[emileverh 21]

This Delphi 11.1 version is indeed a very good version. But I am still starting it in 'High DPI unaware' mode. There are for me still too many issues with High DPI.  Else....I like it a lot!!!

[Mike Torrettinni 198]

23 hours ago, Martin Sedgewick said:

Would be great to see a roadmap too. No idea what is happening next!

I lowered my expectations what they can/will deliver, so I think that's why I'm surprised of the D11.1 quality.

 

 

3 hours ago, emileverh said:

'High DPI unaware' mode. There are for me still too many issues with High DPI

So far, I'm not touching any High DPI stuff, yet. But I would probably get to the same conclusion as you, not mature enough yet.

[Uwe Raabe 2057]

37 minutes ago, Mike Torrettinni said:

So far, I'm not touching any High DPI stuff, yet.

DPI unaware mode doesn't hinder you to write DPI aware applications with Delphi, which works pretty well meanwhile. It is just that the IDE runs at 96 dpi internally scaled by Windows.

[Attila Kovacs 629]

I'm running my Berlin and even my D2007 in HDPI mode -with some custom expert along- to get a crisp picture and you are using the latest HDPI aware IDE in blurry mode?

[Uwe Raabe 2057]

9 minutes ago, Attila Kovacs said:

I'm running my Berlin and even my D2007 in HDPI mode -with some custom expert along

Can you please elaborate on that?

[Mike Torrettinni 198]

2 minutes ago, Uwe Raabe said:

DPI unaware mode doesn't hinder you to write DPI aware applications with Delphi, which works pretty well meanwhile. It is just that the IDE runs at 96 dpi internally scaled by Windows.

I didn't know this. I see that they did improve High DPI in 11 (https://blogs.embarcadero.com/new-in-rad-studio-11-high-dpi-ide-and-form-designing/) I will have to re-check. Last time I ran my projects on 4K monitor and various scalings, it looked good, not perfect, but usable.

 

[Attila Kovacs 629]

2 minutes ago, Uwe Raabe said:

Can you please elaborate on that?

Compatibility mode / HDPI / scale by application or something like that.

[Cristian Peța 103]

2 hours ago, Attila Kovacs said:

I'm running my Berlin and even my D2007 in HDPI mode -with some custom expert along- to get a crisp picture and you are using the latest HDPI aware IDE in blurry mode?

What about VCL form designer? There are not things too small?

[Attila Kovacs 629]

Offtopic

 

 

39 minutes ago, Cristian Peța said:

What about VCL form designer? There are not things too small?

 

Under Berlin it's smaller, but I had no issues so far, under D2007 it's the regular size.

But I have to run some extra code in a wizard to fix some tgrid/tlist/ttree(virtualtree)/font issues in the IDE. Not much though.

 

the screenshots are on 125% zoom

 

(Well, the full-sized screenshots are downscaled by the forum software, so forget it. They look good 😉)

 

D2007 snipplet

 

 

 

Edited May 20, 2022 by Attila Kovacs

[Uwe Raabe 2057]

2 hours ago, Attila Kovacs said:

Compatibility mode / HDPI / scale by application or something like that.

This is standard for D11 and it works quite well when you use the scaled designer, too. Unfortunately that will change your DFM files often in an unwanted way. As long as you are the only one working with these files it might be acceptable, but in mixed environments it is often not really usable in the moment. 

 

Seems that Embarcadero itself doesn't make use of the scaled designer: All PixelsPerInch in the form resources of CoreIDE280.bpl are 96 DPI.

[Uwe Raabe 2057]

2 hours ago, Attila Kovacs said:

Compatibility mode / HDPI / scale by application or something like that.

I actually gave it a try on 10.4, but I have difficulties to distinguish the tiny icons then. I admit to have a higher scale than only 125%

[Mike Torrettinni 198]

On 5/19/2022 at 5:45 AM, Martin Sedgewick said:

F2084 Internal Error - I forgot about that one as I have not seen that in a while now! Thankfully 🙂

I noticed this error most of the time in only 1 unit and I finally was able to refactor it (it was using a lot of other units). No more of this error since then! 🙂 

[corneliusdavid 214]

On 5/19/2022 at 11:00 PM, emileverh said:

But I am still starting it in 'High DPI unaware' mode.

Same here. I use Delphi on a high-DPI monitor and if I use the "aware" version, my forms are so tiny, I can't read them. 

[Uwe Raabe 2057]

1 minute ago, corneliusdavid said:

I use Delphi on a high-DPI monitor and if I use the "aware" version, my forms are so tiny, I can't read them. 

Can you explain what you see as the benefits of the aware mode while accepting to not being able to read the tiny forms?

[corneliusdavid 214]

10 minutes ago, Uwe Raabe said:

Can you explain what you see as the benefits of the aware mode while accepting to not being able to read the tiny forms?

I'm just starting to use Delphi 11 (having been working on a big project in 10.4). This was what I saw at first and just re-read the blog about High-DPI mode and checked the option to use it in the VCL form designer--and now the forms are scaled properly in the IDE! Basically, I was using the unaware mode because of the tiny forms.

 

But now, comparing both aware and unaware modes, I've noticed two things: 1) the bitmaps in the forms are smaller in the High-DPI aware version of Delphi which means I need to use a VirtualImageList and include various sizes of the bitmaps so the app will use the right version as the scale changes; and 2) the code is a little crisper and a few more lines show on the screen using the same font and size.

[Stano 143]

50 minutes ago, corneliusdavid said:

I need to use a VirtualImageList and include various sizes of the bitmaps

If I understood the instructions well, VirtualImageList converts images according to DPI. Therefore, they must be on every form. So only one image size should be enough.
If I misunderstood, correct me.

[corneliusdavid 214]

8 minutes ago, Stano said:

So only one image size should be enough.

Yes, I misspoke. I should've said, "I need to use a VirtualImageList to automatically scale images ..."

[Stano 143]

object vilLitD: TVirtualImageList
    DisabledGrayscale = True
    Images = <
      item
        CollectionIndex = 0
        CollectionName = 'button_rounded_blue_first'
        Name = 'button_rounded_blue_first'
      end
      item
        CollectionIndex = 1
        CollectionName = 'button_rounded_blue_previous'
        Name = 'button_rounded_blue_previous'
      end
...
    ImageCollection = dtmdBasic.icDBNavD
    ImageNameAvailable = False
    Left = 50
    Top = 30
  end

OK. See dfm.