HTMLViewer - is there a Delphi 11 version?

[RCrandall 8]

I have had great success over the years with HTMLViewer.  It was done by Dave Baldwin IIRC and then eventually open-sourced and put on GitHub at https://github.com/BerndGabriel/HtmlViewer.  There is a Delphi 10 version of it on GitHub but I'm not able to get that to install in 11.2.  I believe I got it working in 11.0 and 11.1 but for some reason I am blocked now.  It is one of those situations where there is a long succession of errors that are incomprehensible and just plain frustrating.

 

Does anyone know if there is another version of it out there I can look at, or if anyone has gotten it to work with 11.2, or what the best replacement might be?  I already have HTML Controls but don't use it yet as it would be a lot of work to convert to.  I'm starting to think that might be my best solution though as it makes me nervous to rely on unsupported components.  The GitHub version hasn't been updated in three years.

 

Thanks in advance for any information or suggestions on what I should do.

 

Best, Rob Crandall

[Dave Nottage 557]

20 minutes ago, RCrandall said:

It is one of those situations where there is a long succession of errors that are incomprehensible and just plain frustrating.

Do you mean compile errors? It compiles OK for me. Can you provide at least some of the errors?

[RCrandall 8]

I'm looking again and I see that it installed fine as recently as Delphi 11.1.

 

Deep breath -

 

In my case, I also use the AlphaControls AlphaSkins library and I want the HTMLViewer to use the AlphaSkins scroll bars to keep things pretty.  No problem, that is why we have the source and I changed the HTMLViewer code to use the desired AC scrollbar code.  That introduced a dependency on the AlphaControls code but that is fine.  It has worked for years through many successive versions of Delphi up to 11.1 inclusive.  I should mention that I switched my program to 64-bit along the way.

 

Now with 11.2, I am following my standard installation of libraries procedure (carefully documented by me and running some 22 pages in Word now) and I'm having a problem.  The exact proximate cause of my error is that 

1. I have compiled and installed AlphaControls in both 32-bit and 64-bit as always.

2. HTMLViewer needs to find the dependent 64-bit dcp file that was output by AlphaControls 64-bit, and

3. It is looking in the wrong place and getting the 32-bit version instead.  It then stops dead with the following:

 

 

The path in the error message is the correct one for the 32-bit dcp.  The 64-bit dcp is in that same path plus '\Win64\' just like all the other 64-bit dcps.  For some reason, Delphi, 11.2 (or something else) does not know to look in that \Win64\ folder even though it seems to do just that for every other 64-bit dcp it needs.  I tried recompiling everything and changing up the order, etc. but no joy.

 

I've been using Delphi for a while but this is new to me and I'm a bit flummoxed.  I just went back to an older VM with Delphi 11.1 installed and everything worked fine at the time.  This leads me to suspect something changed in D 11.2 in this regard, but how the heck do I figure that out?  I suppose I could contact support at Embarcadero but I would much prefer to solve it on my own or get some help without bothering them.  Or I could stiffen my upper lip and finally get around to figuring out how Emb handles bug reports and do a proper job.  My concerns though about relying on an unsupported HTMLViewer library remain because even if I find the solution to this immediate problem, the writing may be on the wall for other problems down the road.

 

Hmmm, Rob

[RCrandall 8]

Hey, I think I just figured it out.  My 11.2 library path for looking up DCP files was mangled.  It looks like this:

 

 

The path is missing "\$(Platform)" at the end.  I bet that is all this was.  Testing now.

[RCrandall 8]

Yes, all seems to be good with these two libraries now in D 11.2.  Now I can install the other 3rd party items and give it a proper try!

 

Writing this out at length clarified my own thinking and helped me spot the problem.

 

Cheers all, Rob C

[Angus Robertson 574]

The missing path "\$(Platform)" error in D11.2 effected many other components, it was nothing to do with HTMLViewer specifically,

 

Angus

 

[RCrandall 8]

So I now see.  It was nice to know that I could get help here and also that I still had enough smarts to figure it out on my own (eventually).  About half an hour of doing that I noticed that there was an update and lo and behold, this issue seems to have been addressed in it too.  Everything just came together!

 

My role is to figure this all out for the rest of our dev team and now I can just smile and say "get all the updates first and everything will be like the last times".  That is my true goal here.

 

THMTLViewer has been great for us and I resisted changing away from it unless there was a really good reason.  It looks like we can stay with it for a while yet.

 

Thanks all, Rob C

[Brian Evans 105]

Patch 1 for Delphi 11.2 detailed the path issue and was released October 4, 2022.

 

RAD Studio 11.2 Alexandria Patch 1 Available (embarcadero.com)  section "Library Path Configuration".

Edited October 30, 2022 by Brian Evans

[Fr0sT.Brutal 900]

Btw, Berndt still answers the issues on GH, probably the project isn't really abandoned.