While I was using D2007 I've really got used to Project > Project Page Options feature to keep and view some free-form project notes, external references (these almost never being comfortably viewable in built-in HTML designer) etc. Now I have Delphi XE and Project Page Options is missing from Project menu, moreover, projpageide150.bpl mentioned in the documentation is not present in bin directory. How do i fix it? I'm really finding ability to view (not edit!) HTML documents in the IDE a very convenient feature.
It looks like it was dropped but has been re-instated. In my XE2 installation the projpageide160.bpl file is there, as is the Project | Project Page options menu. Neither are present in my D2010 installation.
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Has anyone had any success installing the Advantech DAQNavi components in Delphi 10.3 or 10.4 ?
The big problem is that I cant find a detailed step by step explanation of how to install activex components into Delphi 10.3 or 10.4.
I pay embarcadero for support but their response is "Ask Advantech" !
I have installed the Advantech DAQNavi ActiveX components into Delphi 10.3 and everything appears to go OK without any issues but If I then add them to a form nothing shows on the form. The components appear in the structure list and I can edit them that way, the same applies if I open a project created with an earlier version of Delphi that uses the Advantech ActiveX components.
The fact that something has not worked correctly during the install worries me and I dont feel comfortable compiling projects using these components with this version of Delphi.
Following is a step-by-step guide to installing an ActiveX component for which you have a type library in Delphi Sydney (v.10.04).
Assuming you have a drive D: (I have never trusted Windows with saving important work on its boot drive), create the folder d:\D104, and 2 subfolders below it, d:\D104\Units and d:\D104Pkg.
Start the Delphi IDE if not already running, or do a Close All if it is.
Goto Component | Import Component in the IDE main menu.
Select your type lib from the pop-up
Click Next and set Palette Page to "My Imports"
Click Next and set the radio button to Install to New Package.
Click Next and set the Package name to e.g. D:\d104\Pkg\MyPackage.dpk and fill in the Description box as you think.
Click Finish. The IDE will generate
a file in D:\D104\Units named like MyTypeLib.Pas (but see the comment below step 9) and
the file D:\D104\Pkg\MyPackage.dproj
It will then attempt to compile D:\D104\Pkg\MyPackage.Bpl, which is the package that you need to install in the IDE to have the component(s) in your typelib show up on the MyImports tab of Delphi's Component Palette. Btw, a .Bpl file is a special sort of Dll which, as well as your components, contains some "behind the scenes" code to help .Bpl files get along with one another and the IDE, including memory-sharing.
Assuming the compilation generates no errors, go to Component | Install Packages in the IDE and use the Add button in the pop-up to add D:\D104\Pkg\MyPackage.Bpl and you're done.
If the compile in step 9 doesn't appear to have done anything, it's most likely because the BPL has been generated to the wrong place. Find it and delete it (because otherwise it will come back to haunt you), then:
Open D:\D104\Pkg\MyPackage.dproj as a project in the IDE, then from the IDE's main menu, click Project ! Project Options & on the Project pop-up, select the
"Delphi Compiler" tab, and on the right, set the package Output Directory to D:\D104\Pkg
and click Save, then re-compile the project and use Component | Install Packages to install the .Bpl file.
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Fwiw, in the D5/D6/D7 era, adding components to the IDE was much simpler (and IME less error-prone) because you could do the entire process using a stand-alone Package Editor.\Units
Embarcadero have now looked into it and responded :
"It is bug... it was a fix, for another bug this is one of those good intentions paving fixes."
Apparently the bug simply prevents the control appearing on the form at design time and does not affect the operation of the OCX.
I have deveoped a custom file type, together with a custom editor (basically a tree with several data pages attached and a few extra buttons). OK, I can run it stand alone and that is fine, and even add it to the tools menu, but I would like to integrate it into the Delphi IDE so that my custom editor (or a similar new version) appears in the IDE, rather like a DFM file has a custom editor. I can find references to most extensions in the Delphi IDE, but not this one. Any guiding hands? Note that this is not a property or component editor (the file type has nothing to do with either of these) nor is it simply syntax highlighting of a text file.
AFAIK it currently isn't possible to reliably integrate a custom editor into the Delphi IDE. The required API simply isn't there. See QC89028 Custom Module support.
During the Delphi 2010 and XE betas I spent most my spare time trying to get a resource editor integrated. Although the effort had the official blessing of Embarcadero and got some, half hearted, support from the IDE engineer, I was never able to get them to deliver on their promises and surface the module API. I eventually abandoned the project.
Update: I've now checked my old correspondence regarding this and it turns out part of the problem was that IOTAModuleCreator (used to implement File|New for custom file types) and IOTAEditorContent (used to transfer data to/from the custom module) only supports text data. Binary data gets mangled.
You can probably do this via an IDE plugin that uses the ToolsAPI (see ToolsAPI.pas in the IDE's source folder (e.g. Program Files (x86)\Embarcadero\Studio\source\ToolsAPI\ToolsAPI.pas.)
For information on writing a plugin in general, see David G Hoyle's excellent blog. Once you know the basics - i.e., write a 'wizard' and get it to do something - you will need to work on integrating your editor.
I have never done this, and so I can't guarantee it is possible. However, some interfaces that look worth investigating and implementing are INTACustomEditorView, which represents a 'view' (file tab when that file is open - think the code editor, Welcome view, type library editor, etc) and IOTAEditorViewServices, to register your custom view. I do not know how you associate a view type with a file type, sorry - possibly something to do with the personality interfaces. You might also be interested in INTACustomEditorSubView which is what creates a tab on the bottom of a file.
Good luck, and if you find a solution please write here so that other people can learn too!
I have downloaded a component that has many packages in it, then I have install all the design time packages and generated all the other dcu files.I have to assign its path in Delphi search path every time I create a new application. Is there a way to assign its path to Delphi compiler search path once and all application will get access to these unit, so that I need not to manually set every time the path for a new application.
If you want to have some component automatically available for every new projects you need to change the default Delphi IDE options - specifically path locations - so that Delphi IDE knows where to find needed files.
You do this by going into menu Tools -> Options. Then in the TreeView which is used for splitting the options into multiple categories you select Enviroment Options -> Delphi options -> Library.
On the right side of the window you will now have different options regarding the path locations for libraries and source files.
In order to allow Delphi to find needed precompiled units of your component you need to add the folder in which they are located to Library path.
In order to allow Delphi to find source files of your component you need to add the folder in which they are located to Browsing path.
You can read more information about these settings in the Delphi documentation which is also available online here:
http://docwiki.embarcadero.com/RADStudio/XE6/en/Library
Note if you don't own Delphi XE6 but one of the previous XE versions simply change the webpage URL by replacing "XE6" with the one you own.
EDIT: I have edited my answer to provide more specific information. Old post below:
If you got to Tools -> Options (or is it Enviroment Options in latest versions) you can set Default options for the Delphi IDE. These options also include the Default path settings which will be automatically used in all new projects.
The way I do this is to have a folder "Lib2" which I use as the unit output directory whenever I compile/install components - I let the components (I mean their source files, etc) be installed whereever they want).
(I call it "Lib2" because traditionally Delphi has placed its own DCUs in a folder called "Lib", and putting all the third-party ones in a folder separate from that one avoided having to re-install Delphi if my set-up got into a mess.)
If you do that, all you need do for new projects is to include the path to that folder in the project search path and set that as the default search path.
The way to do that varies with Delphi version - the D7 era it was just a question of ticking the "Default" checkbox on the Directories/Conditionals tab of Project | Options. The only minor problem is that sometimes the component needs a resource file; if the compiler complains about that, just copy it to there manually.
In XE4, there are several ways of getting Delphi to find compiled DCUs that you've send to Lib2 or whatever you care to call it:
The simplest seems to to do what the other answer suggests, namely add the Lib2 path to the list of Library paths under Tools | Options. The compiler will then use the DCUs it finds there without needing to be able to finds their sources, which is generally a good thing (see "btw" section below).
A second way is to create a project "Option Set" (see the OLH for details of what they are and how to create one, and then edit it (again, see OLH) to include Lib2 in the list of search paths. After that, you can apply that Option Set to any project which it suits. There may be a way to automatically apply your Option Set to new projects, but I haven't managed to find it yet. In any case ...
A third way is to add a project which has Lib2 amongst its search paths to the Delphi repository and then create new projects that you want to use Lib2's contents from this entry in the repository.
Btw, there is an important practical point to having 3rd party libraries and any of your own standard ones output their DCUs to your Lib2 or equivalent. Because the compiler can find the compiled DCUs there, it does not have to be able to find the source code of those libraries in order to be able to compile your project. Isolating the compiled DCUs in this way helps avoid the dreaded "unit x was compiled with a different version of y" error message (y usually being a bpl) which has been the cause of so many cries for help in Delphi newsgroups over the years.
I started my first iOS application in Firemonkey, and the compiler immediately started complaining "File not found unit1.lfm". There is no such file in my project, and my application has no main form, just a unit with a form referenced...
{$R *.lfm}
What's wrong?
I'm asking/answering this Q/A style. I faced this issue and quickly knew what was wrong, and a lot of other people are bound to face this.
This is because the IDE's form designer for iOS (and all Firemonkey) applications requires that you have the "Embedded Designer" enabled. By default, this is enabled in these later versions of Delphi which have the option. However, many people disable this to mimic the old fashioned Delphi versions (where the forms are floating separate from everything else). These forms cannot be shown as their own windows in Delphi XE2, so they need to be designed in the embedded designer.
To fix this, go to "Tools > Options > VCL Designer" and then check the option "Embedded Designer". This will require you to restart your IDE for it to take effect.
Unfortunately, you will have to delete any saved files and create your project again. The links are broken after you've started a new project with this disabled. (technically it can be recovered, but it's easier to start over anyway)
Different Delphi versions (in my case 2007, XE and XE2) seem to use the same code-template repository, such as ..\Documents\RAD Studio\code_templates. Since XE2 uses namespaced units, this causes problems when one have to use a unit name in a template.
For instance I have a template when I write winbeep which completes to windows.Beep(300, 100); and selects and stops on frequency etc.. This does not compile on XE2 unless I remove the Winapi. part of the Windows unit in the uses clause (or of course add the prefix manually). I have to have the unit name because otherwise SysUtils.Beep gets referred.
I couldn't find an option entry or a registry key or an environment variable specifying the place of the templates. It is not even related to BDSUSERDIR, in fact I don't even have a directory in my computer having the path of BDSUSERDIR (which is ..\Documents\RAD Studio\9.0). Is this my oversight and in fact there's an option to relocate code templates? If not, is it possible to make the IDE use unit aliases in uses clause for new forms?
edit:
Here it is stated that (emphasis by me) "Templates that you create (and templates provided by third party add-ins) are saved by default in the \My Documents\RAD Studio\code templates\ directory." That would imply there should be way to save them in a non-default place. But the article does not mention how.
You can put your templates in "Delphi installation folder"\ObjRepos\en\Code_Templates to make them visible only on one Delphi version.
Edit
As Sertac points out in the comments, Template libraries are related to project templates, not code templates. Leaving this answer in place because it may help people looking for ways to structure / share / split their project template repositories.
In Delphi XE2 you have a "Template libraries" option under the "Tools" menu. When you open that, you get this dialog:
The "Add" button allows you to add a folder, the "Properties" button allows you to view and manage the contents of that repository.
So it would seem to me that you can simply copy the template library, change it XE2 specific stuff, and then point XE2 to its own repository. Or you could do that only for the templates that require specific XE2 unit handling.