The majority of components available for Delphi do not have HTML Help files for Delphi 2009. Many components including some very popular commercial components only have HLP and CHM help files.
Many of the third-party components are no longer being actively developed but are used by many developers. As a result there is no IDE help for these components.
There were very few complaints about the old CHM help files but today there are a large number of complaints about the help file system. Maybe it is time for Codegear to rethink the type of help file system used.
One of the complaints that I have about it is even when you install components that provide HTML help files the Contents Tab becomes corrupted where by previously installed component contents are removed.
Are there possible alternatives for Codegear to consider?
I have the same feeling. The old help system helps me more quickly to find an answer.
One idea is to maybe to model it after the Delphi Wiki at: http://delphi.wikia.com/wiki/Delphi_Wiki
The wiki actually isn't set up that bad, especially with the VCL link in the left frame.
It's fairly pleasant to look at, has a decent search, includes issues, examples, cross references, and what I like the most: user comments and tips.
Actually regarding the user comments and tips, the thing I like most about the PHP documentation at www.php.net/docs.php (which I think is the best programming documentation I've seen) is the user comments and tips.
If they can integrate the great layout that you'll find at Delphi Basics into it, and allow 3rd party components to add their help files into it, then they'll have a complete reference. (But the 3rd parties will obviously have to restructure their help files to the new format - whatever it ends up as).
The wiki also has sections for Tutorials, Tips and Tricks, References and Popular Articles. And I think it could also become the all-encompassing code-repository we all would like.
An option to download the help wiki should be allowed so it can be accessed offline.
And they'll have to figure out how to get the F1 key to work to properly search the wiki/help file, whether online or offline, and give the most relevant results.
The trouble with the Wiki now is that it is not complete, and the full set of Delphi help files need to be incorporated into it.
This might be a pipedream, but something like this would be my ideal.
This is a pet hate of mine. The Delphi Help has just got worse, although with a recent slight improvement. I honestly believe that this is one of the things holding back its adoption.
Micosoft introduced Help3 for VS2010, so maybe we will see it in Delphi too:
here is a blog post which answers the question "Why A New Help System?"
http://thirdblogfromthesun.com/2010/10/the-story-of-help-in-visual-studio-2010/
It quotes an internal paper, which led to the new "Help3" project in
early 2008:
"The paper described the following
issues with the help experience in
Visual Studio:
Not being able to find the information you need is a common
problem. F1 Help and Search do not
work as well as they should.
The performance of the help system – primarily start-up, topic-load,
local search results – is one of the
biggest problems.
The offline MSDN library install is fragile due to the complexities of
the help system.
The proprietary nature of our help format offers little incentive for
partners to develop authoring tools
and cannot be easily adopted by
developers in their own products.
On the content production side, the help platform saddles us with
outdated tools and processes.
Finally, and most importantly, no single team at Microsoft owns solving
these problems."
Related
I have an old Delphi application and i want to migrate it to the newest Delphi version. The problem is that the application is huge and migrating whole app at once would be too complex. I wonder what is the best approach to do this... Maybe form by form, placing a form into a dll and then using older forms in the new Delphi app and replacing them one by one (after clients confirm one form is working ok to continue with the next one). Not sure if this would be possible at all...Any other ideas?
I presume that based on your comments you do not have comprehensive test cases. In that case, you are simply in a world of pain, and there is nothing that will truly mitigate that. Without test cases, any approach you take will generate errors and bugs that will take you quite a while to catch them all. Build that into your expectations. In fact, with those as your expectations then you need to schedule a large testing phase and maybe that is a good approach. Upgrade all at once and test over the course of a few months.
You could first identify all 3rd party components that will eventually be needed and upgrade them to the latest version one at a time. That way you can at least identify bugs in a controlled manner per 3rd party component. Again, since you are relying on manual testing, this also will be error prone, but maybe you can focus on areas that use the upgraded component preferentially.
here my advice.
Before you start migrate, do a refactoring of your existing source-base.
1.) Remove un-used stuff.
2.) Try to move as much as possible to standard delphi components.
3.) Remove "un-used" units from your uses-statements.
4.) If needed, try to do some layering (App-UI,App-Logik,DB-Layer,Libraries)
5.) Look for 3rd-Party Components/Libraries, which might be not needed anymore in the latest Delphi Version, because the functionallity is now included in Delphi. If you spot such components/libraries, try to encapsulate them.
Now you have a new version of your software (still in the old delphi). Test it as exact as possible (Unit-Tests would be perfect).
If this is done, then you start to migrate to newer Delphi. I recommend to do it in one go (instead of dll and one by one).
I do not think there is enough information presented to give you specific advice.
My answer would be to bring in knowledgeable experts to look at your code, talk to your staff, look over your documentation and tests, and then present you with smart options. This can likely all be done via Zoom/Skype online. If you think about how much money you are going to end up spending on the conversion, and how much money you will spend on fixing problems because you went off in the wrong direction (and how many customers you could lose due to bugs/performance issues) this would be an extremely cheap investment.
There are a number of firms with Delphi experience that could help you. (I do not work for one and this is not an ad.) There are some well-known Delphi consultants that would likely have some free, or small flat-fee type, initial conversation.
If you are using a version before the Unicode switch in Delphi 2009, there are a number of online resources to assist. Delphi Conversion Unicode Issues
If you want some real-time advice and chatting about specific issues, check out a Telegram server dedicated to Delphi programming with nearly 800 members. There are nearly always some Delphi experts online answering questions. https://t.me/delphidevelopers You should be able to get some consultancy contacts from that server.
I am working on creating a custom form designer in the Delphi IDE. I'm trying to use the RegisterCustomModule, TBaseCustomModule, and ICustomModule functions, classes, and interfaces.
My first question on this pointed me to the Delphi Developer's Handbook and the idea that I could even create a custom form designer. However, that book seems to be all Delphi 3 information and things have really changed since then. I'm not finding any material in the Delphi Help file, and searches have not returned very much.
I did find the Accidental Programmer's page on the Open Tools, but that looks like it was last updated in 1998? It does at least have the correct unit names and uses the new interfaces.
I'm willing to track down and buy an older book if that is the best reference.
would be a good resource if only it were to point to documents which still exist. Sadly the BDN disappeared some time after Embarcadero purchased Borland's developer tool line. The OTA documentation disappeared from the product line some time after that. However searching Embarcadero's website turned up these 2 links which might help: http://gexperts.org/otafaq.html and http://mustangpeak.net/opentoolsape.htm
I am re-writing and/or consolidating a bunch of my "app framework" classes (basic mainform, about box, locking routines & purchase linking, auto-update, datamodule initializer, etc) -- Basically, I have a number of small potential shareware apps that I'm wanting to get out the door, and want to re-use code where I can, as well as build a framework for later apps to save time.
In one app I have auto-updating, I'm using LMD's WebUpdate, and am reasonably happy with it, but given that I'm re-vamping everything, I thought I'd see what the consensus is for "best approach" on this. I don't mind paying for commercial, nor using open source if that's best... just would rather not reinvent the wheel. (I've read: Delphi: How do you auto-update your applications?)
What is the best Auto-update component for Delphi Win 32 apps?
I use TmxWebUpdate. It's free, simple and easy to customize. I also own TMS Component Pack with TWebUpdate, but never really found a good incentive to switch.
I use TWebUpdate from TMS Components and am very happy with it. I haven't used LMD so unfortunately am not able to provide a comparison.
TMS also supply a whole raft of other components so if your re-writes require any else, especially if you want some shiny UI enhancements (TMS have a range of iPhone-style components) then the website is certainly worth a visit.
They seem fairly active in their support forums (although I haven't had need to use them for the WebUpdate component) and they have a fairly regular release cycle.
I have heard good compliment about TWebUpdate from Tmssoftware
also torry has much components for the same job, some are free and others are commericals.
Now what's the best?, it's depend on your needs, you already using one from LMD, which is a good company and I have very good experince with their components, but never used this one.
If you need a specific functionality, or you have some problems with the current one you are using, it's will be better to list them, so you will get a better answers, but it's hard to define the best, because every one has different experience and views.
I use TWebUpdate myself. It works, but the docs are a bit limited and it seems a bit buggy sometimes.
I have looked into LMD's (I have their full component pack), but it seemed to be much more limited than TWebupdate.
I'm also using TWebUpdate, and have to echo stg's comments on quality of support (good), and quality of documentation (spotty -- it's old, and doesn't always reflect their new features immediately).
You'll also find some places that stress the "roll your own" approach.
Remember that part of the auto-update issue is the tools that you will need to create the update "package" at your end. TMS Software makes a tool available for use with TWebUpdate, and it's reasonably well done. In my case, I'm "misusing" the component to deal with multiple files so that I can refresh additional related libraries, text files, etc. The update builder tool isn't really good for that. So there's some manual editing. But the updating part works well.
I'll also add a caution that you need to be careful with updates in Vista (and probably Windows 7). Writing to the protected places in the Program Files hierarchy was problematic for me. You may want to check that out with whatever component you use.
Have you considered Appwave from Embarcadero. It's not free and I don't know the price.
I'm interested in finding something out. In Delphi the default since the begining when buying components has been to be able to purchase them with source (even if it might be a slightly more expensive option). This made sense in Delphi for a number of reasons, firstly Borland led the way by providing the full source of the VCL with every install of Delphi, but also having the source was considered essential since when you upgraded Delphi you had to recompile and sometimes Authors went out of business.
I'm interested in finding out whether any Delphi component writers out there have ever had reason to regret selling their component 'with source'? Has someone tried to release a competing product based on your code, or passed it off as their own?
The reason I ask is because it still seems to be the exception rather than the norm to provide a 'with source' option when purchasing an ActiveX control or a .NET assembly. Maybe a reassurance that people don't want the source for nefarious purposes might convince more component writers to allow source code to be purchased along with the component.
I have personal experience with this. I used to sell a component and function library for Delphi (Clipper Functions for Delphi, AKA CFD); we went from version 1 in '96 to version 5 in 2000 when I took a job that wouldn't allow moonlighting. We had 5000+ registered users at the end; I still provide quite a few of them with free updates and occasional bug fixes.
I never had any reason whatsoever for not making source available. In fact, there was no option to purchase CFD without source. I wouldn't buy any commercial Delphi component library that my app would depend on without source, for the very reasons you cite (recompiling with new Delphi releases and vendors going away).
Unless the component writer is using some form of obfuscation the source for any .Net assembly can be obtained by using reflector.
I've used this on assemblies from Microsoft as well as other vendors to track down problems in their code. In some cases I went ahead and patched the problem and recompiled it; but do that at your own peril.
For all Delphi components which I developed over the past 10 years, full source code was always included. It would however be a big advantage to have a compatible binary (DCU) format (similar to Java and .NET) in Delphi for trial versions, or for low cost 'personal editions' - versions which do not attract the real commercial developers, because of the missing source code. Compiling DCUs for Delphi 5,6,7,2006, 2007 and 2009 is possible (if the Delphi licenses are there), but managing so many different code versions requires a lot of work for automatic build and packaging systems ...
I have an issue especially with .Net skinning libraries. I have found none good enough that would include the code for a fairly economic price. I'm talking about prices that go over the $1000USD price line, which I think it´s astronomic for a freelance developer, for just a piece of software. But, those things that are harder to implement in each language are the most expensive as well, so there is a relation between those two factores in the difficulty of implementing something similar your self. I know this is no answer for your question, but my own view of things.
I don't have personal experience with this, but I do know that source code watermarking is available and some vendors have used it. Not sure how successful it would be.
I have never heard news of anyone releasing a competing product with source code from another commercial vendor. It does however happen frequently with open source ones though.
Can anyone recommend some decent resources for a .NET developer who wishes to get a high level overview of the Delphi language?
We are about acquire a small business whose main product is developed in Delphi and I am wanting to build up enough knowledge to be able to talk the talk with them.
Books, websites etc all appreciated.
Thanks.
DelphiBasics gives a good overview of basic syntax, library functions etc.
Essential Delphi is a free e-book by Marco Cantu that should give a good overview, also of the VCL
Feel free to ask around here as well, or in the Delphi newsgroups, if you encounter specific issues :)
[edit] #Martin:
There's a free "Turbo" edition available at the Codegear/Embarcadero website. I guess it has some limitations, so you could also try downloading the trial version.
There's also a Delphi wiki
This even has a "Beginning Delphi" page with lots of external links on it. (some of them already mentioned)
http://www.delphifeeds.com/ is a good place to start, it has most news about what is going on in the delphi community.
There are a number of videos by Alister Christie at codegearguru - check them out :)
edit... #Martin, check out the Turbo products at CodeGear
#Martin there is a free version.
Turbo Delphi
If you are comfortable with c# you will see many similarities with Delphi.
I also found the community surrounding the newsgroups to be active and helpful. They have a smilar concept to MVPs they were called Team B (but as Borland doesn't own them the name may have changed now).