If creating IW controls dynamically, then always be sure to explicitly set their Name. They won’t always get a default name – and empty names may lead to strange behaviors.
If you create IWRadioButtons dynamically, then also be careful that you always set their “Name” and “Value” properties to the same value – unless you know what you are doing. Value is important for correct control and group recognition during postbacks. Sounds odd but has to do with the way how the underlying INPUT HTML controls are working.
Unfortunately, at least in IntraWeb 9.0, IWRadioButtons synchronize Name and Value at design-time only (no idea why – I cannot remember having touched that during my time at Atozed). The attached IWComRadioButton source file fixes that, so that you only have to care about “Name”.
Note: That file is for IntraWeb 9.0. It may work with older or newer versions, but I did not test that. This is not an official file version, but just a personal contribution to the freely available visual control source files of IntraWeb. Use modified sources at your own risk – the guys at Atozed can support their own versions only.
According to Mike Nash, Microsoft’s Windows Product Manager, there will be a release called “Windows 7” anytime soon (or less sooner).
So I guess that’s somehow a service release for Windows 3.11, as Windows 3.11 was followed by Windows 95 (RIP) a couple of years ago.
If I’m wrong though and Windows 7 is supposed to be the successor of Windows Vista, then I wonder what the product management and marketing department of MS is smoking these days, with Windows 2003, 2008 on the market already …
Anyway, good that CodeGear was wise enough to not remove the Win 3.1 components. They are still there, even in Delphi 2009
There are a lot of new things to learn with Delphi’s new Unicode string type(s). For example look at Lars’ blog. Quite some interesting posts over the last days.
Apparently, the new Delphi 2009 TStringBuilder class has not got much attention yet, so I’ll give a short recap here.
This is an announcement for a CodeGear Webinar about using .NET with Delphi Win32. This seminar will be held in German language.
Am 14.10.2009 um 10:00 (MESZ) werde ich in Zusammenarbeit mit Embarcadero/CodeGear Deutschland ein (kostenloses) Online-Seminar abhalten in dem das Verwenden von .NET Funktionen aus Delphi Win32 vorgestellt werden wird.
Die Veranstaltung wird über das Embarcadero LiveMeeting-System durchgeführt. Hier geht es zur Anmeldung. (Die Freischaltung erfolgt 15 vor Beginn)
Um vor der Veranstaltung den LiveMeeting Client zu installieren und/oder zu testen klicken Sie bitte hier.
Inhalt:
Wer native Windows 32 (und später ggfs. Win64) Anwendungen mit Delphi erstellt, kann sich in der Regel auf schnellen, stabilen Code und kurze, effektive Entwicklungszyklen einstellen. Es gibt eine reichhaltige, in Delphi integrierte und durch zahlreiche Dritthersteller verstärkte Komponentenbibliothek mit der sich die unterschiedlichsten Probleme lösen lassen.
Es gibt jedoch manchmal Situation, wo man als "nativer" Delphi-Entwickler auf das .NET Framework schielt, weil dort eine noch viel größere Klassenbibliothek - in großen Teilen sogar kostenlos - zur Verfügung steht und ein anstehendes Problem dort bereits eine Lösung hat. Deswegen das ganze Projekt nach .NET zu portieren (sei es nun Dlephi.NET oder VisualStudio/C#/VB.NET) ist jedoch meist nicht vertretbar - was also tun?
Interessanterweise gibt es Schnittstellen zwischen .NET und Win32 Anwendungen, die es erlauben, aus Win32 Anwendungen auf .NET Funktionen zuzugreifen.
Die Standard-Schnittstelle ist hier COM/Interop, allerdings dürfte das viele Entwickler eher abschrecken. Mit "Managed-VCL" und "Hydra" existieren zwei 3rd Party Produkte, die gewohnt Delphi-komfortable Schnittstellen zur Verfügung stellen. Diese Lösungen sind leistungsfähig aber kostenpflichtig.
Als wenig bekannte Schnittstelle bietet sich zusätzlich "Reverse P/Invoke" an, was für für C#/C++ Entwickler recht mühselig ist (und daher vermutlich kaum verbreitet). Für Delphi User ist das jedoch extrem simpel einsetzbar, da das notwendige "Brimborium" komplett vom Delphi-Compiler versteckt wird.
Diese Session wird die drei genannten Alternative vorstellen und mit praktischen Beispielen zeigen, wie man z.B. Winforms oder .NET-Verschlüsselungsroutinen aus Delphi für Win32 nutzt.
As I recently noticed and already mentioned by Jim McKeeth Delphi made it back into the Top Ten of TIOBE’s Programming Community Index. Actually “we” are Ninth!
You may have noticed that Delphi 2009 includes Win32 (Delphi and C++) personalities only. The .NET part has obviously been scheduled for later.
For those of you being curious how the next Delphi for .NET might look like:
CodeGear just “inofficially” announced a Delphi Prism Beta which is basically something like Delphi in Visual Studio. Nick Hodges showed off some early information at SDN in the Netherlands.
Allen Bauer also comments on these, maybe surprising news. So far it looks like in the future there will be two Delphi products, one for Win 32 Development (in the IDE we all know), and an other VisualStudio based IDE for .NET development.
My two favorite Delphi plugins are now available for Delphi 2009:
GExperts
An Open Source project that adds a ton of useful wizards and other functionality to the Delphi IDE. For me CTRL+G, which pops up the “Procedure List” dialog, is one of the most, if not the most important features.
The MessageDialog wizard or “Components to code” are also very helpful.
Update 2: Erik Berry, the GExperts Project Leader, just announced the availability of a first official GExperts beta supporting D2009. See the announcement at www.gexperts.org. The setup can be found in the download section.
The official website does not have the D2009 version yet. “Toms”, a German Delphi community member compiled it for D2009 and offers it at the Delphi Praxis Forum(German only, but you should be able to locate the download). There is currently still a problem with the expert’s Registry location – you would have to manually move it from /Borland to /CodeGear …
Update 1: Toms just uploaded a fixed version and he also added an English section. Thanks Toms!
DDevExtensions
A free Delphi IDE plugin made by Andreas Hausladen.
Important update: Please use at least version 1.9.1. Version 1.9.0 had a bug, which caused “’’ is an invalid interger” exception under certain conditions. Version 1.9.1 is available here.
DDevExtensions adds stuff like “indention via TAB” - as it should work out of the box And the “Unit Selector”. Only know a part of the unit name you want to use? Hit ALT-F11 with DDevExtensions installed and get a list of all units the compiler can ‘”see” – of course with incremental search:
Once you get used to these tools, you feel lost when you have to use Delphi without them
This article is an announcement for a Delphi Code Camp in Germany. Course language will be German, thus this article is available in German only.
Diesen Monat (vom 22. bis 25. September) wird die Entwicklerakademie wieder ein sogenanntes “Delphi Code Camp” in Mainz ausrichten. Es werden mehrere Ganztages-Workshops zu verschiedenen Delphi Themen angeboten. So werde ich unter anderem auch einen Workshop zum Thema Webentwicklung mit Delphi und IntraWeb/VCL for the Web leiten.
Apparently many developers of Web sites and especially Web applications (IntraWeb, ASP.NET, PHP etc) are still not aware of existing tools to trace/debug the communication flow between Web browsers and Web server.
Often, certain errors such as missing images, non working JS files etc, pop up (i.e. customer calls and says “your Web app is totally broken”), and its very hard to determine whats happening. You could now add logging capabilities to your Web application and try to find out whats happening. That’s not a bad idea, but often it would help more to see what’s really sent over the wire, which resources fail to load etc.
To disable the “loading animation” which has been introduced with IntraWeb 9.0, and which shows up when the user clicked a button and is waiting for the page to re-load you usually just need to set an option in your application’s ServerController. Read the rest of this entry »
And the “Unit Selector”. Only know a part of the unit name you want to use? Hit ALT-F11 with DDevExtensions installed and get a list of all units the compiler can ‘”see” – of course with incremental search:
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