Table 2: How to access keystroke mappings from the menu Delphi 1 From Delphi 2 onwards, you can access these from the Properties item on the editor’s context menu, or using the menu bar (see Table 2). Keystroke mappings are selected from the editor options. The shortcuts typically vary among the available keystroke mappings that can be selected. To find all the shortcuts available in the editor, and also in the rest of the IDE, lookup the shortcuts in the help file. Delphi 5 changed this tool button to also have a drop down list containing all the window captions that would normally appear in the dialog if you pressed the button. One of the optional buttons that you can add to any toolbar is one that represents the View | Window List. The list shows all the relevant target executables that can be built with the active one displayed as bold. The Run | Run tool button, on the Debug tool bar by default, has a drop down list that allows you to switch the active project in a project group. The File | Open tool button, present by default on the Standard tool bar, has a drop down list that duplicates the File | Reopen menu, allowing you to quickly reopen any recent project or form. Some of the tool buttons in Delphi 4 and later have drop down lists available by clicking on the down arrow just to the right of the tool button. from the tool bars’ context menu and the dialog produced allows you to add tool buttons representing most of the menu items. The IDE Tool BarsĪs you probably already know, the IDE toolbars are customisable. It is not expected that all these topics will be new to everyone, but hopefully, the list provided here will introduce a few portions of useful functionality to everyone. The question is, how much of the available facilities do you use? This functionality has been added to with each successive release. However, they have always been replete with useful functionality. The Delphi and C++Builder IDEs started life in 1995 with the release of Delphi 1 as well integrated environments for doing whatever was needed in order to design, write, compile and debug your application. Table 1: Release points of Delphi, C++Builder and Kylix Product For example, C++Builder 5 was the first product to support COM+ and also the first product whose COM object wizard allows you to choose an existing registered interface for the COM object to implement.īorland’s ObjectPascal and C++ RAD tools have been released as detailed in Table 1. It is typically the case that new functionality is added to Delphi first, and it then migrates to C++Builder, but this is certainly not always the case. If something was introduced in any given product, it is typically present in all other products released after that point.
Since various parts of the paper make reference to the version of a product that something was introduced, it is useful to know the order of release of the different versions of each of these products. However many of them are applicable to all products.
Some of these tips will be specific to some products and will by necessity exclude the others. This paper aims to provide a useful variety of tips and techniques for using Borland’s Delphi, C++Builder and Kylix products. It will be appreciated however big or small it might be and will encourage Brian to continue researching and writing about interesting subjects in the future. If you find this article useful then please consider making a donation. Abbreviated ObjectPascal component creation.Hacking for private members in ObjectPascal.
Delphi and C++Builder Tips and Techniques Delphi and C++Builder Tips and Techniques