OK, so I started with the easy stuff. Installing third-party components.
Raize Components - Check
TMS Component Pack - Check
ReportBuilder Enterprise/Server - Check
OK, these were easy because they were designed for Delphi 2009.
ODBCExpress - Oh. Well, according to its lead developer Pieter Myburg on the support newsgroup, "we have stopped active development of ODBCExpress, and we won't be porting it to future versions of Delphi ourselves".
The last support was for Delphi 2006 which, as I understand, compiles fine in Delphi 2007 as that was a non-breaking release. But not Delphi 2009, oh no. So if anyone out there has any experience with bringing this component set up to Delphi 2009, I would love to hear from you. Without this, we're stumped. It'd be a case of going back through 10 years of software and rewriting it to use dbExpress or ADOExpress. And I seriously don't think we can afford that time.
By the way, bearing in mind I have come from Delphi 6 and have only seen screenshots of the IDE from Delphi 2005 onwards, I really like the IDE. Although I seem to have less code editing space because of all the other (really very useful) palettes that surround it.
Showing posts with label raize. Show all posts
Showing posts with label raize. Show all posts
Thursday, 25 June 2009
Tuesday, 23 June 2009
Bit the bullet: Delphi 2009!
So, I finally bit the bullet and purchased a Delphi upgrade, to D2009. The offer was too tempting and I have started to become frustrated with being left too far behind with Delphi 6.
Thanks to one of the distributors in the UK, Grey Matter, we got the D2009 upgrade for 20% off. This was a promotion they were running for those who didn't want to take advantage of June's "Buy Delphi and get RAD Studio free" promotion. Apart from a slight, but only curious interest in Delphi Prism, there wasn't enough to tempt me, in these economic times, to not take the 20% off instead.
And so I will chronicle my journey to take our 10 year old product, written in Delphi 5 then Delphi 6, to Delphi 2009. The challenges I forsee are more to do with API headers written for some of the hardware devices (clocking terminals) that we support with our T&A product, but time will tell.
To start with, it will be a case of getting the main part of the software converted and see how that goes. I have the latest versions of all our third-party products such as Raize Components 5, TMS Component Pack, ReportBuilder Server & Enterprise 11 and TsiLang Translation.
Could have some fun with older components like the Crystal Reports VCL component for Delphi (for Crystal Reports 7). Anyone got any experience with that?
Should be "interesting"...!
Thanks to one of the distributors in the UK, Grey Matter, we got the D2009 upgrade for 20% off. This was a promotion they were running for those who didn't want to take advantage of June's "Buy Delphi and get RAD Studio free" promotion. Apart from a slight, but only curious interest in Delphi Prism, there wasn't enough to tempt me, in these economic times, to not take the 20% off instead.
And so I will chronicle my journey to take our 10 year old product, written in Delphi 5 then Delphi 6, to Delphi 2009. The challenges I forsee are more to do with API headers written for some of the hardware devices (clocking terminals) that we support with our T&A product, but time will tell.
To start with, it will be a case of getting the main part of the software converted and see how that goes. I have the latest versions of all our third-party products such as Raize Components 5, TMS Component Pack, ReportBuilder Server & Enterprise 11 and TsiLang Translation.
Could have some fun with older components like the Crystal Reports VCL component for Delphi (for Crystal Reports 7). Anyone got any experience with that?
Should be "interesting"...!
Tuesday, 5 August 2008
Delphi 2009 Sneak Peek Videos
I've just watched Nick Hodges go through some of the VCL enhancements for Delphi 2009, and two things struck me.
Firstly, I can't understand why the PasswordChar feature on TEdit was being demonstrated; I was running Delphi 6 side-by-side with the video, and was changing this property with the same results. So why is this being advertised as a VCL enhancement when, if I recall correctly, it's been there since Delphi 1.
The other thing is how many of these new controls are similar to the Raize Controls, especially the TButton with images from an imagelist (TRzBitBtn), the TButtonEdit with 2 buttons in the edit control (TRzButtonEdit) and the group bar (TRzGroupBar).
That said, it's nice to have these as standard components, and if I do move to Delphi 2009 then I'd have to think twice about renewing my Raize Components.
Firstly, I can't understand why the PasswordChar feature on TEdit was being demonstrated; I was running Delphi 6 side-by-side with the video, and was changing this property with the same results. So why is this being advertised as a VCL enhancement when, if I recall correctly, it's been there since Delphi 1.
The other thing is how many of these new controls are similar to the Raize Controls, especially the TButton with images from an imagelist (TRzBitBtn), the TButtonEdit with 2 buttons in the edit control (TRzButtonEdit) and the group bar (TRzGroupBar).
That said, it's nice to have these as standard components, and if I do move to Delphi 2009 then I'd have to think twice about renewing my Raize Components.
Thursday, 24 January 2008
Real-world tools #6: Raize Components
Despite the claims that I don't like to have reams of different component packs installed in Delphi, there is often a case that a particular component set just has that killer component that demands its use. I've been aware of Raize Components for years but never made the leap of using them because I'd committed myself to TMS and JEDI, and that was enough for me.
Late last year, I attended a UK Developer's Group workshop with Ray Konopka, on UI design. It was an excellent couple of days and Ray, as I've seen him do in conference presentations, managed to not so subtley slip in references in Raize Components and CodeSite. And now I can see why... I was about the only one in the room that wasn't using Raize Components, and now I am converted.
So why take the decision to add yet another component set? Well, it was a trade-off for me. If Raize Components could do everything that I was using from an existing component pack, then I'd go with it. So I trialled it and two things stood out for me.
1. The TRzBitBtn supports XP/Vista themes where appropriate and uses the ImageList for its image property, not the Glyph property. This meant that I could use it to replace the TJvImgBtn from the JVCL, which frankly was the only component I was using from it regularly.
In fact, almost every component supports XP/Vista themes, and almost everything has the ability to use system colours, Office colours or custom gradients. The results are stunning. TMS offer this with their AdvOffice components too but I've had issues with it on Delphi 6 and Bruno told me in an email that they were looking to drop support for Delphi 6, and so they weren't going to be resolved for me. (But rest assured, the Styler mechanism in TMS is absolutely brilliant and a doddle to set up).
2. Almost every visual Raize control has a Transparent property. This is exactly what I have been looking for, for some time now, as we move into form design with gradient colours. Having a transparent panel, page control, group box, radio group box, etc, means that I can use gradient colours on a form and still have groups & panels.
Once I'd seen those two I was convinced, but it got better. The RzToolBar & RzPageControl replacements are so far superior to the standard VCL controls (and solve all the bugs I was having with those controls, which are just wrappers of the Windows Common Controls); the design-time editors that are installed as part of the Raize Component pack are so helpful that when you use an IDE that doesn't have them, you're left frustrated; and the edit boxes with the buttons actually as part of them mean that I no longer have to have a separate edit box and BitBtn next to it.
I could go on and there are similar components out there in other component packs, but what makes the difference is the standard way they look and behave, and the superb documentation that is lacking from almost all other third-party packs out there.
So JEDI has almost gone for me. With all due respect to the JEDI developers, who put in so much time and good, hard work, but there's just too many components for me to handle, and they're all a little bit different because of the nature of the open-source community. I say almost gone, because there are a few components that are actually irreplaceable, like the TJvWizard. Once you've used it, you'll never go back to a form with a PageControl on it.
What I also like about the Raize Components is that they are simple to upgrade. When a new release comes out, I don't even have to uninstall packages or worry about losing settings; the installer just works, updates my files and allows me to fire up Delphi and move on. Which takes the headache out of getting the latest version.
Ray takes what he talks about in his UI Design talk and implements it into a quality product, that adheres to his design principles and offers you controls that behave as you'd expect them to. And as Ray himself says, that's rule #1 of good UI design: it behaves as the user expects it to.
Late last year, I attended a UK Developer's Group workshop with Ray Konopka, on UI design. It was an excellent couple of days and Ray, as I've seen him do in conference presentations, managed to not so subtley slip in references in Raize Components and CodeSite. And now I can see why... I was about the only one in the room that wasn't using Raize Components, and now I am converted.
So why take the decision to add yet another component set? Well, it was a trade-off for me. If Raize Components could do everything that I was using from an existing component pack, then I'd go with it. So I trialled it and two things stood out for me.
1. The TRzBitBtn supports XP/Vista themes where appropriate and uses the ImageList for its image property, not the Glyph property. This meant that I could use it to replace the TJvImgBtn from the JVCL, which frankly was the only component I was using from it regularly.
In fact, almost every component supports XP/Vista themes, and almost everything has the ability to use system colours, Office colours or custom gradients. The results are stunning. TMS offer this with their AdvOffice components too but I've had issues with it on Delphi 6 and Bruno told me in an email that they were looking to drop support for Delphi 6, and so they weren't going to be resolved for me. (But rest assured, the Styler mechanism in TMS is absolutely brilliant and a doddle to set up).
2. Almost every visual Raize control has a Transparent property. This is exactly what I have been looking for, for some time now, as we move into form design with gradient colours. Having a transparent panel, page control, group box, radio group box, etc, means that I can use gradient colours on a form and still have groups & panels.
Once I'd seen those two I was convinced, but it got better. The RzToolBar & RzPageControl replacements are so far superior to the standard VCL controls (and solve all the bugs I was having with those controls, which are just wrappers of the Windows Common Controls); the design-time editors that are installed as part of the Raize Component pack are so helpful that when you use an IDE that doesn't have them, you're left frustrated; and the edit boxes with the buttons actually as part of them mean that I no longer have to have a separate edit box and BitBtn next to it.
I could go on and there are similar components out there in other component packs, but what makes the difference is the standard way they look and behave, and the superb documentation that is lacking from almost all other third-party packs out there.
So JEDI has almost gone for me. With all due respect to the JEDI developers, who put in so much time and good, hard work, but there's just too many components for me to handle, and they're all a little bit different because of the nature of the open-source community. I say almost gone, because there are a few components that are actually irreplaceable, like the TJvWizard. Once you've used it, you'll never go back to a form with a PageControl on it.
What I also like about the Raize Components is that they are simple to upgrade. When a new release comes out, I don't even have to uninstall packages or worry about losing settings; the installer just works, updates my files and allows me to fire up Delphi and move on. Which takes the headache out of getting the latest version.
Ray takes what he talks about in his UI Design talk and implements it into a quality product, that adheres to his design principles and offers you controls that behave as you'd expect them to. And as Ray himself says, that's rule #1 of good UI design: it behaves as the user expects it to.
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