The IDE

The IDE (Integrated Development Environment) provides a comfortable user interface to the compiler. It contains an editor with syntax highlighting, a debugger, symbol browser etc. The IDE is a text-mode application which has the same look and feel on all supported operating systems. It is modelled after the IDE of Turbo Pascal, so many people should feel comfortable using it.

Currently, the IDE is available for DOS, Windowsand Linux.

1. First steps with the IDEStarting the IDE The IDE is started by entering the command: fp at the command line. It can also be started from a graphical user interface such as Windows. Rem
2. Navigating in the IDEThe IDE can be navigated both with the keyboard and with a mouse, if the system is equipped with a mouse. Using the keyboard All functionality of the IDE is ava
3. WindowsNowadays, working with windowed applications should be no problem for most Windowsand Linuxusers. Nevertheless, the following section describes how the windows
4. The MenuThe main menu (the gray bar at the top of the IDE) provides access to all the functionality of the IDE. The menu is always available, except when a dialog is op
5. Editing textIn this section, the basics of editing (source) text are explained. The IDE works like many other text editors in this respect, so mainly the distinguishing poi
6. Searching and replacingThe IDE allows you to search for text in the active editor window. To search for text, one of the following can be done: Select in the menu. Press . After that,
7. The symbol browserThe symbol browser allows searching all occurrences of a symbol. A symbol can be a variable, type, procedure or constant that occurs in the program or unit sour
8. Running programsA compiled program can be run straight from the IDE. This can be done in one of several ways: select the menu, or press . If command line parameters should be p
9. Debugging programsTo debug a program, it must be compiled with debug information. Compiling a program with debug information allows you to: Execute the program line by line. Run
10. Using ToolsThe tools menu provides easy access to external tools. It also has three predefined tools for programmers: an ASCII table, a grep tool and a calculator. The out
11. Project management and compiler optionsProject management in Pascal is much easier than with C. The compiler knows from the source which units, sources etc. it needs. So the Free PascalIDE does not n
12. Customizing the IDEThe IDE is configurable over a wide range of parameters: colors can be changed, screen resolution. The configuration settings can be reached via the sub-menu En
13. The help systemMore information on how to handle the IDE, or about the use of various calls in the RTL, explanations regarding the syntax of a Pascal statement, can be found i
14. Keyboard shortcutsA lot of keyboard shortcuts used by the IDE are compatible with WordStar and should be well known to Turbo Pascal users. Below are the following tables: In tabl