Hi,

For those that know TMS Software:

They have released their first component for FPC/Lazarus: Flexcel.

http://www.tmssoftware.com/go/?flexcel

Depending on the feedback they get on this (I assume direct inquiries, purchases or requests to port other components), they may decide to port other TMS components as well.

So, please spread the news :-)

Maybe someone can put this on the Lazarus website as well as a news item.

Michael.

I sent an email to them asking for a trial download for Lazarus. They only seem to have trials for Delphi or C++ Builder.

I'm curious as to how that would work?

Regards,
- Graeme -

_______________________________________________
fpGUI - a cross-platform Free Pascal GUI toolkit
http://opensoft.homeip.net/fpgui/

hmm...I've ported my flexcel (licensed) to lazarus in 30 minutes ;), but I'll buy it once again just because it's nice component and want to support lazarus 3rd party component makers.

How can you imagine that? I'm curious too.

Best regards,
Paul Ishenin.

It will not work, and never will for Lazarus as long as it works with recompiling the IDE. I told the TMS people so: there is currently no workable solution. As soon as someone recompiles the LCL, it's broken.

Michael.

If you used a windows version only; yes then it'll work in "30 minutes". You can even get advstringgrid to work like that.
But if you want to support Linux and MacOS, it is a completely different story. And that is what they have done.

Michael.

Michael Van Canneyt wrote

It will not work, and never will for Lazarus as long as it works with recompiling the IDE. I told the TMS people so: there is currently no workable solution. As soon as someone recompiles the LCL, it's broken.

Even if the trial is released (without source, only .ppu and .o files) for a specific version of Lazarus and FPC?

eg;
Trial only works with latest stable "released" versions of FPC (2.2.0) and Lazarus (0.9.24)

If you use any other versions of FPC or Lazarus, you can't use the trial component.
Could this work?

Regards,
- Graeme -

_______________________________________________
fpGUI - a cross-platform Free Pascal GUI toolkit
http://opensoft.homeip.net/fpgui/

You still need to recompile lazarus. It's enough that 1 file of the LCL is recompiled.

I doubt it, since you must recompile lazarus, and chances that it recompiles an LCL file are very close to 1...

Michael.

Michael Van Canneyt wrote

I doubt it, since you must recompile lazarus, and chances that it recompiles an LCL file are very close to 1...

This makes it very hard for commercial component writers then. I guess all that remains for them, is to produce a binary demo for all supported platforms. At least that way the developer can play with the component properties before they decide to purchase the source.

Umm, does that also means that the commercial component writers would have to *always* sell you the full source code? I guess this is not so bad, we always bought delphi components that included full source code.

Regards,
- Graeme -

_______________________________________________
fpGUI - a cross-platform Free Pascal GUI toolkit
http://opensoft.homeip.net/fpgui/

Exactly. This is what I proposed.

Umm, does that also means that the commercial component writers would have to *always* sell you the full source code? I guess this is not so bad, we always bought delphi components that included full source code.

Given my experience that all components I ever bought had bugs which I had to fix myself, you can imagine that I would never in my life buy components if I don't get the source code with it. So I don't see this as a problem.

Michael.

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Given my experience that all components I ever bought had bugs which I had to fix myself, you can imagine that I would never in my life buy components if I don't get the source code with it. So I don't see this as a problem.

This what Stallman had in his mind, introducing GNU and GPL.

AFAIK, there're open sourced commercial components. After all, if you buy, an open sourced component, you can demand bug fixing. But, again, fixing it on your own, is, usually, faster :)
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That may be so, but the 'Rebuild lazarus' is so prominently in the menu that I think it's often used...

As long as you don't have dynamic packages, I think that trying to distribute a trial version is more trouble than it is worth.

Michael.

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Umm, does that also means that the commercial component writers would have to *always* sell you the full source code? I guess this is not so bad, we always bought delphi components that included full source code.

Just out of curiousity,
What if a component developer were to put only the interface part of his units in the unit, and write a library that contains the implementation (much like Borland used to ship units like CRT back in the Turbo Pascal days), then use FP/Laz's ability to link to libraries to access the actual methods etc. The class structures and such are all in the interface section anyway, letting the method implementations call to external functions couldn't be that hard.

That would probably meet their needs quite well and work within the operation of the Lazarus IDE. We don't recompile GTK when we rebuild the GTK LCL - in much the same way, shipping the actual implementations as an so or dll that gets linked from the component shouldn't be hard and should work pretty much everywhere, even when recompiling the IDE.

Thoughts ?

A.J.

They have released their first component for FPC/Lazarus: Flexcel. http://www.tmssoftware.com/go/?flexcel

Ah, finally! :)

Actually FlexCel had supported FPC since a few years ago. I did purchased it and personally encourage Adrian (the main author of this component) to support FPC and Lazarus. Adrian intended to support FPC and Lazarus but not as main priority. I used this component in combination with Powtils to produce a web application, using FPC for Linux. So far, both FlexCel and Powtils performs very well. :)

-Bee-

No, my flexcell works on Linux ,Mac & Win ... and I'm not winblows user :)

ah...now I see , they rewritten complete engine so no dependencies on libgsf on linux/mac ... that's nice :) .... I've already filled up order form :)))

Sounds to me workable. But I am not at all an expert in LCL / Lazarus / CRT and everything else.

Not with classes, it won't work.
This can only be done with a procedural interface.

Michael.