We use Lazarus in our first year programming education (as an experiment).

There are various issues that we encounter, some small, some bigger.

Here is one that I don't understand. We have had a few instances where a window consistently failed to show up:

* Object Inspector

* Messages

In both cases, it turned out that the saved options were to blame. In one case, I advised to remove all user-specific Lazarus configuration files (including environmentoptions.xml). Restarting Lazarus, will apparently recreate default option settings. The window then did show up.

In another case, I looked a little further and noticed that the window position for the Messages window had a very large Top coordinate (as saved in environmentoptions.xml). So, it probably did open, but outside the visible screen region. I edited the options xml file, restarted Lazarus, and the window appeared again.

As you can immagine these are quite annoying experiences (not only for the students, but also for teachers).

Questions:

* How can a student easily overcome this situation? Is there e.g. a way to sanitize saved options?
Note that finding the relevant file is not trivial (so it is harder for me explain manual santization in a FAQ).

* How can this happen in the first place?

* What can be done to avoid this in the future?

Our Lazarus FAQ:

<http://www.win.tue.nl/~wstomv/edu/lazarus/faq.html>

Thanks,

Tom

Tom Verhoeff wrote

We use Lazarus in our first year programming education (as an experiment). There are various issues that we encounter, some small, some bigger.

Here is another issue. When working on a program involving multiple units, it may turn out that the "Use AnsiStrings" was not set consistently.

Students are advised to enable this globally in the Compiler Options, but they sometimes forget. Some (given/generated) units also contain their own {$H+}, others don't. This may give rise to inconsistencies (usually flagged by the compiler, but not understood by beginners).

When you change Compiler Options later, and then do Run, the relevant unit may not be (re)compiled, because its source code did not change. One is required to do a Build All first. But a beginner will not be aware of this.

Is it possible to have the IDE suggest a Build All when doing Run, if the Compiler Options were changed after the previous build? Or even better have a three-way global setting:

When doing Run and the Compiler Options changed after the previous build:

* Always do a Build All <-- this would be better for beginners
* Always ask to either Build or Build All (the latter as default choice)
* Always do a Build <-- this seems to be the current situation

Best regards,

Tom Verhoeff

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Mostly Windows Vista (a few XP, a few Linux, I myself Mac OS 10.5). Mostly Lazarus 0.9.24 (some upgraded to 0.9.26) and corresponding FPC.

Tom

Tom Verhoeff wrote

In another case, I looked a little further and noticed that the window position for the Messages window had a very large Top coordinate (as saved in environmentoptions.xml). So, it probably did open, but outside the

Isn't this a side effect of the way Windows minimizes a window? It puts it at a very large position off screen. So probably there is a bug somewhere that not the restored position is being saved, but the (invalid) minimized position.

Micha