Hello,

For those of you that don't follow the SVN logs closely:

The IDE now has proper support for Project groups. Project groups already existed for some time, but were crippled.

With 2 additions they are now actually very useful:

- You can let Ctrl-F9 compile the current target in a project group, and that includes for instance a package !
(you can set this in Tools - Options - Project groups)

- "Find in files" now has the option 'Search in project group'

They now offer all functionality as in Delphi. In difference with the latter, their use is entirely optional...

My heartfelt thanks to Mattias for completing the 'Project group' functionality !

Michael.

thank you.

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Little improvement:

Highlight the current compiling project:

Why?

Think of a package with examples all called project1, so you don't know which project eventually throws an error?!!

Thanks for project-groups!!

Sounds interesting. Can i have a package that installs components/controls only available to the project group instead of globally? I often want to have components (and sometimes controls) available on the component palette but not for every project, but so far i see packages need to be installed "lazarus-wide" to expose components to the component palette.

There is a feature request to have named configurations of the component palette.

When that is available, one could associate a named configuration to a project group, and this does what you need.

Michael.

Great news!

There is one more thing which would be helpful, at least for me. I am maintaining the Lazarus port of JVCL, and this library currently consists of 16 runtime and designtime packages (i.e. 32 lpk files), and when porting proceeds there will be more to follow. As you an imagine, it is a pain to install them manually...

I already set up a project group which can compile all the packages, but what is missing is a way to install them. I mean: Could there be a button "Install"? After clicking on this button a routine should iterate through all the items of the project group, find the design time packages, mark them for installation, and finally rebuild the IDE. Can this be done?

Werner

You could create a meta package and install that.

Mattias

That is one way, but I think the 'install' option would of course also be nice to have. The program group is already there after all. Making a new file just for install purposes seems superfluous...

Michael.

Mattias Gaertner wrote

On Sat, 20 Jul 2019 11:59:56 +0200 Werner Pamler via lazarus wrote: You could create a meta package and install that.

Excuse my ignorance. , But what is a "meta package"? A package which only contains requirements of other packages?

Yes

Mattias

When installing the new meta package "jvcl_all" which contains all designtime packages I get a message

"The package jvcl_all does not have any "Register" procedure which typically means it does not provide any IDE addon. Installing it will probably only increase the size of the IDE and may even make it unstable."

and I am prompted to either "Install it, I like the fat" or to "Cancel". How can I avoid this? Do I have to provide a dummy registration unit? What does it have to look like?

It should not warn in this case. I fixed the bug.

What does it have to look like?

Mattias

Thanks. It works correctly now.

Michael Van Canneyt wrote

The IDE now has proper support for Project groups.

Hello,

I started to use Project groups and also added the .lpg file to my repository. I found out that the XML format is unusual (wrong). The <Mode*> nodes are not subnodes to <BuildModes>:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<CONFIG>
  <ProjectGroup FileVersion="1">
    <Targets Count="18">
      <Target0 FileName="xyz.lpi">
        <BuildModes Count="2"/>
        <Mode1 Name="Debug" Compile="True"/>         <Mode2 Name="Release"/>
      </Target0>

Is this an intention?

I ask because I wanted to update the file format to the new Lazarus XML format (without the indexes and count attributes):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<CONFIG>
  <ProjectGroup FileVersion="1">
    <Targets>
      <Target FileName="xyz.lpi">
        <BuildModes>
          <Mode Name="Debug" Compile="True"/>           <Mode Name="Release"/>
        </BuildModes>
      </Target>

and I have already helper functions for distinguishing between the old and the new file formats but they can handle only the "correct" old format (where item nodes are subnodes of the main node):         <BuildModes Count="2"/>
          <Mode1 Name="Debug" Compile="True"/>           <Mode2 Name="Release"/>
        </BuildModes>

My question: because Project groups are usable only in trunk, I suggest to fix the old file format without backwards-compatibility:         <BuildModes Count="2"/>
          <Mode1 Name="Debug" Compile="True"/>           <Mode2 Name="Release"/>
        </BuildModes>

That would mean that the Compile flags for build modes get lost and the user must set them again. Are you fine with it? (Well, I am fine with that.)

Best
Ondrej

No

Project groups are in 2.0.

I guess with a few lines of code you can read the old format and set the "Compile" flag.

Mattias

Ondrej Pokorny wrote

I found out that the XML format is unusual (wrong).

Fully agree. That is so INI-ish, and really not needed in XML or JSON formats.

Looks much better! I vote for this.

I would also recommend the idea of considering JSON format, which is less verbose, has real data types (boolean, int, float, etc - not everything is a string value), thus making it more expressive.

Regards,
Graeme

The issue is that the new format is done with forwards-compatibility so that people can decide if they want to open the new file in an older Lazarus version. (The projects have the "Maximize compatibility of project files" option for this.)

Is this important to you?

Ondrej

That an old Lazarus cannot read completely the new format is an incompatibility I can live with, if it is documented.

Mattias

Thanks, I'll come up with a patch.

Best
Ondrej