VCL.. just curious
MG C.
Is Borland ever going to update any of their components? Yeah, I know
there are lots of 3rd party vendors who supply the latest and flashiest
grids, menus and so on, but c'mon.. at some point, Borland's gonna have to
give their OLD components a face-lift. Or do they?
Rene Tschaggelar
wrappers around the windows-built-in controls ?
Rene
--
http://www.ibrtses.com
Kristofer Skaug
news:3BFA94C8...@dplanet.ch...
>
> Did you notice that most of the supplied components are just
> wrappers around the windows-built-in controls ?
ok, but our Delphi R&D team might well still add some 'enhanced' grid
components for example, with design-time assignable column headers,
in-place dropdown lists, row sorting (by column), varied cell alignments,
etc.etc. These features have been among the "Top 20 most asked for" ever
since Delphi 1 AFAIK (just read vcl.components ng archives...). I think
it's more than just a bit disappointing that there has been no effort in
this area. Again, I'd rather have had a good VCL expansion than dockable
IDE windows, Object TreeView and some other recent (post-D3) new
'features'.
Kristofer
Philip Cain
descendants of the VCL controls, just like the makers of
third-party components. So any "face lift" probably means a
lot of broken code. You can add to an object without much
consequence, but you cannot delete and most of the time you
cannot change.
What we need is a new set of basic components. And the
single most important need for improved RAD is that this new
set combine data-aware and non data-aware so that there are
no longer separate groups of base components for each use.
Far more than any other consideration, this one will improve
the value of RAD.
Phil Cain
Iman L Crawford
> What we need is a new set of basic components. And the
> single most important need for improved RAD is that this new
> set combine data-aware and non data-aware so that there are
> no longer separate groups of base components for each use.
> Far more than any other consideration, this one will improve
> the value of RAD.
Make the data-awareness, interface based and things will be good.
--
Iman
` A word of warning about Emma, though - she's not really a "frisbee"
girl, as it turns out. No lie. We played for a while on Saturday at
Gasworks Park, and she either just really sucks or she's throwing to
people we can't see' - www.penny-arcade.com
Jason Southwell
I agree, this new set of components could be completely rebuilt from the
ground up. And hey, they could even be built around a cross platform
widget set which could make kylix and delphi applications single source.
Wouldn't that be a great idea???????
It shouldn't take too long to write something like that......
Jason Southwell
Dan Downs
I would probably have to say no, until the linker gets smarter. I can see
the arguments now, "Delphi 7 with all new enhanced components but minimum
exe size is now 1meg. This is outragous!!". If they figure out a way to make
the linker much smarter about which methods/properties are linked into the
exe then the above argument is not longer an issue. But Philip Cain's post
about code compatability is still a valid issue.
DD
Marc Scheuner
<k.s...@satserv.nl> wrote:
>> Did you notice that most of the supplied components are just
>> wrappers around the windows-built-in controls ?
>
>ok, but our Delphi R&D team might well still add some 'enhanced' grid
>components for example, with design-time assignable column headers,
>in-place dropdown lists, row sorting (by column), varied cell alignments,
Well, it's almost impossible to create an object framework that
pleases everyone. Quite frankly, we use probably 80% of the basic VCL
components, and we're quite happy with them. Professional software
doesn't have to have flashy colours, animated icons all over the place
etc. - the basic VCL components are quite good enough, thank you!
For anyone who needs more, there's a huge and vibrant third-party
market - why try to come up with a "do-it-all" solution that will not
please anyone in the end??
I'd much rather see Borland put more emphasis into the IDE and the
compiler, rather than building more and flashier components......
Marc
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marc Scheuner Software Engineer
Quest Software Canada Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Email: marc.s...@quest.com http://www.quest.com
John Jacobson
--
John M. Jacobson
Visit Jake's Delphi Page at http://www.xnet.com/~johnjac
"Oh, no! She's stuck in an infinite loop, and he's an idiot. Oh well,
that's love for you."
-Professor Farnsworth in "Futurama"
<ilcrawford.at.hotmail.dot.com (Iman L Crawford)> wrote in message
news:Xns915F671BF...@207.105.83.65...
damian marquez
<ilcrawford.at.hotmail.dot.com (Iman L Crawford)> wrote in message
news:Xns915F671BF...@207.105.83.65...
> > What we need is a new set of basic components. And the
> > single most important need for improved RAD is that this new
> > set combine data-aware and non data-aware so that there are
> > no longer separate groups of base components for each use.
> > Far more than any other consideration, this one will improve
> > the value of RAD.
>
> Make the data-awareness, interface based and things will be good.
In fact, Dr Bob has written some interesting article about IDataAware
(http://www.thedelphimagazine.com/conts/conts68.htm in Delphi magazine)
John K. has also shown interest in it.
damian marquez
"Marc Scheuner" <msch...@no.spam.for.me.ca> wrote in message
news:riclvtc0u5mbn6sta...@4ax.com...
<SNIP>
> >ok, but our Delphi R&D team might well still add some 'enhanced' grid
> >components for example, with design-time assignable column headers,
> >in-place dropdown lists, row sorting (by column), varied cell alignments,
</SNIP>
<SNIP>
> I'd much rather see Borland put more emphasis into the IDE and the
> compiler, rather than building more and flashier components......
</SNIP>
I'm for a middle-of-the-road solution. I think Borland shouldn't write a new
DXGrid, but they should *at least* add checkboxes to DBGrid. Almost everyone
has modified DBGrid for these little things, so I think it should be part of
the standard.
Once upon a time I wished for a TDBListView, but now I think it's not that
necessary.
Luu Tran
> I'd much rather see Borland put more emphasis into the IDE and the
> compiler, rather than building more and flashier components......
>
So do I. Has there been much improvement to the compiler since D2? From
what I hear, exe speed hasn't improved through the various versions, tho
exe size has increased due to new features. Have we come to the end of
the line in terms of code optimization?
I know Borland makes probably the fastest compilers around, but the
benchmarks that pop up here and there show MSVC has the edge over Delphi
and even BCB when it comes to exe speed. Yes, I know, apples, oranges,
we'd rather sacrifice a bit of speed for productivity, etc. But still,..
--
luu
Philip Cain
>Make the data-awareness, interface based and things will be
good.
Exactly. I build UIs with the user at my shoulder saying yes
or no to every new component/position/behavior change I
make. RAD cycles can be measured in minutes instead of weeks
or months as with, say, JAD.
What a complete delight it would be if I could interface
those components to, say, a text file for displaying data
during these session and then, when all is done and the
customer is smiling, to simply change the interface to a
DB-based data source. Not only do I save the tonnage of work
in porting the new UI to a data-aware version and get to
separate the database design from the UI design, but each of
those RAD sessions would become real-time compliance and
acceptance for the existing functional requirements. RAD
development meets RAD sign-off. Beautiful.
Phil Cain