from:"Jürgen Hestermann"


Am 2016-04-09 um 15:57 schrieb Juha Manninen:
> Regarding posts from Jürgen Hestermann.
> Unfortunately this is not the first time he finds excuses to blame
> Lazarus developers.
> The main theme is that developers have done a poor job and did not
> serve him well enough.
> Earlier it was about the new Unicode support. All the work I had done
> for it was irrelevant, he wanted to emphasize how poorly I had done
> the job.
>
> This all reminds me of the horrible flame wars against FPC/Lazarus
> developers mostly in the forum. Many of the arguments were pure lies
> meant to agitate people and it worked well because there was nothing
> to stop them.
> The people with admin rights were afraid to do anything because they
> would get all the blame.
> Things escalated into surreal proportions.
> In the horrible CodeTyphon flame war I took initiative and finally the
> issue calmed down. Yes, I took lots of mud on me during the process.
>
> I have learned that no logical reasoning helps with such agitators.
> We need some rules instead. This is the "home" of our project. All
> important communication happens here and in the forum.
> Nobody should be allowed to come here only in the purpose of attack.
> For example: If I dislike some people, I don't go to their home to
> attack them and shit on their floor. Instead I stay away.
> The same rule should apply here. If somebody does not like us, he
> should write a hate-blog or something but stay away from our home.
>
> Every healthy and strong community needs ways to protect itself.
> This project need them, too.
> I know the flame-wars have caused motivation problems for developers
> and maybe caused them to leave. They have also scared away potential
> future contributors.
> Something must be done. I myself feel strongly unmoticated after
> reading the attacks.
>
> When somebody takes the effort and contributes something, he
> inherently "buys" voting power for the thing he implemented.
> Then he also has moral rights to criticise the work of other
> developers, but that right is not used much among the developers /
> active contributors.
> They understand how much it takes to contribute stuff. Why would they 
criticise?
>
> Thus, I want Jürgen Hestermann to make a public apology for the
> developers he has attacked here.
> Further attacks should go to a personal blog somewhere. I promise to ignore 
it.
>
> For future needs, do we a have a mechanism to ban people from this list?
> In forum the threads can be locked, posts deleted and accounts banned.
> Those tools were used at least during the CodeTyphon episode.

Oh my god!! What a histerical tirade!
Why do you answer to all these posts if it brings you near to a heart attack?
Just ignore them if it you don't want to discuss them.
If you cannot live with any converse meanings then filter your mails
from all these evil people like me.


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Re: [Lazarus] * GMX Spamverdacht * help writing help [was: Re: Re: Suggestion for TRadioGroup documentation]




Am 2016-04-09 um 13:26 schrieb Michael Thompson:
> What?  How's that going to work?  I prefer my open source projects alive and 
kicking :-(
> I'm not interested in theoretical "wouldn't it be nice".  I agree that it 
would be nice if we have documentation, and I like putting a plan in place to forward this.  
But the proposal above is insane.

It highly depends:

If you think that open source projects are *exclusivley*
for those people who contribute on it and who are so involved
that they don't need any documentation because they already
know everything and have the time to keep track on all changes
then, yes, there is no need for documentation.

But if you want to attract a wider audience of people who
just use it then documentation is essential.
Otherwise you have to answer the same questions here over
and over again (or ignore them and let people use other,
better documented tools for programming).



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Re: [Lazarus] Lazarus Digest, Vol 99, Issue 32




Am 2016-04-09 um 12:20 schrieb Giuliano Colla:
> An answer such as: "Your patch is good, it adds a desirable functionality, but 
without proper documentation, nobody will be able to take advantage of it. Please add some 
concise comments on variable and procedure usage, and we will be glad to commit it." 
would do a lot of good, IMHO.
> Should this become a general rule, the situation might strongly improve with 
time.

+1

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Re: [Lazarus] * GMX Spamverdacht * help writing help [was: Re: Re: Suggestion for TRadioGroup documentation]

Am 2016-04-08 um 20:36 schrieb Martin Frb:
> On VirtualTreeView: I dont know if the Author is around, and if he could/would answer
questions, or even proof read contributed docs. But if he was, then the question "How
long do you think would it take to (fully) understand" is just the wrong question. The
question should be: how much time do you have? Is there a chance, that in that time you can
document at least one property or method? If yes, well then start. If you get more done (now
or later), then even better.

Okay.
Then please find the bug that you cannot collapse/expand nodes with the
mouse if the main column is not the most left one.
Moving this column to the left (even at runtime) makes it working again.
And please: No excuse that you have no time or such! ;-)

And believe me, I have already spend a lot of time on reading the code of
the VirtualTreeView unit (and many other units too) but it is impossible
to dig that deep into each to fully understand them.
I cannot do the documentation for every single function and concept in Free
Pascal/Lazarus.
Is that a reason that I am not allowed to complain about missing documentation?

> The problem is, everyone (including me) is very good at pointing out why
someone else should do it. And everyone just keeps pointing out it needs to be
done.
> Well that is fine. Lobbying for a cause is great. But the expectations in
that case must be set correct. Someone else may also have a reason not to do it.

I don't think that this is my attitude.
I just see it is a waste of time if someone is forced to read and
understand code that someone else has written (thereby
(mis-)interpreting things that the original coder already knew)
while the person who originaly wrote the code was already at that step.
Freshly after writing the code he could have written
the documentation much easier.

I know, many (most) programmers do not like writing documentations.
But leaving it to others is just that attitude that I am blamed for here.

What I would vote for is:
Do not implement any new features until all existing features are documented!

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Re: [Lazarus] * GMX Spamverdacht * Re: Suggestion for TRadioGroup documentation


Am 2016-04-09 um 00:54 schrieb Giuliano Colla:
> I'm not an expert in avionics, but from my general knowledge even I could 
have told them the reason for pumping fuel from one tank to another, which is to 
balance the weight on the wings (fuel tanks are located on the wings). This 
function must be handled by some part of software related to the aircraft flight 
attitude most likely fully documented, but completely apart from the section which 
takes care of pumping fuel to motors!

Of course they knew that the general purpose of pumping aroung the fuel was for 
balancing reasons.
They only did not understand why it was done *in the current situation*. They 
did not expect that it happened at that time.
I do not know whether they understood it in the end but I thought it should 
have been clear and understandable immediately.


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Re: [Lazarus] * GMX Spamverdacht * Re: Suggestion for TRadioGroup documentation


Am 2016-04-08 um 18:18 schrieb Martin Frb:

Or the person reading the code with the intend of documentation, is more clever 
than this. They could report any suspicious parts, and clarify the intend. That 
way the code would be additionally be checked for bugs.
Bugs where the original implementer may have had a wrong understanding of what 
he was doing. In which case had the original coder documented it, the bug would 
have gone into docs.
Assuming the original coder is available for comment, then a person different 
from that coder can often write much better documentation. (simple because then 
2 (or more) people will have though about what it should be)


I aggree  that this can happen.
But it requires that the reader has at least the same skills
regarding the topic of what has been coded.
How long do you think would it take to (fully) understand the code for 
VirtualTreeView?
I have already found bugs in it but never understood why they occur
because I do not understand how the whole unit is coded.
So how should I even write documentation for it?


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Re: [Lazarus] * GMX Spamverdacht * Re: Suggestion for TRadioGroup documentation


Am 2016-04-08 um 18:54 schrieb Ondrej Pokorny:

If everybody shared your approach, there wouldn't be anything like FPC and 
Lazarus. You should change your way of thinking.


You mean I should ignore facts?

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Re: [Lazarus] * GMX Spamverdacht * Re: Suggestion for TRadioGroup documentation


Am 2016-04-08 um 18:38 schrieb Ondrej Pokorny:

On 08.04.2016 19:29, Jürgen Hestermann wrote:

But in the same way as others complain here about lack of coders
I am complaining about the lack of documentation.


Feel free to reduce this lack of documentation.


If I could only.
It would take me months to understand all the code
where the documentation is missing/wrong.


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Re: [Lazarus] * GMX Spamverdacht * Re: Suggestion for TRadioGroup documentation


Am 2016-04-08 um 18:18 schrieb Ondrej Pokorny:
> This doesn't apply to Alan's problem. We try to document important things. It's not our 
problem that "it is not enough stressed that functionality XYZ is not available on 
ZYX". We really don't have crystal balls to know what people may think is not enough 
stressed.

I was answering to your statement: "If you think the documentation is bad, check the 
code and write it."
which was an answer to me writing: "When asking for documentation here I am often 
answered: Check the code."
I thought this was in general (at least my statements were).


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Re: [Lazarus] * GMX Spamverdacht * Re: Suggestion for TRadioGroup documentation


Am 2016-04-08 um 18:18 schrieb Michael Thompson:

I do agree though, we're open source.  We should all pull our own weight and 
not expect others to pick up our own slack.  It's only in a corporate 
environment that I'd insist on professionals doing the documentation.


Well, of course, nobody can be forced to do anything in open source projects.
The same applies to coding:
If nobody is willing (or not has the skills) to code for an open source project 
then it is as it is.

But in the same way as others complain here about lack of coders
I am complaining about the lack of documentation.
And IMO all discussions about what should be coded should also end in the 
question:
And who will document it?
Code without documentation is a pain.
Documentation saves a lot more time than it cost to write it.

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Re: [Lazarus] * GMX Spamverdacht * Re: Suggestion for TRadioGroup documentation


Am 2016-04-08 um 18:04 schrieb Ondrej Pokorny:

On 08.04.2016 18:56, Jürgen Hestermann wrote:

When asking for documentation here I am often answered: Check the code.


Yep. Correct. If you think the documentation is bad, check the code and write 
it. Alan, you are welcome to modify the domunentation in the LCL and send a 
patch. You can also freely update the wiki docs. There's no problem about it 
and you don't have to ask for permission.


That's a bad idea.
The person who wrote the code is the only person who knows what he intended.
This person has to write the documentation.

Not only that it would take a lot of (unneccessary) additional time to wade 
through
foreign code (while the original coder already knew this after writing it).
Also, every bug would become part of the documentation as it is "how it is 
coded".


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Re: [Lazarus] Suggestion for TRadioGroup documentation


Am 2016-04-08 um 17:59 schrieb Bart:
> But even if you don't read a manual or something like that, and just
> play with the component, after just a few minutes you must have seen
> the Items property, played with it and see what it does?

But then you only *think* you know how it works.
It maybe that some conditions exist, when things behave different.
You would never know about them if you have not read it somewhere.
It could be that you just wonder why things *sometimes* crash (or whatever).



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Re: [Lazarus] * GMX Spamverdacht * Re: Suggestion for TRadioGroup documentation


Am 2016-04-08 um 17:35 schrieb Michael Van Canneyt:
> Thinking that you start without reading any form of documentation is an 
attitude which I highly condemn.

I would love to read documentations but very often there is none (or even worse 
it is wrong, outdated, confusing and incomplete).
When asking for documentation here I am often answered: Check the code.


> Unfortunately, this attitude seems typical for IT.

It has evolved into this.
When I started with Turbo Pascal very excellent documentation was wide spread.
Today with fast version cycling it seems that nobody has the time for it anymore
or (even worse) not even has the knowledge about how things exactly behave.
So we are all left to use trial and error which is realy sad.


> If NASA or Airbus or Boeing engineers would use that approach, I guess a lot 
of rockets, planes and whatnot would fall on our heads.
> I am glad they do not seem to have this attitude.

I am not sure that they do not have it.
I saw a report on TV about a test flight of the A380 some years ago
where technicians were wondering, why the air craft computer was
pumping fuel from one tank to the other in a certain flight situation.
It seemed they needed a lot of time to find it out.
I would have expected that the complexity was not driven to a point
where even the engineers do not fully understand what they have built.
Could be that we just had a lot of luck.


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Re: [Lazarus] German umlauts in component names

2016-04-02 Thread Jürgen Hestermann


Am 2016-04-02 um 12:32 schrieb Special:
> Why? What's so bad with TButton.Name "StraßeButton" to select "Straße" in, 
for instance, a school program for german kids?

I am german too and I also would not like to have this.
Just think about programs written by japanese or chinese
programmers using their (unicode) characters in identifiers.
Can you read such programs?
Same for the opposite case when german umlauts and such
are read by programmers from asia.
What an unnecesseriy increase of complexity.



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Re: [Lazarus] Feature Request: hide button text in windows with toolbars

2016-02-25 Thread Jürgen Hestermann

Am 2016-02-25 um 17:40 schrieb Michael Van Canneyt:
>
> On Thu, 25 Feb 2016, Jürgen Hestermann wrote:
>> The best would be to avoid all these toolbars and
>> use on demand popup (text) lists where I can select from.
>> Such a text list can be filtered, sorted and searched for but pictograms 
cannot.
>
> That's called a menu ?

A sort of.
But directly invokable via shortcut key and with filter and/or sorting.
A (possibly long) list of text entries but you can type some characters and
it immediately filters the list to the matching entries only (as in the 
component/view all-dialog).
They could be sortable by last usage or lexically (or others) by the user.
Windows start menu search finally uses this too (although this has other 
issues).

Or a tree like list where typing takes you to the next matching entry and enter 
invokes it.

When programming I would not like to move away my hands from the keyboard to 
reach for the mouse.
That's not ergonomical.

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Re: [Lazarus] Feature Request: hide button text in windows with toolbars

2016-02-25 Thread Jürgen Hestermann




Am 2016-02-25 um 16:46 schrieb Graeme Geldenhuys:
> In the "IDE Options -> Environment -> General" you can disable images on
> buttons (in ide dialogs) and menus.
>
> Would it be possible to have another option to disable text in ide
> windows that have toolbars? Take a look at the attached screenshot. Many
> ide windows look like the red rectangle (that isn't zoomed in the
> screenshot, that's actual size). Yet look at how much less space is
> taken up by the toolbars in the green rectangles.
> These massive toolbars are wasted screenspace, and if you resize windows
> like the Project Group window and make it narrower to fit the content of
> the treeview better, then I get 3 rows of buttons - waisting even more
> vertical space!
>
> A image with a tooltip should suffice. The added text is just bloat.

It's just the other way round:
The images are bloat.
They contain no information at all.

The best would be to avoid all these toolbars and
use on demand popup (text) lists where I can select from.
Such a text list can be filtered, sorted and searched for but pictograms cannot.

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Re: [Lazarus] Warning about integer constant and expression

2016-02-23 Thread Jürgen Hestermann


Am 2016-02-23 um 19:42 schrieb Mattias Gaertner:

On Tue, 23 Feb 2016 18:28:29 +0100
Jürgen Hestermann <juergen.hesterm...@gmx.de> wrote:


WIth this definition:

var  i64 : Int64;

and this code:

if i64>High(SizeInt) then

I get:
"Warning: Comparison might be always false due to range of constant and 
expression"
And even more strange, if I convert the constant to int64 as in

if i64>int64(High(SizeInt)) then

I still get this warning.
Why?

Because on a 64bit system SizeInt = int64.


Yes, you are right.
I am using 64bit free pascal only for a short while now.
And because I compile for 32 bit too I will leave it as it is.
Thanks for clarifying/reminding me.


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[Lazarus] Warning about integer constant and expression

2016-02-23 Thread Jürgen Hestermann


WIth this definition:

var  i64 : Int64;

and this code:

if i64>High(SizeInt) then

I get:
"Warning: Comparison might be always false due to range of constant and 
expression"
And even more strange, if I convert the constant to int64 as in

if i64>int64(High(SizeInt)) then

I still get this warning.
Why?


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Re: [Lazarus] FileExistsUTF8 and long paths

2016-01-19 Thread Jürgen Hestermann

Am 2016-01-17 um 18:12 schrieb Bart:
> On 1/17/16, Jürgen Hestermann <juergen.hesterm...@gmx.de> wrote:
>> 2. without forward slashes and
> But then the function would not act on \\?\C:\maxpathchars\foo/bar if
> you omitted the \\?\, which seems to be the intention of your
> proposal?

I don't understand.
If the file path is already prepended by \\?\ then
forward slashes would not be resolved by the Win API anyway.
From 
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa365247%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

"Note:  File I/O functions in the Windows API convert "/" to "\" as part of 
converting the
name to an NT-style name, except when using the "\\?\" prefix as detailed in the 
following sections."

Nevertheless, we can also simply replace all / by \ before handing it over
to the Win API function.

> If I understood you correctly you would want to have
> function FileXXXUtf8(Fn) do:
> begin
> if (Length(Fn) > MaxPath) and (not StartsWith('\\?\',Fn) then
>   FileXXXUtf8('\\?\' + Fn)
> else
>   OriginalImplementationOfFileXXXUtf8()
> end;
> (With the exception of ExpandFilenameUtf8)

Yes, more or less.
Slashes should be converted to backslashes too.

Also, expanding (relative or incomplete) paths can be done
by Lazarus internally so that this would even work with long paths.

> To me, the better solution would be that a program that must be able
> to handle this should prepend the prefix itself (and taking care of
> all relevant issues like expanding, allowing/replacing '/' with '\'
> etc. beforehand) and then call the FileXXXUtf8 functions on the
> resulting string.

IMO this is just the wrong approach.
If Lazarus offers functions like FileExists then they should be rock solid.
Otherwise (if I have to find out the glory details anyway) I would
write my own FileExist (which I did now).
I have abandanded already many of these LCL functions because in
the end they did not help me avoiding any work.
There were always side effects that I had to overcome
with self written functions anyway.
So of what use are they?
Not only am I forced to know about all the OS specific details
I also need to find out what and how it has been implemented
in the Lazarus functions.
If I already know everything I can write my own
function that fits my needs much better.

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Re: [Lazarus] Testing Unicode and Windows system codepage in Lazarus 1.6


Am 2016-01-17 um 19:48 schrieb Juha Manninen:
> Jürgen and taazz,
...
> The wiki page explaining it
> should be improved and maintained by people who actually use the
> system which means Jürgen, taazz, michl and others.

Now that is cynical!
Telling those who do not know anything about what
has been developed over the last years
to write the documentation theirselfs.

Not the developers who know what they changed
and what they had in mind when doing so should
document their work but those who just use it.

For whom is the documentation meant at all?
Why not drop it and everything is fine?
The code is there, just read it!

I think with this attitude the whole project is doomed to fail.


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Re: [Lazarus] Testing Unicode and Windows system codepage in Lazarus 1.6


Am 2016-01-17 um 12:34 schrieb Juha Manninen:
> LCL continues to work as before when you define "DisableUTF8RTL". Then
> AnsiString is coded with the system codepage by default. The UTF-8
> conversion functions still work.

You may have a false impression of how Free Pascal/Lazarus is used by most 
people.
At least I did not wait until the current version to use Unicode (and long 
paths)
for file names and others. I think many did so.
Therefore we have build our own infrastructure/functions to work with the
Windows unicode API functions. In this case using "DisableUTF8RTL" would
be no option as it bombs us back to ANSI/short paths and still requires to do 
code changes.
That's not good.

So we need to live with the changes and understand the logic behind it (which 
IMO
is much more complicated than before). The amount of time we have to invest
is unforseeable for us and therefore many get frustrated (especially, because
the documentation is poor).

I have done the changes to (some) of my programs now and it works quite okay
but it was a hard time until this was finished (and I still don't know whether
bugs lurk here and there).


> I don't know why you always find excuses to complain. It is not nice.
> Please stop it.

Please stop ignoring and gibing those who have problems with the new unicode 
types.
I know how they feel and such statements are not helpful.
If you don't want to help then ignore these mails.
I know that those who have already worked on this for a long time
cannot understand why not everybody instantly knows how the new
codepage aware ansistrings work but be assured that for many this is
completely new. So bare with our frustration and better ignore such
mails than revile the writers.


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Re: [Lazarus] FileExistsUTF8 and long paths

Am 2016-01-17 um 12:42 schrieb Bart:
> On 1/16/16, Jürgen Hestermann <juergen.hesterm...@gmx.de> wrote:
>> Well, at least when the path is too long (length(FileName>MAXPATH))
>> it can prepend \\?\ because it will fail without it anyway.
> That won't do for the same reasons as explained above.
> Say you have a directory: c:\maxpathchars\1\2\3\
> Now cehcking for ..\..\foobar will still fail if
> c:\maxpathchars\1\foorbar exists, unless you have a folder in
> c:\maxpathchars\1\2\3\ that actually has the name  '..' etc.
> I.o.w expanding the filename cannot be done anymore.

Yes, that's true.
Additional checks (i.e. for dots) are needed
but I think it should be possible to find out
when a path is:

1. not relative and
2. without forward slashes and
3. too long to be resolved without prepended \\?\

so that adding \\?\ would make the request successful
when it otherwise would fail.

> Note that even Windows itself (at least windows explorer) cannot handle this.

Windows (the API) *can* handle this, only explorer can't.
I have written a file manager that has no problem to copy/move/rename etc.
files with paths of arbitrary length.
Of course, many special things (like deleting to recycle bin and setting
current directory) do not work with such long paths,
but at least those things that work should be made functional.

> I once unzipped a file with such a filename (produced on linux of course).
> It unzipped well and FileexistsUtf8('\\?\realfilename) worked well.
> (Testing this was the reason I did this.)
> After that windows was unable to remove the file in question.
> I tried various tools for that, icluding rm - R *.
> No such luck.

It seems that the unzip tool you used *was* able to handle long paths.
In such cases you can use more appropiate file managers like Total Commander or
Ztree that have larger limits than 255 (but still Ztree has a limit of 400 and
Total commander of 1000 character which I don't understand).
When using the W functions the limit is near 32000 so why don't they all 
support this?
Strange.

> To me it looks like a rather odd design desicion by MS have a MAXPATH
> but then have obscure ways to circumvent that.

Yes, again it is very bad design from MS that all (Windows users) have to live 
with.
But we should not make it worse than it already is.
So if the W functions support long paths we should support this too.

> AFACS it cannot be resolved/fixed in a manner that will not break
> backwards compatibility.

I think it is possible (see above).
You only need to find out the exact limitations and detect them before adding 
\\?\

> Further more: this is not something that belongs to Lazarus, but to fpc.

I am not sure. I thought FileExistsUTF8 is part of Lazarus, not Free Pascal.

>> I did not find any comments that mentions long paths
> You need new glasses then ;-)
> === code ==
>   //if Filename uses ExtendedLengthPath scheme then it cannot be expanded
>   //AND it should not be altered by ForcePathDelims or ResolveDots
>   //See: 
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa365247%28v=vs.85%29.aspx
>   if (Length(Fn) > 3) and (Fn[1] = PathDelim) and (Fn[2] = PathDelim) and
>  (Fn[3] = '?') and (Fn[4] = PathDelim) //Do NOT use
> AllowDirectorySeparators here!
>  then Exit;
> === end code ===

I have read this but how is this related to \\?\ and long paths?
What is ExtendedLengthPath scheme?
I don't see any information about W functions and \\?\ prefix.

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Re: [Lazarus] FileExistsUTF8 and long paths


Am 2016-01-17 um 14:23 schrieb Jürgen Hestermann:
> Additional checks (i.e. for dots) are needed
> but I think it should be possible to find out
> when a path is:
> 1. not relative and
> 2. without forward slashes and
> 3. too long to be resolved without prepended \\?\

Even better would be to do the expansion of relative paths
internally before handing it over to the Windows API
so that they even work when Windows would fail.
The same applies to forward slashes.


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Re: [Lazarus] FileExistsUTF8 and long paths


Am 2016-01-17 um 15:25 schrieb Bart:
> Quoted from the link:
> "To specify an extended-length path, use the "\\?\" prefix. For
> example, "\\?\D:\very long path"."
> Maybe you need new eyes, not new glasses ;-)

I know the Windows API specification very well.

But you seem to forget the original thread.
I asked:

> Why not prepend "\\?\" at this last Windows step so it works for long paths

to which you answered:

> This will break existing programs, including the ide.
> Currently you can use both / and \ in filenames on Wndows filename
> functions, because the API does not care.
> That is unlues you prepend \\?\, then character in the given string
> MUST be in the filename.
> Also this will then return false on '..\foo.bar', sincenow te APi
> expects that the two dots are part of the filename.
> See the comments in ExpandFilenameUTF8 (I think I put a reference there).

How does the comment bring any new facts to the discussion?
It just repeats the text you wrote before.
I expected more information in the comment which I did not find.


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Re: [Lazarus] FileExistsUTF8 and long paths


Am 2016-01-17 um 15:39 schrieb Bart:
>>  > AFACS it cannot be resolved/fixed in a manner that will not break
>>  > backwards compatibility.
>> I think it is possible (see above).
>> You only need to find out the exact limitations and detect them before
>> adding \\?\
> Only if we decide to _always_ try that (under specified circumstances).
> If not it will be an optional parameter and the function then will
> have a different signature, which will be incompatible with existing
> programs using it as a function variable.

If you check for \\?\ (which is already done),
detect (or even expand) relative paths and
detect slashes (or even convert them to backslashes)
then no backward compatibility would be broken.
No drawback but the advantage of no failure for long paths.


>>> Further more: this is not something that belongs to Lazarus, but to fpc.
>> I am not sure. I thought FileExistsUTF8 is part of Lazarus, not Free Pascal.
> The only difference between File* and File*UTF8 functions
> (fpc<->Lazarus) is that the UTF8 versions were/are able to handle any
> unicodecharacter inside the given path/filename (regardless of you
> current Windows codepage).
> Otherwise it does not behave different compared to the fpc File*
> functions, nor should it.

Still the original function I mentioned was from Lazarus.
Therefore I wrote this to the Lazarus forum.
Otherwise I would have been blamed for not using the right forum. ;-)


BTW:
The following code in ExpandFileNameUtf8 seems to be not quite correct:

 if (Length(Fn) > 3) and (Fn[1] = PathDelim) and (Fn[2] = PathDelim) and
 (Fn[3] = '?') and (Fn[4] = PathDelim) //Do NOT use 
AllowDirectorySeparators here!
then Exit;

When PathDelim='/' it would make no sense.
Only Windows has the '\\?\' prefix and as far as I know it cannot be '//?/'.
For Linux this maybe a valid file/directory name (but I don't know).


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Re: [Lazarus] Testing Unicode and Windows system codepage in Lazarus 1.6


Am 2016-01-17 um 15:19 schrieb Juha Manninen:
> I don't understand how DisableUTF8RTL bombs your system because it is
> the backwards compatible thing.
> If your system worked with FPC 2.6.4, it should work with FPC 3.0 +
> DisableUTF8RTL.

Yes, you are right.
DisableUTF8RTL resets *some* of the changes (those related to the API interface)
and does not harm functions that already used the Win API directly.

But as one example, since FPC 3.0 you cannot use UTF8Delete on UTF8Strings 
anymore.
This requires changes to existing programs that cannot be avoided by a compiler 
switch.
Not everybody is prepared to invest this time just now.

This is no criticism of the good work that has been done to finally
make the long overdue step to codepage-aware strings.
Still everybody should also be aware that this is a radical change in
the already complicated area of string handling and due to its complexity
many FPC users experience these changes as a burden in the first place.
On the long term it was unavoidable of course but just now it generates 
frustration.


> Excuse me! Are you really saying I have not helped with the Unicode issues?

No, that's not what I said.
But if you got fed up with all these questions about unicode
it would be better to ignore some of the mails that bother you
instead of increasing the frustration of others by telling them
they are just too lazy (or dumb) to read (and understand) some wikis.


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Re: [Lazarus] Web vs desktop development

2016-01-16 Thread Jürgen Hestermann


Am 2016-01-15 um 19:16 schrieb JuuS:
> I've always been of the opinion that the web is great for displaying
> information. To use it as the central processor bugs me.

+1


> When I ask my program to do something I want the attention of the
> processor. I don't want it going over the web (security issues) and then
> asking for some perhaps overworked server processor time.

I think it is even worse:
When code is run on the web server then it cannot infect my local machine.
But todays web pages use scripting more and more (which I mostly block
with NoScript). In this case I would download and run code with each and
every click. In terms of security this is a nightmare!

With local software I can do backups so I can go back to a system that works
in case something smashed it. I have full control and can use it offline too.
I would do changes only seldom (if everything runs ok),
i.e. I have switched off most update mechanism (including Windows updates).
No need to change a running system.

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Re: [Lazarus] FileExistsUTF8 and long paths

2016-01-16 Thread Jürgen Hestermann

Am 2016-01-16 um 00:11 schrieb Bart:
> On 1/15/16, Jürgen Hestermann <juergen.hesterm...@gmx.de> wrote:
>> Why not prepend "\\?\" at this last Windows step so it works for long paths
> This will break existing programs, including the ide.
> Currently you can use both / and \ in filenames on Wndows filename
> functions, because the API does not care.
> That is unlues you prepend \\?\, then character in the given string
> MUST be in the filename.
> Also this will then return false on '..\foo.bar', sincenow te APi
> expects that the two dots are part of the filename.

Well, at least when the path is too long (length(FileName>MAXPATH))
it can prepend \\?\ because it will fail without it anyway.

I have found this issue the hard way as I checked for file existence in
my program and it reported false although the file existed.
So I overwrote it. IMO this is a bug.
A function that claims to check for file existence should be as reliable
as possible and not have some obscure side effects.

> See the comments in ExpandFilenameUTF8 (I think I put a reference there).

I did not find any comments that mentions long paths

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[Lazarus] FileExistsUTF8 and long paths

2016-01-15 Thread Jürgen Hestermann


With Lazarus RC2 (and I think before too) "FileExistsUTF8" uses
"_FileGetAttrUtf8" which again uses FileGetAttrWide (on Windows if Unicode is 
enable)
which again uses "Windows.GetFileAttributesW(PWideChar(UTF8Decode(FileName)))"

but this fails for long paths (if Length(FileName)>255).
Why not prepend "\\?\" at this last Windows step so it works for long paths too?


BTW:
I am not sure whether this leads to errors but while the result of the Windows 
API-function
GetFileAttributesW is declared to be DWORD
this result is converted (or is ist just typecasted?) to Integer in

function FileGetAttrWide(const FileName: String): Longint;
begin
Result:=Integer(Windows.GetFileAttributesW(PWideChar(UTF8Decode(FileName;
end;

Doesn't this provoke at least a range check errors?
What happens when I compare the integer result with (DWORD) constants which 
havbe the first bit set?

This seems to be done at many places with many DWORD results from Windows API 
functions.
Is this a bug?

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[Lazarus] IDE, source editor, file not opened when jumping to bookmark

2016-01-01 Thread Jürgen Hestermann


Lazarus 1.6 RC1:
If I have a bookmark in a file that has not (yet) been opened in the
source editor shouldn't the file be opened when I jump to this bookmark?
It's quite annoying that nothing happens and I only find out later that
this is not because the bookmark was deleted but simply because the file has 
been closed.

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[Lazarus] Project option "UI Access" unclear

2015-12-31 Thread Jürgen Hestermann


What does it mean,
if I check the project option "UI Access" for Windows?
Is it set to true or false?
Shouldn't it be renamed to:
"Check to set UI Access to TRUE (FALSE if not checked)"
(or whatever is correct)?
Not even the help gives more information about how it is meant.

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[Lazarus] Fwd: Lazarus 1.6 RC1: IDE, watch list, DEL key does nothing if language=german

2015-12-28 Thread Jürgen Hestermann



> Within Lazarus 1.6 RC1 I can not delete an entry from the watch list with the 
DEL key when I use german language settings. When I switch to english it works 
okay.

The same applies to the INS key.

Why does changing the language change the keys used?


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Re: [Lazarus] Lazarus 1.6 and QuestionDLG

2015-12-21 Thread Jürgen Hestermann


Am 2015-12-20 um 18:21 schrieb Ondrej Pokorny:

On 20.12.2015 17:51, Jürgen Hestermann wrote:

Where do I find it?
I use official (pre) releases only.


Btw. if you read http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Lazarus_1.6.0_release_notes 
, you find this information there:

  * Added 'iscancel' parameter to QuestionDlg. If no cancel button is 
explicitely set, mrCancel is returned in case the dialog is closed with ESC or 
system close button.

I added it there on Dec 14th 2015...



Well, I downloaded RC1 on Dec 10th and read the release notes before
but it came not to my mind to read it again daily just in case some changes
were made (to the changes ;-)).

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Re: [Lazarus] Lazarus 1.6 and QuestionDLG


Am 2015-12-20 um 08:06 schrieb Ondrej Pokorny:
> I just add that you had to care for mrCancel before as well (if default 
dialog was shown).
> It was returned when the dialog was closed with the system close button in 
the window caption. So the test code you sent isn't good for 1.4 either.

Before (with Lazarus 1.4) typing escape had the expected behaviour.
Now (with Lazarus 1.6) the same code does nothing on escape.
So something has changed.

> Now the behavior should be consequent:
> no 'iscancel' button defined: mrCancel is returned on ESC/close.
> 'iscancel' defined: its modal result is always returned on ESC/close.

As already written in my other mail there is no documentation of 'iscancel' on
http://wiki.freepascal.org/Dialog_Examples#QuestionDlg
and here
http://lazarus-ccr.sourceforge.net/docs/lcl/dialogs/questiondlg.html
neither 'isdefault' nor 'iscancel' is mentioned.

I simply did not know about 'iscancel' at all.
How should I, if it's undocumented?

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Re: [Lazarus] Lazarus 1.6 and QuestionDLG

Am 2015-12-19 um 16:34 schrieb Mattias Gaertner:
> On Sat, 19 Dec 2015 11:17:26 +0100 Jürgen Hestermann 
<juergen.hesterm...@gmx.de> wrote:
>> Can the result be mcCancel even when it's not part
>> of the parameter list of the QuestionDlg function?
> Yes. Many widgetsets support an Escape key and/or have a close button.
> That's why there is the 'IsCancel' option to redirect the cancel
> to a button of your choice.

I just had a look at this
http://wiki.freepascal.org/Dialog_Examples#QuestionDlg
but I can't find any mentioning of 'IsCancel'.

It also says:
"If the user cancels the dialog, be sure to check the result! In the above code, the 
result on cancelling the original dialog will be mrNo."
That seems to be wrong if the result is always mrCancel.

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[Lazarus] Lazarus 1.6 RC1: IDE, watch list, DEL key does nothing if language=german


Within Lazarus 1.6 RC1 I can not delete an entry from the watch list
with the DEL key when I use german language settings.
When I switch to english it works okay.



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Re: [Lazarus] Lazarus 1.6 and QuestionDLG