Should GExperts functionality be integrated into Delphi?

Question

I recently upgraded to Delphi 2009 and was disappointed to learn that I could not easily replace one VCL component with another. The best answer was that GExperts could be used for this.

Should I ask Embarcadero to include some or all of the features of GExperts directly in Delphi? Which of your “experts” do you use the most and would like to see in Delphi?

Or is Gexperts best left as an open source community?

Answer 1

What features in GExperts do you like most about Delphi? I would suggest that you come up with a priority list of, say, the top 10 features. Then go to Quality Central ( http://qc.codegear.com ) and see if they have already been added as offers, and if so, vote for them, if you do not want to go ahead and add them. This information is regularly collected and requested not only for product defects, but also so that we can hear from our customers information about product improvements. The voting system helps us to prioritize our work planning and product cycles.

Answer 2

I will also vote for the search and grep search box. The procedure window probably comes first, though

Answer 3

My vote would be negative. I think that with their limited resources, they better concentrate on the main improvements of the language - a platform that the community cannot give away from the closed nature of these aspects.

The community is already taking the burden of this high-quality add-on in itself, and all they have to do, I think, is perhaps promoting it in a clear way (for example, the link on the welcome page).

Answer 4

I would like to see the supported code formatting (DelForEx experimental port in Gexperts) and some features that help manage usage suggestions.

I do not mind Delphi Find in files, but I like it when you can use the Gexperts grep search outside the IDE.

Useful things like comment / Uncomment code and finding suitable separators are already in Delphi.

Most of the rest probably belongs to third-party add-ons, such as Gexperts, so as not to clutter up the IDE with too many "special" features. Things like reverse instruction, component replacement, or an ASCII diagram.

Answer 5

Interestingly, it’s time now that a more stable plug-in system has appeared in Delphi. I know that Toolsapi has existed for a long time and works well, but it suffers from a number of problems.

• It is really hard. In 2009, I don’t think writing plugins for the IDE should be as difficult as implementing interfaces in ToolsAPI.
• Its unsupported and subject to change - although I'm not sure that it has ever been changed in a significant way, the fact that there is a possibility of change is not an incentive to create it.

It would be great to have a simple, modern plugin system for the IDE that would make the plugins for Delphi trivial, it would really increase the number of good plugins and serve as a positive force for the development of Delphi. I don’t think embry should spend time creating plugins, but I think they should spend time creating a decent plugin structure.

Answer 6

My number one GExpert is the Grep search.

Close the second one is a window of the list of procedures.

It is also very convenient to use various keyboard shortcuts, and the toolbar built into the editor - I have several buttons; as a CPU view, project manager and selection tools as a drop-down list (for example, sorting).

Sometimes I use the clipboard history window.

And even less often, ASCII windows.

Everything else that I am really untouched by.

I know that the list of procedures can also be found in the Delphi 2009 structure panel, but for some reason the fact that I can press Ctrl + G to get a window with quick filtering and preview capabilities is more productive for me.

The same for grep - the GExperts version is more powerful than the standard Delphi search function.

If these two (and possibly clipboard history) are built into standard Delphi, I probably will no longer install GExperts.

But on the other hand: I like that these solutions are available as open source - this allowed me, for example, to add a filtering section to grep-search, which otherwise would be impossible for me ...

Answer 7

I thought about that too. So many GExperts features are so useful that I think they should be part of Delphi itself. I think it comes down to having a manpower to support these functions in the home, in addition to everything else they do.

Answer 8

I will vote for the procedure window (CTRL + G) and copy the component to the source code

Answer 9

Please do not forget resources from CnWizards. Unable to program in Delphi without ClPack's Highligth improvements, uses a cleanup list and a list of procedures.

Answer 10

I would also vote for GrepSearch, especially the ability to search in design forms! Most recently, I needed to look for special DataSet links in TDatasources in all my forms! I could only do this with GrepSearch and activate the inclusion of forms in my search! This is what I really missed in a Delphi environment!

Answer 11

The most commonly used functions for me are: Grep Search and replace components.

But I believe that you should not include gExperts functionality in the IDE in general. Because:

• gExperts is an independent product that can be easily installed in less than a minute
• Too many uncommitted errors in QC to spend time with the Codegear team to reinvent the wheel.
• And most importantly, GExperts license , which has the following line:

You cannot use the GExperts source code to develop commercial products, including plugins or libraries for these products. You may use the GExperts source code in an open source project in accordance with the conditions listed below.

This means that CodeGear must write this functionality from scratch.

Answer 12

I will also vote for the procedure window (CTRL + G). I do not know how I lived without him in front of Gexperts. I also really like the zip backup feature ... this is my "source control" :-)