Delphi 2010 IDE Beta Blogging: Use Units

August 10, 2009

Delphi 2010 IDE Beta Blogging: Use Units

There has been a flurry of "authorized" beta testers blogging about the new features of the Delphi 2010 IDE in the past week. I'd like to add a small little updated dialog to the list of new features I like.

There has been a flurry of "authorized" beta testers blogging about new features of the Delphi 2010 IDE in the past week. After the IDE beta video I've already bogged about, there have been so many blog posts, that it is even hard to track them.

Beta Blogs

Here are a few:

Embarcadero RAd Studio 2010 by Chirs Bensen
RAD Studio 2010 - IDE Features: IDE Insight by Nick Hodges
RAD Studio 2010: Thread-specific breakpoints by Chris Hesik
Video: Check this out some of the new IDE features in Delphi 2010 and C++Builder 2010 by Andreano Lanusse
RAD Studio 2010 - The IDE by Chris Bensen
RAD Studio 2010 IDE Features: File|Reopen by Nick Hodges
RAD Studio 2010 - Actions by Chris Bensen
RAD Studio 2010: ToolsAPI enhancements by Chris Hesik
RAD Studio 2010 - Refactoring & Help Insight for Generics by Darren Kosinski
RAD Studio 2010 - IDE Features: "Old School" Tool Palette by Nick Hodges
How to configure Delphi 2010 to look, work, and feel like Delphi 7 by Andreano Lanusse

Use Units

For me, the beta testing experience with 2010 has been a pleasure and I found the changes in the IDE are both speed boosters and pleasing in terms of UI quality. IDE Insight is certainly on top of those. But rather than covering it once more, I'd rather focus on one "minor detail", a seldom used dialog that sees a large improvement in both usability and Ui quality. This is how the use units dialog box was for many versions up to Delphi 2009:

Notice that in the top edit you can type a unit name, or you can pick one in the list below. That's it. Let us now look at the same dialog box in Delphi 2010:

The upper edit is now a full filtered search box, the old gray background has gone, the UI is nice, and you can decide to add the unit to the interface or the implementation section. Not bad for a very minor improvement. A large number of dialogs see similar changes, making the Delphi 2010 IDE easier and nicer to work with.

Now I see beta blogging is starting to move to the VCL in Delphi 2010... keep an eye open for it.

posted by marcocantu @ 1:15PM | 12 Comments [0 Pending]

12 Comments

Delphi 2010 IDE Beta Blogging Use Units

Is that form "stearable" only by keyboard too? I would
find it annoying having to switch between mouse and
keyboard to fill in and execute the action.

Comment by Fritz Franz on August 10, 14:14

Delphi 2010 IDE Beta Blogging Use Units

Looks like you can only add units from the current
project, though. Would be more useful I think if it
offered all units available via the current search
path... (like the GExperts replacement dialog does)

Comment by Oliver Giesen [http://ogware@wordpress.com] on August 10, 14:38

Delphi 2010 IDE Beta Blogging Use Units

Will this eliminate the need for "unit expert"? Will 
it offer incremental search for all the units both in 
you project and the include path?

Comment by Vegar on August 10, 15:31

Delphi 2010 IDE Beta Blogging Use Units

What we see is a long list of little improvements 
that should have been introduced five or six years 
ago (and some that had to be reintroduced <g>), 
because competition was introducing them while Delphi 
didn't because it was sleeping.
Don't get me wrong, they're very welcome, but there's 
no rocket science here. Thanks to the IDE team for 
revisiting the whole IDE and giving the "finishing 
touch" - is Borland "non finito" behind the 
shoulders, at last? - but until now it's going to 
looks something alike a Delphi 2009 Second Edition.
Let's wait...

Comment by Luigi D. Sandon on August 10, 15:43

Delphi 2010 IDE Beta Blogging Use Units

 Oh, if it was possible to serach by part of unit
name, like it have done in EPocalipse's UnitExpert...

Comment by Nikolay Ponomarenko on August 10, 16:22

Delphi 2010 IDE Beta Blogging Use Units

 
Can i use wildchar for filter my 400 units ?

*report*   
*fir?*

Comment by Mauro on August 10, 16:42

Delphi 2010 IDE Beta Blogging Use Units

A negative answer and two positive ones.

1. The units listed are only those of the project. The 
Find Unit capability added since 2007, is a little more 
flexible, but won't look in your folders anyway.

2. The use unit dialog lets you do everything by 
keyboard, just like the new IDE Insight.

3. The search filter allows for * and ? wildchars, and 
has an implicit * at the beginning and at the end.

Hope this makes this more clear.

Comment by Marco Cantu [http://www.marcocantu.com] on August 10, 18:50

My Sensei ...

I do agree with Luigi: there's no "new magic" in such
features !

The IDE becomes undoubtedly better: yes.

Nevertheless, such new features still have to pass the
competition test against bullet-proof tools libraries
like GExperts or DDevExtensions.
E.g.: The last one exposes a replacement dialog with
similar functionality
- without the need of (but the choice of) using wildchars 
- with dynamic filtering of the file list.

Wise words of my Sensei:
"Progress furthermore the IDE should!
Steps forward bigger appreciate I would!"
:)

Comment by Loïs Bégué [http://www.arpoon.de] on August 11, 11:14

Delphi 2010 IDE Beta Blogging Use Units

 Can dialog form be sizeable? What's about storing
dialog position?

Comment by deks on August 11, 15:06

Delphi 2010 IDE Beta Blogging Use Units

>> The units listed are only those of the project.
Bad news... Will CodeGear think little bit more before
implement something? This is only the example of the
problem with IDE. How to develop large projects with
this hundreds of units? How to rename unit when it is
used in more then 50 files? And so on and so on! Look
at the excellent IDE for Java - IntelliJ IDEA and
adopt the ideas of this product to Delphi. This will
save a lot of time for developers.

p.s.: Thanks for MMX tool exist... It helps...

Comment by agorbachenko on August 12, 00:48

Delphi 2010 IDE Beta Blogging Use Units

Embarcadero blogsite is down again.

I wonder how they can't make a site that stays up or 
that works at reasonable speed.

Bad website = bad products ?

Comment by Pratt on August 12, 18:44

Delphi 2010 IDE Beta Blogging Use Units

 Hi,
It is probably off topic here,but the embarcadero 
newsgroups is down today,and since I know Marco Cantu 
is one of most respected Delphi Programmers in the 
world I would like to use this Forum.
Embarcadero should rethink it sales strategy,Delphi 
would sell much more if Embarcadero sold it to the 
whole world direct from the U.S.A with a credit 
card,like we do with cheaper products over the 
Internet.
This sales representative police,only makes delphi 
prices unaceptable,So new users does not come in.
In Brazil for example Delphi costs the double that it 
costs in the E.U.A.
So Delphi is expensive because the Community is 
decreseaing and the comunity is decreasing because 
Delphi is Expensive.

Comment by Marcello Dias on October 29, 15:05

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