Lazarus 0.9.28 release notes

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Lazarus 0.9.28 was released on 12th October 2009.

Statistics:

1. commits: 4420 in trunk + 29 in the fixes branch
2. log: svn log -r r16725:21342 (+ log of http://svn.freepascal.org/svn/lazarus/tags/lazarus_0_9_28 r21343:r21921)
3. resolved bug tracker issues: 1031

LCL Interfaces major changes

• Gtk2 is now default widgetset on linux
• Windows CE: Implemented TCalendar, TFloatSpinEdit, TOpenDialog and TSaveDialog.

LCL major changes

• TFrame was added
• TPen: cosmetic/geometric, Join Style, End Cap Style. For more information, see blog.
• Most of component properties now have default values => smaller .lfm files.
• TMonitor class: multi-monitor support.
• Refactoring of LCL-Interface interface interoperability => size of empty form application was reduced by 17-18% (qt, win32)and 15-16% for Gtk applications.
• TreeView component got editing support and misc visual enhancements.
• new properties: TBitBtn.GlyphShowMode, TApplication.ShowButtonGlyphs which turn visibility of glyphs on buttons for every single button or for whole application. For more information, see blog.
• New components: TShellTreeView - A TreeView that shows drives and directories and/or files, TShellListView - A ListView to show directories and/or files and TFilterComboBox - A ComboBox specialized in file name filters. Easy to use properties are provided to connect these components together.

LCL minor changes

• TColorBox, TColorListBox has been rewritten. Now they are more delphi compatible.
• TColorDialog.CustomColors has been added.
• Added support for os/2 bitmap format
• TCanvas.LineTo and TCanvas.MoveTo are no longer virtual. Override DoLineTo and DoMoveTo instead.
• TMouseButtons added mbExtra1, mbExtra2. Support for 5 Button Mouse (Windows only)
• Windows Vista, Window 7: reimplemented TBitBtn, TPopupMenu, TMainMenu drawing, fixed problems with auro snap feature.

IDE changes

• New IDE options dialog combines environments, editor, codetools, code explorer, debugger and help options. A new api is introduced to add custom IDE settings into IDE options dialog.
• The deprecated jitform were removed. They used a dirty trick to create methods at design time. This trick is no longer needed.
• Project enhancements:
  • Application icon has been added to the Project Options.
  • Application icon, Version information and XP manifest are merged into one .rc file which has the same name as project main file (.lpi)
  • .lrs files can now be saved/auto created in the project output directory (disable in Project / Project Options / Miscellaneous / save .lrs file in the output directory). This way you no longer need to store the .lrs files in the svn/cvs repository.
  • more compiler options can be tuned using compiler options dialog:
    • warnings and hints to be shown by compiler
    • use external debug symbols file (-Xg)
    • generate dwarf debug information (-gw)

• Editor enhancements:
  • Display of "double width" fonts (Eastern, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, ...)
  • adjustable gutter
  • showing line changes on gutter
  • customizable colors for more elements
  • code folding:
    • support for $region
    • more structures can be folded
    • Copy and Paste folded text
    • Saving fold info to session
  • Configurable Mouse behaviour
  • Highlighting of Begin/End pairs and "all occurrences of word under caret"
  • code-templates have $param() macro. Allow editing several inputs for a template. See here
  • Syncro-Edit mode: Edit several occurrences of the same word simultaneously. See here
  • Persistent Blocks
  • Option to Hide Mouse-Cursor, when typing
  • Close editor tabs by Middle-Clicking

• Object inspector enhancements:
  • customizable colors for more elements
  • non-default values can be shown bold, better detection of default/non-default values
  • gutter
  • information box
  • show events for nested properties

• Form designer enhancements:
  • non-visual components can be drawn with captions
  • copy/paste component now includes events

• Jedi code formatter has been integrated (without an ability to customize settings at moment): use Ctrl+D to format your source code

• Codetools enhancements:
  • empty published methods (event handlers) can be removed automatically on unit save
  • renaming of some unit will update references in other project units
  • remove unused units tool
  • new code macro ofall. See the demo here.
  • automatic block completion. For example adding end; after typing begin

• Code explorer enhancements:
  • Code Observer section (misc notes about code), turn on in code explorer options

• Debugging:
  • Assembler window
  • Call stack dialog improvements: icons for entries, сlicking on valid source line can be used to toggle breakpoint for that line, for those stack entries which have no source line an address is shown.
  • Lines which are present in executable are shown as dots in the source editor gutter.
  • New debugger exception notification dialog with ability to turn off notification for this exception and continue execution is shown instead of old exception dialog
  • EAbort exception is added to the default list of exceptions to skip (all new projects skips this exception by default)
  • Breakpoint properties dialog

• IDEIntf:
  • TNewIDEItemCategory is no longer abstract. RegisterNewItemCategory now expects a real category class, which is needed for localization. You can use instead: RegisterNewItemCategory(TNewIDEItemCategory.Create('Name of your category'));

• i18n: Translations
  • updatepofiles script now uses translations unit
  • detect fuzzy entries
  • auto convert encoding of .po files

• Misc:
  • Most of dialogs were reviewed to support multi-monitor systems
  • Glyphs are not visibile by default on all command buttons in Windows (can be changed in IDE options -> Desktop)
  • new macros ProjOutDir and Env, see IDE Macros in paths and filenames

Components

• TAChart
  • Design-time series editor
  • Marks for all types of series
  • Function series
  • "Chart sources", allowing, among other things, DB-aware series
  • Initial implementation of 3D-look and multiple axises charts
  • Many minor improvements and bugfixes
• LazReport
  • Implemented PDF export
  • dbfield selection, issue 12229
  • fix reports utf-8 encoding
  • fix designer options dialog, issue 12381
  • fix preview scrolling, issue 12390
  • patch to reduce some flicker by Luiz Americo, issue 12766
  • implemented template for printgrid
  • fix internal variable [TIME] returning an invalid date instead of current time
  • implemented memoview property HideDuplicates
  • add thumbnails report sample
  • fix preview MouseWheel scrolling
  • fix autosize text, issue 13152
  • fix record context on which bands are printed after a group change is detected, issue 13165
  • fix preview blocking bug, issue 13399
  • fix some designer dialogs checkboxes tri-state, issue 13400
  • remove 'LazReport:' from printjob title if report title was set, issue 13398
  • fix designer show grid problem: once enabled can't be disabled
  • check that we are under a KDE session before to handle KDE locale specifics
  • added internal variable REPORTTITLE
  • fix random boldness on preview, issue 13440
  • enabled flatdecode compression in pdf export, from Javier Villarroya (req powerpdf r791)
  • check for duplicate object names in designer, issue 13979
  • some properties on band's script should refer to parent band instead of current bandview, fix issue 14082
  • fix saving files using locale specific chars, issue 14109
  • fix inverted functionality for shadow width and curve in roundrect object, issue 14130
  • publish some frame porpeties in shape object, issue 14126
  • update function descriptions, part of issue 14133
  • workaround for TimeToStr returning empty string on some locales, issue 14095
  • fix designer freeze when using Help context button, issue 14262
  • udpdate object inspector when changing object properties, fix stretched property, fix issue 9555
  • made breakword code UTF-8 aware
  • added TfrPreview component, issue 14539
  • fix exporting frame's lines
  • added portuguese translation
  • updated translations
• Printers and PostscriptCanvas
  • IDE: add option to print selected text from Michael van Canneyt (issue 12197)
  • added test for printing images to selectprinter sample
  • fix page orientation when user has not changed job options of cups printer
  • Updated dialogs example to add graphics output
  • fix PageWidth/PageHeight after orientation change on printer setup dialog (cups), issue 13357
  • added support to specify printing resolution, cups
  • cups: improved layout of dialogs, show default resolution in case list of available resolutions is empty
  • patch for hi-res postscript output from Anton Kavalenka with changes, issue 13356
  • cups: fix printer orientation problem (issue 13488)
  • cups: advanced options in printer properties dlg, started pagesetup dlg, etc.
  • set some dialog's postions to poScreenCenter
  • fix raw exception, issue 14013
  • fixed compilation with qt 4.5 from zeljan
  • added TPrinter.FileName property, based on patch from mtournay, issue 13718
  • Carbon, Remove useless ValidatePageFormat, from Dmitry, issue 14381
  • initial postscript unicode support, updated/fixed postscript sample
  • fix postscript arc and ellipse drawing (avoid double frame)
  • reset cached pen width between documents and pages, from Anton Kavalenka, issue 13356
  • implemented reverse variants of portrait and landscape, inverted landscape orientation
  • use ascii85 and image operator to encode images in postscript output
  • enable standalone use of postscriptcanvas and implements user defined resolution
  • postscript, better handling of images with transparency, alpha channel
  • fix starting page number
  • implemented per page orientation/boundingbox, fix issue 13626
  • removed LineTo, MoveTo, using DoLineTo and DoMoveTo instead
  • implements cliping rect in postscriptcanvas from Anton Kavalenka, issue 13826
  • fix TPostScriptCanvas.Polyline not flushing output buffer, from Anton Kavalenka issue 14535
• TDbGrid, TDrawGrid and TStringGrid
  • grids, fix exception when trying to focus editor, issue 12326
  • grids, add images to grid columns by Alexander S. Klenin, issue 12419
  • drawgrids, don't draw focusrect if defaultdrawing=false, from Serggey Smirnov issue 12526
  • grids, fix ignoring columns with readonly=true from Michael V.C., issue 12617
  • grids, fix exeption after removing all rows and adding a new row, issue 12666
  • dbgrid, allow editing of lookup columns via picklist patch from Alexander Klenin, issue 12347
  • drawgrids, implements cbsColumnCheckbox in TDrawGrid/TStringGrid, issue 8682
  • drawgrids, implemented mousewheel scrolling grid, issue 12860
  • grids, fix app freeze (windows) when stringeditor is focused and grid handle is being destroyed
  • stringgrid, fix autosizecolumn crash, issue 12812
  • grids, fix editor position when mouse wheel scrolling, issues 13309,13360
  • grids, fix mouse cursor issue 13335
  • grids, implemented grid's BoxRect method
  • grids, reduced repaint cyles by affecting canvas.font if grid.font ismodified while painting
  • grids, fix grid handling F2 when it's not editable, from Daniel Simões de Almeida, issue 13591
  • grids, don't autosize string editor, fixes issue 13760
  • stringgrid, store cell widths also for autofilled grid
  • stringgrid, Fixed Exception when sorting grid with no free columns or no free rows.
  • stringgrid, take in count column title in autosizecolumn
  • dbgrid, implements dgAutoSizeColumns option
  • dbgrid, implements fixedcols, patch from funky beast (with changes), issue 13139
  • dbgrid, fixes indicator problems, issues 14139,14160
  • dbgrid, fix OnGetText
  • dbgrid, fix dgeAutoColumns option from Alexander S. Klenin
  • dbgrid, fix multiselect issue 12462
  • dbgrid, published UseXORFeatures property
  • dbgrid, fix picklist crash, issue 12797
  • dbgrid, Do not only check if a column is readonly, ... from Joost, issue 13177
  • dbgrid, heck if dataset empty when deleting a record, from Boguslaw Brandys, issue 13246
  • dbgrid, fix AV and visual problems related to column sizes
  • dbgrid, trim values when using dgAutoSizeColumns
  • dbgrid, fix indicator problems, issues 14139,14160
  • dbgrid, fix editor show on pressing RETURN, issue 14325
  • dbgrid, fix AV in AutoSizeColumns when dataset is inactive, issue 14239