New IDE features since

This page contains a list of major IDE features that made Lazarus even more impressive. All features are sorted by the Lazarus release version that they became available in.

prior to v0.9.4 (2004 and earlier)

form designer guidelines (June 2002)

The Form Designer shows green or blue guidelines when you position components. This help you align or size components correctly. When components are correctly aligned or sized, then guidelines are shown.

v0.9.10 (2005-10-06)

integrated FPDoc editor

Lazarus IDE is now capable of editing the external fpdoc help (xml) files while you are working with the source code. As you navigate your code, the FPDoc Editor gets updated with the related documentation. External help files prevent you from obfuscating your source code. fpdoc is similar to the JavaDoc technology, but with it's own unique features.

v0.9.18 (2006-09-18)

procedure list

This makes finding methods in your current unit really fast! The procedure list enables you to view a list of Free Pascal / Lazarus procedures in the current unit and quickly jump to the implementation. Include files are also supported and the method list gets filtered as you type the partial method name.

v0.9.20 (2006-11-05)

divider lines in editor

The Lazarus editor supports drawing horizontal divider lines between classes, methods, nested procedures, begin..end blocks and many more. So now there is no need to add extra blank lines or {*******...} comments between classes or methods. In the upcoming v0.9.28 release this feature is very customizable in the "Environment > Options > Editor > Divider Drawing" screen. In the following screenshot it shows some divider lines using the default color and a divider line for nested procedures using a customized color.

v0.9.24 (2007-11-05)

editor toolbar

The editor toolbar plug-in allows you to define toolbar buttons to any of the IDE menu items.

v0.9.28 (to be announced)

block matching

The IDE automatically highlights matching blocks - begin..end pairs.

code macro OfAll

The new code macro $OfAll() for code templates completes case statements for enums:

New users will automatically get the new macro. Old users can either delete their ~/.lazarus/lazarus.dci or add the template themselves. How to create the template:

• IDE menu / Environment / code templates
• Add. Token: "ofall" or whatever you like. Comment: "case variable of <list of all enums> end"
• Click ok to add it
• The new template is selected below.
• check "Enable macros"
• The code of the template:

of
|$OfAll()end;

• click ok to save and close the templates.

Unsorted

Any items below this point has not been sorted per Lazarus release yet.

build in diff viewer

...

refactoring

...

favorites in Object Inspector

...

integrated unit testing with FPCUnit

...

better anchoring and margins in form designer

...

file browser

...

fpdoc help inside editor tooltips

...

CodeTools

• word completion
• Rename component in Designer auto-renames all instances in unit.

...

Include files

...

Lazarus Packages

...