Listen to the audio replay.

This is the log of the chat room for the live audio chat from November 30, 2004 on IDE features in Delphi 2005 with Corbin Dunn, a Borland R&D Engineer.

Note: This log is only the chat room transcript. There is much additional information covered in the audio replay that is not available in this chat log.  For all previous and upcoming live chats, see http://bdntv.borland.com/chat.html.

davidi: Corbin - what are the features you worked on in Delphi 2005?
davidi: Corbin talks about refactoring, help insight, error insite, tool palette, winforms designer, and more.
aohlsson inserts the following link: http://blogs.borland.com/CorbinDunn/
aohlsson: (Corbin's blog)

davidi: davidi: "Corbin - can you talk about the refactoring support in Delphi 2005/" - Corbin talked about declare variable, declare field, and extract method

aohlsson: aohlsson: "What about other refactorings?" - Resource string is very cool for localization. It adds your strings to the resource string block. Also Find Unit (Import Name Space in C#).

aohlsson: I'd say for localization they are necessary... ;)

davidi: davidi: "Corbin - talk more about WinForms designer work you did" - Corbin talks about the CodeDom and Winforms designer

aohlsson: mrpmorris: For declare field? Ctrl-Shift-D I think Corbin said.

davidi: Woof: "The new refactor tool rocks, major hugs for adding it, will you be adding the option to look for replacement areas for your refactoring code? even suggesting possible refactoring areas?? (Ps please call me liz!)" - Corbin - future versions - will make suggestions about refactorings

davidi: aohlsson: "Can I add my own refactoring, and if so how?" - Corbin - you can add your own refactorings. Borland.Studio.Refactorings.dll

davidi: aolson: "Why, oh why, did you go and take away our dear friend the tabbed-component-pallette???? Will it ever return?" - Corbin answers - people tell us they like the new palette. For those who like the old palette - you can dock the tool palette

davidi: tron: "How can I convert (like the upgrade dialog) a Delphi 2005 Win32 project to a Delphi 2005 Net project?" - Corbin - in the directory where the DPR is - you are prompted for whether you want the project to be opened as a Win32 or .NET project - and it will create a bdsproj.

davidi: iman: "Is the codeDom api similar to JOT in JBuilder?" - Corbin - not sure what JOT is. Both products have an abstract syntax tree. Delphi 2005 uses the Microsoft CodeDOM specification. It's a very generic interface.

davidi: aohlsson: "MrP would like to know what the shortcut for New Unit was..." - Corbin answers - in the code editor - view menu - control-alt-P to focus the tool palette, hit U to focus the Unit

davidi: Ronald: "Will future refactoring support refactoring over multiple projects, for when two projects share a single unit?" - Corbin - currently refactoring works across multiple projects in a project group.

davidi: Corbin answers - Refctoring will look at packages and assemblies in a project to do a rename factoring.

davidi: tron: "does the pro sku include the localisation tools?" - Corbin - ETM? we'll find the answer

davidi: TommyB: "What issues does the soon-to-be-released update, mentioned in the newsgroups, address?" - Corbin - Delphi 2005 has a ton a new features. There are some issues that have come up - so we will fix them and upload the updates when they are ready.

davidi: mrpmorris: "Any plans to provide some kind of "component + help install" api, so that life is easier for us component developers?" - Corbin - put suggestions in Quality Central for Component+Help install API and other suggestions.

davidi: TommyB: "i was referring to the D2005 update mentioned in borland.public.delphi.non-technical by Michael Swindell (Borland)" - Corbin - I worked on memory and performance improvements

davidi: Woof: "Corbin will you do a blog on how make our own refactorings etc? eg how we can enhance some of the things youve created?" - Corbin answers - if I have time I'll see if I can write something about refactorings on my blog

davidi: doychin: "Do you use OptimizeIt to speed up the IDE?" - Corbin - OpimizeIt Profiler for .NET can't analyze native code. Team uses AutomatedQATime

aohlsson: mrpmorris: "Can I have a Borland blog for ECO? :)" - We have blogs for employees right now. We might expand this in the future.

davidi: Woof: "Turning the tables around a little is there anything Corbin would like to ask us the "jo" public about the features hes made, about how we use them in our daily lives, and how that maybe differs from the original plans you had at the time (users never do what you intend after all)" - Corbin - tell Corbin about the refactorings you use the most. What refactorings you really want to have.

davidi: aolson: "Is there any difference in IDE performance when using the floating designer vs. the VS-like docked designer?" - Corbin - there's no performance issues - it's more a personal productivity issue.

davidi: DrAl: "Still haven't received my copy of D2005, but what about new VCL components, if any?" - Corbin - anything new that I created for the IDE - I created a component for it. new ones are the Category component -that can give you the same palette look. Another new component is ButtonGroup

davidi: Woof: "Are there any known bugs that Corbin would like to make us aware of so we dont curse him when we run into them?" - Corbin - can't think of anything he runs into right now.

davidi: dbarclay: "Refactoring I want the most: FromVB() <g>" - Corbin - CodeDOM is an abstraction of the code - you can write your own DOM provider to create code from the CodeDOM. Check Corbin's blog.

davidi: TommyB: "Okay, if the queue is running low <g>: how should one pronounce 'Delphi'?" - Corbin - Delphi (ee - out side US. inside the US Delphieye))

davidi: Lloyd: "why can't you dock toolbars into the editor anymore (that I've seen) when iirc you could in C# Builder" - Corbin - you can dock toolbars in the main menu area.

davidi: tron: "is it possible to add a custom form editor in delphi 2005 ide?" - Corbin - check his blog about how to create a custom WinForms designer and components for it.

davidi: Woof: "Corbin, what do you hope to produce next for Delphi" - Corbin - look at ways to speed up coding. ExtractMethod does some formatting - may do some more refinements to the formatting area.

davidi: doychin: "How different is the VCL Form designer opentool interface from that in Delphi 7?" - Corbin - all of the designers work in D2005. backward compatible.

davidi: jthurman: "For my own curiosity: can you describe your development process? Do you make a tiny code change, shut down the IDE, recompile the package you're working on, and restart the IDE, or what? Given the startup/shutdown times of D2005, I'm curious as to whether you have a more productive pattern." - Corbin answers - all of the developers have two copies of the IDE. They rebuild the IDE to use for their work. One version for developing with. They run the IDE from within the IDE and debug it. After development - they check-in the code.

aohlsson: Woof: "Was going to ask, are you going to add a code beautifier to your engine? (dyslexic sorry if I cant spell, also eating!)" - covered briefly earlier

davidi: doychin: "will we see code formatting ike in Jbuilder IDE?" - Corbin - maybe, eventually.

aohlsson: TommyB: "thanks guys" - Thank You!