fpGUI Toolkit v0.8 release for FPC 2.4.4 & 2.6.0-rc

[Graeme]

Hi,

I'm glad to announce the next release of fpGUI Toolkit.

fpGUI v0.8

An archived source download and pre-built binaries for DocView (fpGUI's
Documentation Viewer) can be found at the following URL:

  http://sourceforge.net/projects/fpgui/files/fpGUI/0.8/

...or clone the source code repository by using any of the following
commands:

  from SourceForge:
     git clone git://fpgui.git.sourceforge.net/gitroot/fpgui/fpgui

  from GitHub:
     git clone git://github.com/graemeg/fpGUI.git
   or
     git clone https://github.com/graemeg/fpGUI.git


Pre-built documentation in the highly optimized INF file format (for
use with DocView) is also available for download in a single archive,
just 1.7MB in side. The archive contains the fpGUI Toolkit API
documentation, and for your convenience, I also included the Free
Pascal Language Reference, FPC Runtime Library and the FPC Free
Component Library.

  http://sourceforge.net/projects/fpgui/files/fpGUI/Documentation/

For more details, please visit the fpGUI home page:

  http://fpgui.sourceforge.net


The v0.8 release contains a lot of added features and enhancements.
Below is just a small list of things that added or changed.

v0.8 (2011-11-02)
  - New widget demos and many improvements to existing demos.
  - New application examples
    * Spinning Globe, show some graphics support with zooming.
    * An experimental IDE called Maximus, which supports project
      management, compiler settings management, macro management,
      multi-threading enabled, fast procedure list searching,
      syntax-highlighting enabled text editor, OS independent
      file monitor support etc.
  - PDF reporting engine and preview support. Thanks to
    Jean-Marc Levecque for this awesome contribution.
  - Huge improvements and enhancements to the Treeview widget.
    * massive speed improvement
    * improved painting support
    * extended treeview and node method calls
    * state image support (eg: having checkboxes next to nodes)
    widget.
  - Many Docview (fpGUI documentation viewer) improvements
    * Bookmark support
    * Improved annotation support
    * Improved the text rendering and text wrapping
    * Rewrote the font handling which gave a massive 200+% speed
      increase in startup times (depending on the amount of fonts you
      have installed on your system), and reduced memory usage by 50%.
  - Added image support to RichView, the text viewer used by Docview.
  - Two new supported platforms: OpenSolaris and MacOSX (with X11
    support).
  - Global keyboard shortcut support for menu items and actions.
  - fpGUI API documentation has been extended and improved.
  - OS independent DND (drag-n-drop) support has been implemented. This
    supports external application-to-application and internal
    widget-to-widget drag-n-drop.
  - Improved the workings of implementing context sensitive help inside
    your applications.
  - Improved fpGUI project templates for use with Lazarus IDE or MSEide.
  - Included the WIPFC (OpenWatcom IPF Compiler) binaries to allow you
    to compile your own IPF help files into binary INF help files.
  - UI Designer (the visual forms designer for fpGUI) has seen many
    improvements:
    * new components on the component palette.
    * new properties accessible in the Object Inspector
    * improved dialogs for "tab order" and "widget order" changes.
    * code generated can now use spaces or tab characters for
      indentation.
    * improved File menu layout and new options.
  - Improved themes support
  - Experimental MDI (multi-document interface) support
  - Extended the Unicode wrapper functions for the FPC's RTL file
    handing
    functions.
  - New built-in code page conversion functions have been added.
  - Grid widgets have improved scrolling support options.
  - Improved fpGUI language translations.
  - Many, many more bug fixes and improvements. For a full list run:
      git log v0.8...v0.7
 

--
Regards,
  - Graeme -

_______________________________________________
fpGUI - a cross-platform Free Pascal GUI toolkit
http://fpgui.sourceforge.net

[Leledumbo]

Congratulations! Waiting for an update to the website as well

[Graeme]

I'm busy with the website now. I'm doing a total redesign of the website, but didn't want to delay the release any further. So the website is going to lag behind by a few days.

In the mean time, I'll just update the release number and release notes on the current website. Thanks.

[vfclists]

The release date says 2011-11-02.

Don't you mean 2011-12-02?

[Graeme]

Ah, that's probably the date I started typing out the changelog. Nice catch though, thanks.     I fixed the date in the repository.

[avra]

Nice news! Have you by any chance tested it on some ARM Linux board?

[Graeme]

Nice news! Have you by any chance tested it on some ARM Linux board?

I don't have any ARM-linux boards or devices myself - I rely on other people to report ARM related issues. Last I heard though, fpGUI worked fine on such devices.  I did test some basic things on a WinCE ARM device though (Garmin iQue M5) - no problems detected.

[Dibo]

I was waiting for this news. Does this version also has a component for tray icon? You mentioned on news groups that you find some interesting wrapper for linux (GTK, QT etc)

BTW: Can't compile on Windows 7 64 bit, Lazarus 0.9.31 from SVN:
\fpgui\src\corelib\gdi\fpg_gdi.pas(389,9) Error: Illegal type conversion: "LongInt" to "TfpgWidget"
\fpgui\src\corelib\gdi\fpg_gdi.pas(724,47) Error: Illegal type conversion: "TfpgGDIWindow" to "LongWord"

[Paul Breneman]

I have posted a 3.9 MB zip file that has a minimal distribution of the FPC 2.4.4 compiler as well as the new fpGUI v0.8 source code on this page:
  http://www.turbocontrol.com/easyfpgui.htm

I've also included (Synapse) SynaSer source and a serial debug terminal program I've been working on.  Also new is the option of compiling the new (alpha?) fpGUI IDE.

No installation is needed! Just extract the zip into a new folder. Open a command prompt in the root folder of what was extracted. Then type "compile dbgterm" and when that finishes (give it some time) type "cd bin" and then "dbgterm" and you should be up and running the new serial debug terminal.  It really is that easy thanks to the Free Pascal and other teams!

[plusplus]

Maybe a stupid question, but how would I use fpGUI, I tried to select in Laz but got a bunch of errors.

Is there anywhere steps I could lookup and what is fpGUI IDE?

Thx

[Leledumbo]

Maybe a stupid question, but how would I use fpGUI, I tried to select in Laz but got a bunch of errors.

Is there anywhere steps I could lookup and what is fpGUI IDE?

Look at the sourceforge website, download the package, and follow the contained docs. fpGUI currently works best when used standalone, it also has an IDE, a form designer, doc viewer, etc. It's a quite complete standalone GUI framework and the generated program size is smaller than LCL (and all big frameworks to my knowledge: GTK+, QT, wxWidgets, etc.) while still statically linked. The LCL interface is not quite usable right now, only a few controls work AFAIK.

[99Percent]

I am very interested in trying out this project.

I run into the following while trying to compile some of the included apps:

Code: [Select]

/usr/bin/ld: /home/david/fpgui/lib/x86_64-linux/fpg_x11.o:
 undefined reference to symbol 'FcFontSetDestroy'

What am I missing?

Arch Linux x64

[plusplus]

OK, I compiled, i start maximus exe and tried to create a simple Hello world, used also the UI Designer, but

a) when I click run -> nothing happens
b) when I click compile -> below output says "Compiled Everything" but no exe

What am I missing?

[Paul Breneman]

The fpGUI maximus IDE is just a rough alpha version.  I only included it in my minimal distribution because it seemed to demonstrate how a more complex fpGUI program would look.  I need to add some warning so people don't expect it to be usable.

For my fpGUI development I use a separate text editor, the uidesigner program, and command-line compiling.  For my simple embedded projects that has worked OK.

To use an IDE for fpGUI development two options are Lazarus and MSEide.  These should provide source editing and compiling and debugging but you'll still need to use the uidesigner program for the form layout (or just edit the source code).

MSEide is available here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mseide-msegui/files/mseide-msegui/2.8rc1/

I'd really like to see the Lazarus and MSE communities make using these IDEs with fpGUI easier to set up.

[plusplus]

Thx for the info, one last question. Since fpGUI is purely based on FPC, could it be used to create GUI apps for Haiku, Amiga and the others that don't support LCL?