LMD IDE-Tools Standalone Packs - ReadMe
(© by LMD Innovative, (http://www.lmd.de or http://www.lmdinnovative.com)

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Contents
  Helpfile and tutorials
  Designtime Enhancements
  Using different Language Resource File
  DesignPack
    Introduction
    History: Changes
    Updating projects to DesignPack 2016
  ScriptPack
    Introduction
    History: Changes
  SyntaxEdit
    Introduction
    History: Changes
 

Helpfile and tutorials
By default helpfiles are usually not included with standard/trial installers. If you did not already download current documentation pack, please visit LMD public download area and get the LMD IDE-Tools documentation package. Online Tutorials for ScriptPack, DesignPack etc. are available. Those tutorials and FAQs referring to other parts of LMD IDE-Tools can be found in the public LMD Wiki.
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Designtime Enhancements
Like for all LMD 2011 products the LMD Designtime Enhancements package is installed automatically (dcllmdrtl11_XX.bpl or LMD.Vcl.Design.Rtl.dll, compiled versions only). This package provides common design-time features for all LMD packages. Please check About dialog of any LMD control to enable/disable design-time features. For further info check LMD Designtime enhancements description.
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Using different Language Resource File
Translated Resourcestrings can be found in

• \Resources folder below installation directory for compiled versions and
• \lib\source\strings folder for sourcecode versions

To change current language simply copy unit file of desired language to library file and recompile your application.
Feel free to send us modified resource units for other languages!
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DesignPack: Introduction
Welcome to LMD DesignPack, a collection of native VCL components which help you to enhance your projects with advanced designing features - either by adding object inspector like controls, extended form designers or diagram like objects. Create your own IDE or add designing features to your applications simply and quickly!

To get a quick start we suggest that you check the demo projects which are shipped with any version of LMD DesignPack (subfolder \lmddesign in \demos directory):

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DesignPack: Changes

In release 5 much code was rewritten for a better integration with LMD IDE-Tools (see new features there). Besides that following specific features were added:

• It ia now possible to design forms (TCustomForm descendants) in the TLMDDesignPanel. This allows to develop BDS like IDE user interface.
• New designer ShowRootResizers property allows to show mouse handles to resize the root inside design panel.
• New global components modification notifications feature allows to synchronize shown in Design Pack controls content without any links between controls. Useful e.g. if for example you move some Vcl control by the designer, the Left and Top property values will be automatically updated in the property inspector. Or: if you rename some Vcl component in property inspector, the object combo box will automatically update shown component name.
• The global components modification notifications allow to detect when components located inside module root are modified. New TLMDModule.OnCompsModified event can be easily used to detect such modifications, instead of several old events of designer or property inspector.
• The global components modification notifications allows to provide more correct notifications, finding correct module for the modified component. Imagine that you edit by the property inspector the TClientDataSet component from one module that refers to the TDataSource component from another module. Since the property inspector can edit linked data source component properties (by expanding DataSource property) it is important that as a result of such modification a second module will receive the notification, but not the first one.
• All design pack controls are now closely oriented to work with designer. So, EditorWindows has been removed from all controls except the TLMDDesigner. All other controls will automatically search for the appropriate designer in cases when the editor window manager is required. There are no connection to service provider required, because it is always possible to map editing control to its module (designer).
• New TLMDModule.OnGetLoadingCompRef event added to allow to dynamically load modules in the presence of inter module component links. The Vcl allows to do this only starting from Delphi2005, so this event is not available in Delphi 7.

In release 4 many features requested by customers were added, e.g.:

• Unicode support for NT-based systems!
• Support for Frames and Frame children - including saving/loading roots with frame-copies and inherited from base-frame event handlers. Most notable feature is capability to load forms with frames at run-time without creation of dummy frame instances.
• Alignment lines support for design areas - helpful feature to align controls when they are moved or sized (even possible when controls are inserted).
• The Designer control supports now saving/restoring of Lock state.
• Component captions for non-visual controls
• The designer supports transparenting (grouping) of controls. to handle compound controls as single object (which can be moved/resized/deleted).
• The TLMDServiceProvider component represent services architecture for simplifying development of extensible applications.
• And other minor new helpful additions like predefined form for representing the structure of a design module or integration code for LMD IDE-Tools support. E.g. designer, property inspector and component tree components now have the ability to display useful default popup menus. Also they can just link popup menu components by adding default items automatically. This feature is used to fill popup menu with Delphi like component editor verbs in designer and component tree.
• Combined helpfile for all IDE-Tools packages (IDE Integration package, Designpack, ScriptPack and SyntaxEdit).

In release 3 many features requested by customers were added, e.g.:

• New TLMDDesignObjects collection component. Greatly simplifies interoperation between different DesignPack components in Delphi db-aware like style.
• New TLMDModule component. Some module-related utilities and events were moved from other DesignPack components to the TLMDModule component. It actually implements all required functionality for event support and enhanced streaming. It is designed to be used not only while designing, but also at runtime e.g. for loading of forms and hooking runtime event handlers.
• True Event support. Includes ability to work with events in property inspector, to store/load event handler references in *.dfm file in Delphi style. So, text DFMs also can be used to store forms with event handlers. Design pack relies on external source code utilities for managing event handler source code. Also external runtime event handler hooking mechanism is expected (for example from scripting library). LMD ScriptPack was prepared for working with DesignPack smoothly!
• Property names translation was implemented in TLMDPropertyInspector control (OnTranslateProp event).
• Collection and Menudesigner property editors were added.

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DesignPack: Updating existing projects to DesignPack 2016
Main changes  in DesignPack 3 and later were caused by the new event and language/scripting host support. Functionality which was previously included in TLMDDesigner or TLMDPropertyInspector was sourced out to new TLMDModule and TLMDDesignObjects controls. Unfortunately some code created with DesignPack 1 or 2 will be broken because of the drastic internal changes, so please back up your projects before using DesignPack 4! However these changes are usually caused by the fact, that e.g. certain methods or events are low located in a different control. Also please refer to updated demonstration projects, where all changes were done as well. Usually following changes are required:

• For any used TLMDDesigner component you must also place a TLMDModule component on the form and connect it to the designer (via Module property). Then place TLMDDesignObjects component, name it "Selection". Connect it to designer Selection property. Optionally, you can place another one TLMDDesignObjects component and connect it to AllComps designer property.
• Please note that DesignControl property no longer exists. Check out description of Root property in TLMDModule and read topic Designable Surface - Root control in DesignPack Guide.
• If you don't use TLMDDesignManager and all synchronization tasks were performed manually: Remove corresponding code from the project. Now it is only required to share Selection or AllComps (e.g. between TLMDPropertyInspector and TLMDObjectComboBox).
• If you use property inspector with the designer (and don't use design manager), connect also corresponding module (TLMDModule component) to TLMDPropertyInspector.
• If you use design manager, it will automatically connects required TLMDDesignObjects components to specified property-inspector and object-combo-box (when specific TLMDDesigner is activated).
• Since some methods and events were moved to TLMDModule component, you should change the code accordingly and also reassign event handlers.

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ScriptPack: Introduction
Thank you for using LMD ScriptPack! LMD ScriptPack adds fully functional support of Windows Scripting Host engine to your Delphi/CBuilder application.
TLMDScriptControl allows to run scripts from within your application and to share any application object with script interpreter engine. In addition it allows you to completely manage application objects within script, including operating with public properties, running methods, setting script procedures as event handlers etc. LMD ScriptPack represents also an easy way to make your application extendable by external scripts - so there is no need to edit source code (or rebuild projects) to change and/or enhance its functionality.

Major Update with Release 6.0!

• New PascalScript Language support added. Unlike the previously MS ActiveScripting based languages this is a 100% native VCL implementation without need of external dlls. The PascalScript engine includes an optimized byte code compiler and very fast interpreter.
  The PascalScript language is a dynamic Variant based script language that supports most of the Delphi Pascal expressions and statements like
  • procedure/function declarations
  • const/var/out parameters
  • global/local variables and constants.
  • Extended support of exception handling, e.g. raise, try-except and try-finally statements; real Delphi exceptions are raised internally that allow to test an exception class in handler, e.g. on E: EZeroDivide do.
  • The PascalScript CodeObject engine implements a secret interface (in addition to IDispatch) that allows very fast interoperations between connected script controls. Besides that execption processing can be made transparent between connected script controls.
  • Native script operators such as 'is', 'in', '@' and set constructors, e.g. [akLeft,akTop] allow to work with imported Delphi objects, instead of provided to ActiveX scripts special functions (e.g. SetMake, SetEmpty, ClassIs, EventMake, ect.). Like for the ActiveScripting based languages import units of your Pascal units can be created. Import units for the VCL are shipped with each copy of ScriptPack.#+
• New three step initialization of ScriptPack Control. Besides Prepare, Open and Close methods a State property was added. In addition the new 'Prepared' intermediate state was introduced. In this state all source code is already parsed, but no global code is executed yet (CodeObject is already acessible in this state). This new feature allows circular dependencies between script controls even in case when global code is used (hence handling several scripts at the same time is simplified enormously). In simple cases a call to Prepare method can be ommitted. Finally the ACloseOnRuntimeError parameter was added to the Open method to allow leaving script control opened in the case that runtime errors occured during global code execution.
New exception handling replaces Last ScriptError concept. Script control includes now the encoded source (reference to script control), error line and position information in exception messages (e.g. in string form). The LMDDecodeErrorMessageInfo procedure allows to decode this information for advanced applications.
New optimized Delphi memory manager proxy allows to detect finalized object destructions. E.g. all subsequent access to IDispatch object wrapper will report 'Object has been destroyed' exceptions instead of unsafe Access Violations. This feauture is especially used by working with exceptions in PascalScript, because exception objects are automatically destroyed by the interpreter.
• New prepared expressions/statements feature was added to optimize Eval and ExecuteStatement methods. If the same expression/statement need to be executed many times then it is more efficient to Prepare it first and then use Eval and ExecuteStatement overloadeds methods that take prepared objects as parameters. Note: Most speed gain will be seen in native PascalScript implementation, because all other ActiveX script implementations do not support this feature internally.