There appears to be an oversight by Embarcadero with the TStyleTag component not being registered for use.

TStyleTag is a handy little component that allows you to add it to a style definition and have it store an Integer, Float or String value. This is used in some of the default styles, one place being the TTrackBar where it is used to hold the default thumb size of the track item.

This allows you to retrieve the thumb size depending on the default style (Windows or Mac) and adjust your user interface depending on the value.

I’ve created a package that your can compile and install into the IDE to register this component.

Download Package

The component doesn’t have to only be used in a style definition, you can drop it directly on your form if you have a use for its functionality.

NOTE: While the component is used in the default Windows and Mac styles, it doesn’t seem to be used in the other FireMonkey styles. Although I did only look in a couple of them. Perhaps something that will be address in an update.

XE3 Plus Pack is now available for download.

This version supports XE3 and includes a new expert (detailed below), some minor enhancements plus some fixes.

- New expert called Watch Property Groups.

- The Bookmark Guide expert now defaults to suppressing editor bookmarks and aligning to the left of the editor.

- When displaying Options, the Visual Forms window is no longer displayed when not visible.

- When returning from viewing a form as text and there are errors treaming in the form an exception dialog would display repeatedly.

- Support Visual Forms captures for FireMonkey projects (the underlying structure of the form designer changed between XE2 and XE3).

- Logging Visual Forms messages would raise an exception on shutdown when the message view was not visible.

- Fix issue with Bookmark Guide not displaying when loading the IDE with no project.

- New command to automatically jump to the Library Paths options page. Add it to the IDE by customizing a toolbar.

Download

Download the 30 day trial – XE3 Plus Pack Trial Download

XE2 Plus Pack users

XE2 Plus Pack registration details also work with XE3 Plus Pack. Therefore there is no need to purchase XE3 Plus Pack if you are an existing XE2 Plus Pack customer.

Pricing change

The price for XE3 Plus Pack is still only 40 Euros and now includes a lifetime license. This change also applies to existing XE and XE2 Plus Pack holders.

Watch Property Groups

The Watch Property Group expert allows you to group a number of properties you generally watch for a specific object type and adds them all to the Watch List with a click of a button.

Steps Involved

1. Define your property group
2. Highlight the object instance in the code editor and display the Watch Property Group window. The default shortcut is Ctrl+Shift+W.
3. Highlight the desired watch group to use and press enter (or the first toolbar button) in the Watch Property Group dialog to add a watch for each property in the defined group.

The Watch Property Group window can be docked in the IDE and saved to your debug layout so it is always where you want it.

Additional Information available in the online help guide: http://www.jed-software.com/help/WatchPropertyGroup/WatchPropertyGroup.html

A new release of XE Plus Pack is now available to download.

For Delphi XE – http://www.jed-software.com/files/XEPlusPackTrial.zip

For Delphi XE2 – http://www.jed-software.com/files/XE2PlusPackTrial.zip

NOTE: Update 4 must be installed for the Delphi XE2 version.

Available Experts

XE Plus Pack is a collection of IDE Experts, component editors and property editors available for either Delphi XE or Delphi XE2.

Currently XE Plus Pack consists of eight experts:

1. Visual Forms (previously available as a separate product)
2. Activate Project
3. File Actions
4. Remember IDE Tree Options
5. Find Bar Alignment
6. New Code Template
7. Bookmark Guide (new in Release 6)
8. Resolution Selector (new in Release 6)
9. Mouse Scroll Form Designer (new in Release 8 )
10. Structure Pane Enhancements (new in Release 8 )
11. Help Shutdown (shutdown DExplorer.exe on IDE shutdown) (new in Release 8 )

Mouse Scroll Form Designer

When the designed form gets too large to fit within the bounds of the embedded form designer, simply use the mouse wheel to scroll the hidden portion of the form into view.

• This feature supports vertical and horizontal scrolling.
• Hold down the control key to scroll horizontally if your mouse only supports vertical scrolling.

NOTE: In XE2, this expert doesn’t always work correctly with the FireMonkey designer. The FireMonkey designer doesn’t play very nice with the IDE and has a number of quirks and inconsistencies. I will continue to investigate making this work nicely in future releases.

Structure Pane Enhancements

This expert has been totally driven by an XE Plus Pack user and would prove especially helpful for other users that use the Floating Form designer layout. This experts helps fix a number of deficencies when dealing with using the structure pane with the floating form designer.

• Add an editor shortcut key combination to collapse the content of the structure pane.
• Optionally make the structure pane the active window after the collapse has occurred.
• Collapse the structure pane when navigating between source code editors.
• (IDE BUG FIX) When using the floating form designer, make sure the source editor structure view is available when moving between the designed form and the source editor for the form.

Help Shutdown

Makes sure the help system is shutdown when the IDE is closed. All instances of “dexplore.exe” are terminated.

What’s coming up

Release 9

1. Options Import/Export utility.
2. Path property editor for FireMonkey

Expected release date – July/August 2012

Release 10

Two new experts will be introduced.

1. Smart Desktops
2. Watch Property Groups

Expected release date – August/September 2012.

Disclaimer: Dates and features mentioned for upcoming versions may change.

A new version of JSDialog Pack is now available to registered users with valid maintenance. If you haven’t received an email with the latest version – please contact me.

Highlighted Additions

This new version includes support for updated progress bar usage on the task bar under Windows 7.

New ShowOnTaskBar property

Also included are new wrapper methods:

• New overloaded version of VerifyMessage to support footers. (Declared in JSDialogs.pas)
• New InputQueryVerification method which displays an input query style dialog with the verification checkbox visible. (Declared in JSEditDialogs.pas)
• Also it is now possible to use your custom TJSEditDialog descendant for use in the edit dialog wrapper methods. Just set the new JSEditDialogClass variable in the JSEdtiDialog.pas unit to your new descendant.

Change Log

• Add ability to display progress on the task bar under Windows 7
• Fix memory management issue with non-modal dialogs
• Fix unique name clashes
• Support retrieving a button on the dialog by using its expected result value
• Make sure dialog is updated when the glyph property is changed
• Make sure using the SetProgressState method to change the state of the progress bar updates the progress bar in the dialog and also on the task bar
• Change the UpdateProgress methods to functions that return the current value of the progress bar after being updated
• Improve color usage in custom styled applications
• New overload of the VerifyMessage wrapper method to allow setting footer information
• Allow setting of the EditValue property in TJSEditDialog descendants
• New event OnSetEditValue for TJSEditDialog descendants
• Support opening files (prefix content location with “file” instead of “http“) when using the EditType of etHTML
• New wrapper method InputQueryVerification that displays an InputQuery dialog with a checkbox on it
• Allow specifying a default TJSEditDialog class to be used when invoking one of the TJSEditDialog wrapper methods. Set the JSEditDialogClass variable to change the default class.

A tool to help make the creation of JSDialog Pack dialogs even easier is currently in the works. With the Dialog Creator application you can complete the sections you want the dialog to support. Once finished you can instantly preview the final look and then either copy the code required to generate the dialog, or copy the dfm required to paste it directly on a form.

To prove it is currently being tested, the code generation should probably call the method that actually displays the dialog!

The initial release will just support the creation of TJSDialog dialogs, with other dialog (Edit, Dual Edit [new in next release], Password and Check) support to be added in the future. As well as other code generation features and also a reusable gallery that contains the ability to save and load regularly used dialogs.

A new version of JSDialog Pack is almost ready to be released, hopefully sometime next week.

JSDialog Pack users get a 50% discount off the initial XE Plus Pack purchase, making it just 20 Euros! Contact support for details.

XEPP Release 2 is now available. Refer to the previous blog post for the included features – http://www.jed-software.com/blog/?p=447

Download the trial version – http://www.jed-software.com/files/XEPlusPackTrial.zip

Existing users can just install the new trial version to get the new features. You don’t have to register again.

A minor update to XE Plus Pack is currently being tested.

This update includes the following:

• [Update] Adds the Execute and Execute as Admin commands to the File Actions Project Manager context menu. Handy for those batch files included in your projects.
• [NEW] Ability to save the Options treeview state between executions and IDE sessions. By default, only the Environment node is expanded.
• Some internal tweaks to better support upcoming features.

When the trial is ready for downloading, you’ll hear it first!

What’s coming up

Export / Import and Reset IDE Options

Looking something like this at the moment (screens may change before release).

Third Parties

If you like to have you options exportable, please contact me.

The exporting isn’t limited to just registry settings, but can include specific files (or file sets) as well as entire folders. Files and Folders can be dynamically located.

I’m getting very close to releasing a new product called XE Plus Pack.

This product will include a number of experts that I’ve been personally using. Some for a number of years and some very new. Ultimately the idea behind the XE Plus Pack is that it will continue to grow over time to include new Experts, Property Editors, Component Editors and Utilities for newer IDE versions.

The first release will cover Delphi XE.

While the sneak peak shows five experts listed in the new JED Software Third Party Options section, only four will be released initially. The fifth (Bookmark Guide) still needs to bake a little bit before being released.

XE Plus Pack will sell for 40 Euros (50% discount for JSDialog Pack users and Free for current Visual Forms users). Yearly renewal of 20 Euros applies for updates and to receive newer experts. Users will have the opportunity to vote for which expert gets released next (I have an extensive list earmarked for the product).

Initially XE Plus Pack will include:

• Visual Forms
• Activate Project
• File Actions
• Code Template Wizard

Upcoming items that will be included with this product:

• (Expert) Bookmark Guide
• (Expert/Utility) Revamped Delphi Configuration Manager
• (Utility) Enhanced Configuration Launcher
• (Utility/Expert) Extensive IDE Options import/export application that can run from removable media
• (Utility) Client DataSet Editor – developed while creating QC Plus

NOTE: Some utilities won’t be limited to Delphi XE IDE versions.

I will be doing some videos to introduce the collection and specific functionality.

XE Plus Pack - Options Integration

A new feature introduced in Delphi 2005, automatically synchronised the project managers selection to the current editor file.

Unfortunately, this feature can get a little annoying.

Rad Studio 2007 (and other 2007 versions)