Understanding how a given Feature is used is important before undertaking the rewrite, to know how your going to impact your user base.
The case I am going to point out today is the difference between the Delphi 2007 and XE find text mechanism. The XE version changes are frustrating at best. Do see what I am talking about
do the following in both IDE's.
- File| New VCL Application
- File| New Form (So you have two blank forms open)
- Navigate to the code of one of the forms
- Ctrl-Home (Move to top of unit)
- Ctrl-F (Delphi 2007 Dialog - Delphi XE it's at the bottom)
- Enter "Form" as the search word
- Press Enter (First Match is found in uses)
- Press F3 (Second Match Found)
- Press Ctrl-Home (Go back to top of document)
- Steps change from here on out....
- Delphi 2007
- Press F3 (Finds First Match Again)
- Change to second unit's source code
- Ctrl-Home
- Press F3 (Finds First Match in 2nd Unit)
- Delphi XE
- Press F3 (Nothing happens, Argh the search window says "Form" nothing is found. QC: 80696)
- Ctrl-F ( Text changes to "Unit" QC: 92388)
- Retype : "Form"
- Press Enter
- Change to second unit's source code
- Ctrl-Home
- Press F3 (Nothing happens , Argh. Note: The search window at bottom is not visible)
- Ctrl-F ( Text shows "Unit" )
- Retype : "Form"
- Press Enter (Finds First Match in 2nd Unit)
Update: If I restart Delphi and the Press F3 and nothing happens step works. Something is causing it to break just don't know what it is.
It's also bad if you search on a term don't find it and want to use the Find in Files functionality. But, I think I made my point with the steps above.
I have heard the arguments about the new find method being better. Personally I could care less if it's a dialog or at the bottom of the form. The new method is even entered it as bug in QC: 80695
What I do care about, is that the functionality works for me and not against me.
So as evolution occurs in your application, take a moment to realize the use case scenario of the existing functionality. That way you impact your users for the better and not for the worse.
When I first tried the new-style find bar in the D2010 trial, I hated it, but the main bugs for me were fixed in XE - in particular, your 'Press F3 (Nothing happens, Argh)' doesn't happen for me at either of the points it does for you (i.e., I get the D2007 behaviour). I run Delphi using an 'undocked' layout, if that makes any difference.
ReplyDeleteActually I very much like the new search bar but I hate find dialogs popping right into your face.
ReplyDeleteAlso like Chris I cannot reproduce your behaviour (SP1, GExperts, DDevExtensions, IDEFixPack4.1)
I updated with QC numbers.
ReplyDeleteI can reproduce at will. XE -Update 1, GExperts, and CnPack.
ReplyDeleteRestarted Delphi and it works... Something is causing F3 to break.
ReplyDeleteThis happened to me often until I found a solution. My guess is that Delphi's internal search conflicts with CnPack. Try to uncheck "F3/Shift+F3 to search select text" and "Let IDE remember F3/Shift+F3 search text" options in CnPack which can be found under Editor Enhancements group -> Others tab. That worked for me.
ReplyDelete@liquidspehere: Thanks, I had that checked. I could see this being the cause of this. Since, I see the problem almost every day. I will code for few days to see if it comes back.
ReplyDeleteI removed cnPack long ago because it always caused trouble and I don't miss anything from it. Either GExperts, DDevExtensions or Delphi itself (open file in explorer for example finally!) have it. Personally I don't recommend it. Same with Castalia. Just my 2cc.
ReplyDelete