DeleD Community Edition

[JuhaManninen]

Hi

I have used DeleD as a test case for the Delphi converter in Lazarus. We even used it to stress test and optimise the editor's handling of many open files (> 400). Good test case!

The converter still does rather primitive changes to a project. It replaces some used unit names, adds some IFDEFs, replaces non-existent components with fall-back components, replaces some called func names, ... etc.
but it does not currently do any deeper code analysis.

The real porting is a manual task.
I have not seriously tried making DeleD compile with Lazarus but I would like to try it some day.

There are some issues which could be fixed already before any conversion:

- many of the subdirectories are actually external libraries that should not be included in DeleD source tree. At least FastMM, Gr32, PascalScript and SynEdit are such libraries. They are all ported to Lazarus except for FastMM which is not needed.
You can of course offer those libraries for download on DeleD site but they should be separate packages.

- Cross-platform OpenGL is not compatible with Windows OpenGL.
I asked about it on a mailing list and a person with OpenGL knowledge gave some replacement funcs and types. Fonts seem to be difficult. From the mail:
---
> wglUseFontBitmaps
> wglUseFontOutlines
Not available on other platforms. Can not be ported. You need to emulate these functions (with freetype you should be able to code a multi platform solution). Better replace them with a different text-output function. (Not that easy)
---

The problem is that I know nothing about OpenGL programming.
Someone else should solve the OpenGL issues.

Regards,
Juha Manninen

[chronozphere]

wow. It's great to see someone working on a lazarus port of DeleD.

Maybe I could help out in the future. Right now, I'm having trouble coping with my own projects. It would be really interesting to see DeleD running on other platforms aswell. It might be a starting point, where we could attract new developers and start to gradually refactor the codebase, add new features etc..

Please keep us posted! And keep up the good work!

[JuhaManninen]

I didn't do anything for DeleD, not yet anyway.
I am thinking if it's realistic to try to port it.
I could do something but not everything. As I mentioned I don't know much about OpenGL programming (although I can learn some).
I am also not good using these graphics programs but I enjoy their results and the programming challenges.

If other people can participate then it makes sense to create a new SVN branch for Lazarus port. It requires many changes and will not be usable for long time anyway. Creating a branch does not imply any big decisions about DeleD future. If it becomes good then it lives and maybe replaces the old main branch. If it flops then it dies, no harm done.

What is the purpose of having the local versions of FastMM, Gr32, PascalScript and SynEdit (and OpenGL)? Do they differ so much from the "official" versions?
Supporting both Delphi and Lazarus with the same code base is difficult with those libs in the source. It may be difficult anyway due to differences in APIs.
A realistic option is to make a Lazarus-only version and add Delphi-support back later if needed.

Juha

[Jeroen]

Question is: what is the real benefit of porting to Lazarus? Don't just port because its a nice programming challenge. If you need a challenge, there are more than enough areas within DeleD itself that need attention.

However, perhaps we can attract more developers if DeleD is Lazarus-based. Lazarus is free, so that might be an important reason for people to prefer Lazarus over Delphi, but I don't know that for sure.

Is there any way to figure out if Lazarus is good for DeleD? As in, can we figure out if multiple developers would be interested in working on DeleD if DeleD can be build using Lazarus?
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[JuhaManninen]

[chronozphere]