As for my mystical support entity: it need not be anything as formal as a foundation although that would have certain advantages, experience shows it would also have certain disadvantages. No, it could be as simple as the current group of committers with one proviso: someone, whether a committer or not, has to commit to keeping the community at large regularly informed be it via the forums or the wiki in return for the support.
The idea/need for a foundation IIRC arose due to fees or taxes. (Not sure which, I think fees). I.e. receiving money as a donation on a private paypal account meant a hefty deduction by paypal...
(I may remember that incorrectly...)
My targets for next year: fpdebug and synedit. What exactly is still open.
Great. Is there anything that the community of users can do which would help you achieve your targets?
Without wanting to hijack this thread....
If anyone wants to further discuss any/all of the below please open a new thread and link to it. So it will be easier to follow, and not be lost among the other topics in this thread.
On FpDebug: Beta testing. I can't possible test all variation of platform, fpc versions, dwarf versions, and user behaviour when using a debugger.
Code contribution are also welcome. Check if your idea would be acceptable (or otherwise should be an installable add-on package). Discuss where to add your code, and implement it.
There is currently an avr version of fpdebug in the making
https://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,47073.0.htmlBut there are other, simpler things that can be done:
- Extending the Watches and Locals window (maybe including the Inspector and Hint too) => Add a treeview (un)foldable display for structures and arrays
- Allow (re-)sorting of watches (move watch up/down)
- Fix issues, like register window does not keep display settings (set a register to be shown as hex, will revert after each single step)
- more expert: implement an fpdebug-server (useful for Mac users) and/or fpdebug via gdbserver
- .....
SynEdit: contact me if you have an idea. SynEdit has a very specific design (or is in the process of getting there). So add-ons need to adhere to this (or to what it will be).
For example the vertical lines for begin/end (and other) blocks were a contribution by Pascal (username). Though that was a task requiring rather more expertise.
The need for a spell checker would come to mind (medium experience level).