newbie question: moving projects to different folders

[dieselnutjob]

With Delphi I'm used to having my project and units in a folder on my PC, and when I have something working, I might copy the entire folder, and then open the project in the new folder, and leave the old working project alone.  Then if decide I'm on the wrong track I'll just revert back, or even pursue two approaches at the same time and see which works best...

This doesn't seem to work with Lazarus (I'm on XP).  When I copy everything to the new folder I can open it, but on opening it seems to try to save somewhere else (maybe the old folder?) and I find that when I compile code I get an "invisible" exe (it runs but you can't see it) and when I "stop" the code the form and the object inspector disappears as well.  I have found it impossible to recover from this situation other than starting a new project and starting all over again.

Also I have found it difficult to copy a project from one PC to another.  I know about the "publish project" but it doesn't seem to help.

What's the secret to moving between projects on different folders?  opening an imported project without trashing the old one?  Why do I get invisible executables?

thanks

[Phil]

This doesn't seem to work with Lazarus (I'm on XP).  When I copy ...

That does sound odd. I zip up folders and move them to other computers (Windows -> OS X, for example) all the time and haven't seen this problem.

I assume you're using the current stable Lazarus 0.9.26 with FPC 2.2.2, correct?

Not sure what to suggest. If you can reproduce either of these problems in a small example project, please zip up the files and post it along with a bug report on Mantis (see Bug Tracking at left).

Thanks.

-Phil

[dieselnutjob]

try this
start up Lazarus
open a project
select "Close all editor files"
select Quit

lazarus will respond "Save changes to project project1?" Save/Discard/Do not close

what exactly is Lazarus trying to save? I already closed everything, and I didn't actually change the project

I'm running v0.9.26 beta on XP

[Phil]

try this
start up Lazarus
open a project
select "Close all editor files"
select Quit

lazarus will respond "Save changes to project project1?" Save/Discard/Do not close

what exactly is Lazarus trying to save? I already closed everything, and I didn't actually change the project

Maybe what's happening is that you've made a change to the project when you closed all files and it's asking you if you want to save the current closed state.

There does seem to be a bug if you select Discard - Lazarus saves the .lpi project file anyway.

Please log one or both of these issues on Mantis. That should at least get further clarification.

Note that I never use the "Close all editor files". Lazarus doesn't have the equivalent of Delphi's Close All, which closes the entire project. You can simulate that if you're not comfortable just shutting down Lazarus by choosing File | New | Application - that will close everything in the currently open project.

Also, in Environment Options, you can uncheck "Open last project at start" if you don't want Lazarus always opening up one of your projects when it starts up. I always found that fairly annoying. Instead it will create a blank new project.

Thanks.

-Phil

[dieselnutjob]

issues reported here
http://mantis.freepascal.org/view.php?id=12633
and here
http://mantis.freepascal.org/view.php?id=12634