We are planning the next release: Lazarus 2.0.8

[Martin_fr]

The Lazarus team has scheduled

      Lazarus 2.0.8
      for April 2020 (estimated 14th to 20th)

      This release will be built with FPC 3.0.4.

Here is the list of fixes for Lazarus 2.0.8 (since 2.0.0):
http://wiki.freepascal.org/Lazarus_2.0_fixes_branch


We would invite everyone to provide their feedback to help us improve
this upcoming release. Please let as know in particular:
- Any bug-fixes already made to trunk, that you believe should still be
  merged to the fixes branch (fixes that are not listed on the above wiki page)
- Any regressions that happened in fixes branch since the release of 2.0
- Other urgent matters, you believe we should know before the release.

Please attempt to provide your feedback by: 9th April 2020


More info on our release process can be found at (work in progress):
http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Lazarus_release_engineering

Information about the previous release:
http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Lazarus_2.0.0_release_notes
http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/User_Changes_3.0.4


The intended minimum requirements for the release will be:

Windows:
   2k(*), XP(*), Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 and 10, 32 or 64bit.

FreeBSD/Linux:
   gtk 2.8 for gtk2, qt4.5 for qt, qt5.6 for qt5, 32 or 64bit.

macOS:
   10.5 to 10.12; Carbon (32bit), Cocoa (64bit, beta), qt and qt5
   (32 or 64bit).


(*) requires install from sources

[eljo]

just a quick question is the help still broken?

[Martin_fr]

just a quick question is the help still broken?

Is/Was there a bug report about it?

[eljo]

just a quick question is the help still broken?

Is/Was there a bug report about it?

I have no idea. I'm not that a frequent user.

[Martin_fr]

Deleted off topic comments

[Martin_fr]

just a quick question is the help still broken?

Is/Was there a bug report about it?

I have no idea. I'm not that a frequent user.

Well, I was not aware that it is/was broken. Nor in which way it is/was broken.
Neither do I know if any other Developer knows.

So where/how does it go wrong? On what OS?

[eljo]

really its so obvious its painful non the less here are the steps to recreate the problem

Start a new project
On the form that was auto created for you add a method name it test or something
add a variable on the body of the test procedure of type TSQLQuery;
so the code should now look like this

Code: Pascal  [Select][+][-]

1. procedure TForm1.Test;
2. var
3.  
4.   Qry :TSQLQuery;
5.  
6. begin
7.   qry := TSQLQuery.create() ;
8.   try
9.  
10.   finally
11.     Qry.Free;
12.   end;
13. end;
14.  

place the cursor  somewhere on the TSQLQuery word and press F1.
In my installation I get a message  (copy-paste from my current test)

[Window Title]
No help found for this topic

[Content]
No help found for "unit1.pas" at (34,14)

[Cancel]

version info as copied from the about box.
  Lazarus 2.0.4 r61665 FPC 3.0.4 i386-win32-win32/win64

that's it, the search does not work it comes up empty.

[wp]

I confirm this behaviour with Laz trunk. But once the corresponding unit (sqldb) is listed in "uses", it works as expected. Same with ancient Laz 1.6.4. My feeling is that help never worked as you are expecting (although it would be reasonable).

[eljo]

I confirm this behaviour with Laz trunk. But once the corresponding unit (sqldb) is listed in "uses", it works as expected. Same with ancient Laz 1.6.4. My feeling is that help never worked as you are expecting (although it would be reasonable).

No it worked at some point, I remember using it to find out which unit to add to the uses clause on my units. if you say that 1.6.8 has the same behavior then I guess I remember it from 1.4 or older. Can I be wrong though and remember some other IDE? I'm certain it was pascal. Oh well, at least now you are aware.

[Martin_fr]

Does your project compile? Do you have "sqldb" in the uses clause?

I did some tests:
- If I add your code, but do not add "uses sqldb", then I do get the error.
- If I add "uses sqldb" then it works.

Unfortunately I am not the one who maintains the help system, and I do not know how it is designed.

There could be many TSqlQuery in different units.
So if the IDE can not detect (from the uses clause, and from parsing the code in your unit), where TSqlQuery is defined, then I have no idea what it is designed to do.

Ideally it should give a list of all help topics for the highlighted word.
I do not know if that is implemented.

IMHO, it should be reported in our bug tracker.

If you need to find what unit to add to your uses: https://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Lazarus_IDE_Tools#Unit_.2F_Identifier_Dictionary_.28Cody.29
(though there was some trick needed, to scan and create the dictionary)

If you have queries on this, best to open a new forum thread, with a matching subject, so people who know will see it.

[Martin_fr]

No it worked at some point, I remember using it to find out which unit to add to the uses clause on my units. if you say that 1.6.8 has the same behavior then I guess I remember it from 1.4 or older. Can I be wrong though and remember some other IDE? I'm certain it was pascal. Oh well, at least now you are aware.

Only if someone adds it to the bug tracker.

[wp]

I remember using it to find out which unit to add to the uses clause on my units.

Just OT: If you want to add a component at runtime and do not know which unit to add, simply add that component to the form at designtime and then delete the component again. The IDE adds the unit to the uses list and keeps it there even if the component does not exist any more..

[dbannon]

No it worked at some point, I remember using it to find out which unit to add to the uses clause on my units. if you say that 1.6.8 has the same behavior then I guess I remember it from 1.4 or older. Can I be wrong though and remember some other IDE? I'm certain it was pascal. Oh well, at least now you are aware.

Eljo, I wonder if you are thing of the "Show Unit, Identifier Dictionary" ?  Its great when you want to know what unit needs to be included.  However, it maintains its own database and needs to learn where things that you use are.  But I sure recommend it.

Hmm, maybe you need to install 'cody' package, then you will find it under the 'Source' menu.

Davo

[ASerge]

- Any bug-fixes already made to trunk, that you believe should still be
  merged to the fixes branch (fixes that are not listed on the above wiki page)

Already resolved from the bug list:
34759,
35465,
35466,
35696,
35173,
35512,
35694,
35467.
It is strange that many patches wait for years and are not applied. Why make them at all?

[marcov]

I tested a bit, and it seems nowadays LHelp only opens the relevant CHM instead of all CHMs in the tree.

The old trick of just entering lhelp and searching thus doesn't work anymore (since it is now localized to the opened CHM. Before this was a tree of CHMs and this used to work).

Moreover very weird, if you close lhelp, you see the other help files flashing, so they are still loaded but in hidden other windows? But this hack kills the overall index.