Problems installing design time package in Lazarus 4.0 RC1

[carl_caulkett]

One of the things I discovered while digging around 4.0rc1 was that there is an option in Settings -> Environment -> IDE Startup -> Initial Checks whereby if you check "Quickcheck Fppkg configuration at start" you get the intial dialog where you can select various options. Great, I thought, I'll do that in 3.99 and at least I'll have a working environment with docked forms. Not so! Lazarus refused to honour this setting... Grrrgh 

Is there any other way of invoking this IDE Startup option?

I had a dig around and found this the lazarusfppkg.pas project in /Applications/Lazarus_aarch64/lazarus/components/fppkg/standalone and tried to build it. I managed to get round the first stumbling block by adding ../../buildintf to the Paths setting in Project Options, but now it's falling over on these lines...

Code: Pascal  [Select][+][-]

1. procedure TFppkgForm.LoadFppkgConfiguration;
2. var
3.   i: Integer;
4. begin
5.    FFPpkg.InitializeGlobalOptions(IDEEnvironmentOptions.GetParsedFppkgConfig);  // <== Cannot find IDEEnvironmentOptions
6.  
7.   FFPpkg.Options.GlobalSection.Downloader := 'FPC';
8.  
9.  

I thought that IDEEnvironmentOptions might be a unit where GetParsedFppkgConfig is defined, but no, it seems to be a global variable! On searching for IDEEnvironmentOptions := I found an entry in /Applications/Lazarus_aarch64/lazarus/ide/buildmanager.pas but it's late and am too tired to work out how to get a working reference to it. I know you've mentioned it in the past, @Davo, so any clues would be really welcome

[Martin_fr]

About the importance of the the automatic restart...

"automatic" isn't important. "restart" is.

Mind, that if your original lazarus in installed, then it would/should be in a folder to which your user account has no write rights. I don't know if that is the case in your situation.
That means, when you rebuild, the original Lazarus application could not be replaced => then a new one is created in the PCP (or some subfolder of it). Startlazarus should pick that up, and start the new one (of course startlazarus too, needs the correct PCP for that).

You can check the date of the app/executable. You can also make sure to start the correct one yourself.

Further since you are on Mac, your Lazarus is not just the executable, but an application bundle. Yet everything is tailored at generating an executable file, the rest is decoration. Usually you would have
- the app bundle
- inside the app bundle - where the executable would be MacOS/Content/ - would be a sym-link. To a file that resides in the same folder as the app bundle
- the file to which the symlink goes

That should help you check that a resulting new lazarus was created, and put in the correct place. It should also allow you to manually make sure that you start the correct one.

[Martin_fr]

you can get the setup calling Lazarus with --setup

[Martin_fr]

Make sure you have separate pcp for all your experiments....

There is a possibility to put the
--pcp=somepath

into a file called lazarus.cfg

But on Mac, I am not sure where exactly it needs to be placed. Next to the app bundle, or inside. If it works on Mac....

[carl_caulkett]

you can get the setup calling Lazarus with --setup

Thanks @Martin_fr!

On the Mac you have to do open -a /Applications/Lazarus_aarch64/lazarus/lazarus_aarch64.app --args --setup, which does bring up the startup options, but annoying it doesn't include the facility to choose the Docked vs Non-Docked IDE style.

Ho hum... I guess I'm going to have to wait for the problem to be fixed, as I'm reasonably certain that I have exhausted the possibilities of it being something daft that I have done, though it's always a possibility...

[Martin_fr]

Well docking is still a package. It is no installed by default.
It can still be uninstalled, or due to whatever issue you have not been activated.

[carl_caulkett]

You can check the date of the app/executable. You can also make sure to start the correct one yourself.

I think you may have cracked it @Martin-fr

I'm just trying something now. I'll report back soon!

[carl_caulkett]

I reinstalled Lazarus 4.0rc1 under ~/Applications/Lazarus_4.0 rather than /Applications/Lazarus_4.0 thinking that maybe running under my own user area might be a bit more relaxed about rebuilding the lazarus executable. Indeed now, when I do an IDE rebuild, the lazarus executable is being updated whereas it wasn't before.

However, the test component is still not being added

[carl_caulkett]

Well docking is still a package. It is no installed by default.
It can still be uninstalled, or due to whatever issue you have not been activated.

Unfortunately the Docking package seems pretty much unusable compared to how it behaves in 4.0rc1.