[fpc-pascal] ANN: fpGUI now features a Visual Form Designer

[Graeme Geldenhuys]

Hi,

The fpGUI component library is coming on very nicely. Most used
components have been implement. A few things like a Color Dialog or
Calendar component is still missing, but should arrive shortly.

As of yesterday, the fpGUI framework now also has a standalone Visual
Forms Designer located in the examples directory.  As the name says,
it is just a UI Designer - I'm not interested in creating yet another
IDE. Lazarus works just fine for that.  The designer is still
work-in-progress so there will probably be some bugs floating around,
but so far it is quite usable. Please try it out and report any issue
you come across.

Below are some of the features of the UI Designer.
=======================================

* It uses the same source unit as your normal code. No external GUI files.

* It can handle "unknown" or "custom" components and properties. This
is a cool feature! :)
  Whenever the designer finds a component it doesn't natively know it
paints a green
  rectangle in it's place. Whenever it finds properties it doesn't know it
  adds them "as is" to the Unknown section memo in the Properties window. Any
  code in the Unknown memo will be written back to the source unit "as is".

* The designer can handle more that one form in a unit.

* When creating a new form, that form can be merged into an existing unit or
  the designer can create a new unit for it.

* The designer uses comment markers in the code to define what parts it will
  maintain. Existing code (Forms) can be easily amended (manually by the
  programmer) so that the designer can start managing it. No need to redesign
  Forms from scratch.


fpGUI can be downloaded from it's SubVersion repository on
SourceForge. Visit the fpGUI homepage for more details.
  http://opensoft.homeip.net


Regards,
  - Graeme -