[fpc-pascal] New to the list; Lots of startup questions

Marco van de Voort marcov at stack.nl
Sun Oct 9 10:45:46 CEST 2005


> My main problem getting started with FPC has been general logistics 
> operating in a Windows environment.  I have an icon to open FPC on my 
> desktop.  If I have the programs I am working on in various directories 
> called c:\project1, c:\project2, etc., how do I configure the 
> Options/Directories to look for things in the right places and put 
> compiled code in the right places?  Do I need separate icons to open FPC 
> for each working directory?

If you use a systematic directory layout, try adding global search paths
as absolutes and directories inside your project dirs as relative paths.
 
> Where would I read to start learning about producing GUI output?

Lazarus is GUI, cross platform Delphi style. Drag and drop a button, double
click it, fill the code what you want executed.

> Is there still the distinction between text and graphics modes as in the
> Turbo Pascal days?

Console and GUI now. This is not only console and GUI but also between
normal and event driven (though TV textmode programs are closer to the GUI
model then to console IMHO)

> Do I need to read up on Delphi to be able to use GUI features in FPC, or
> are there tutorials for FPC that would get me there directly?

Yes, definitely. Simply use Delphi tutorials to get a feel. Lazarus is 
similar enough to benefit from that.

Nearly everything by Marco Cantu is good, he has a bunch of free ebooks on
his site you can start with, and if you can pick up one of his "Mastering
Delphi" series books in a dump it is also nice. IIRC they are not even
terribly expensive new.

Those are more tutorial like. For more deep knowledge consult delphi manuals
and of course the language description part of the quite fine FPC
documentation itself.



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