XMLMapper

 No Responses »
May 182004
 

I don’t get it. Just as a practice, and for personal use, I want to create a simple Syndicator (RSS-Reader). To keep it simple, I downloaded the sample RSS 2.0 file, and started XMLMapper. I selected all fields and created the toDp.xtr. Next I reversed the transformation and created toXML.xtr.

On an empty form, I put a TXMLTransformProvider, a TClientDataset, a TDataSource and a TDBGrid. All nicely linked together, and the TXMLTransformProvider gets the properties toDp.xtr, toXML.xtr and SampleRSS20.xml.

When I try to activate the CDS, Delphi (6) hangs. Only CTRL-ALT-DEL will get me out of Delphi.

When I create toDp and toXML based on clinics.xml, things work great. I can’t see what’s the difference, except that an RSS-2.0-file is a more complicated/nested XML-file.

 Posted by at 00:36

SuSE 9.1 Pro

 2 Responses »
May 152004
 

If you’re still wondering what Linux distro to choose, I’d say: go for SuSE. I am a SuSE user since 6.0, and must say that it has become a smoother install every time. This 9.1 Pro does take a long time to install on my dual PPro-200 machines, so after the first CD (more than 2 hours installation) I just powered-down the system with the powerbutton (no shutdown!). That was yesterday. When I turned the system back on today, the installation just went on where it left of. Ain’t life great? Now try that with one of Bill’s products.

What I like about this new version (I hear that it is with more newer distro’s) is the automatic detection of devices, like we got used to with Windows. Not only are they detected, they’re configured properly as well. And reconfiguring just takes a little waiting for sysconfig (or whatever) to finish, no rebooting whatsoever.

If I find the time tomorrow, I’ll try to get Mono up and running to serve ASP.NET. Now where’s that Kylix CD I had lying around?

 Posted by at 23:57

WPTools

 No Responses »
May 142004
 

Yesterday I installed the trial version of WPTools for Delphi 6. Dudez, this thing rocks! By dropping 4 (yes, four) of their components on a frame, you more or less have a full-blown Wordprocessor (not only a text-editor). Fonts, alignments, rulers, images, tables, whatever, it’s there.

The native format of the edit-component is RTF, but by including WPWordConv in the uses-clause, the open-file-dialog lists all the file-formats that you have installed on your PC. So you cannot build a Word replacement if you don’t have Word installed (since it needs the Word DLL’s to convert to RTF).

Apart from this tiny drawback, this thing rocks! Oh, I already mentioned that.

I will be using this component in a tool I’m writing for a client that uses an application that generates RTF-reports/documents based on templates. But TRichView that I used, can’t handle the header and footer properly (the header contains a table and an image, which I think is not so special) and it does something to the gridlines of a table. In the application, they can view the generated RTF-file, but they requested that they could edit it as well, so they wouldn’t have to switch to the full-blown application everytime. Because of the quirks of TRichView, I created a button to start MS Word to edit the document. But if I give them the new version with the WPTools components, they will never have to use Word again. Great!

 Posted by at 09:12

Office Component Suite?

 No Responses »
May 122004
 

Please have a look at these components. When I look at the sample Delphi code found in the FAQ, I can’t help but thinking: why is this company selling something that’s already present in Delphi? Why do we need a Word or an Excel component? It’s already there in the “Servers” tab. Geez…

What I was looking for was something in the line of RichView (that I have licensed). RichView doesn’t handle headers and footers in RTF/Word documents very well, so I was looking for something else. WPTools seems to do the trick very well, but being a small company, €225 is a lot of money if you don’t know if it will pay for itself. Especially since I already bought TRichView.

Any comments?

 Posted by at 16:42

InterBase vs MySQL

 1 Response »
May 122004
 

Nick blogs about InterBase. He’s fond of it. And so should you be, according to Nick. He points to an article by Bill Todd that compares InterBase 7.1 to MySQL. Of course InterBase is the winner in the article, but in the comparison of features the PRICE of Borland’s InterBase is left out of the equation. MySQL costs next to nothing: a pro-license is US$440. Interbase has more features (the comparison was done right) but it is licensed on a per-user basis. Unlimited users will cost you about US$4000. If you want to start small, say 20 users, it will still cost you about US$2000. MySQL + online backup option (price taken from the article) ~= 440 + 1150 = 1590.

How about putting that into the equation guys??? Lot’s of people choosing MySQL do that because they don’t need a hot-backup and they want to use a fast RDBMS for free. Since you don’t HAVE to buy a pro license. With InterBase you MUST buy a license.

 Posted by at 11:14

Delphi 7 to Delphi 8 for .NET

 No Responses »
May 092004
 

If you’re planning in migrating your Delphi 7 project to Delphi 8 for .NET, you should consider reading this page, as it lists all Delphi 7 components and what .NET-assembly you could/should use. The comparison is completed by Visual Studio .NET components and how they relate to Delphi.

 Posted by at 22:05

Convert C# to Delphi

 No Responses »
May 092004
 

John Kaster has another brilliant article about BabelCode, a webservice that converts C# code to Delphi code. It is not 100% there yet, but a lot of code can be converted already.

At least this makes it simpler to recreate all the samples found on the internet with Delphi.

 Posted by at 14:32
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