LMD VCL 2024 - News
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LMD 2024 Minor releases: LMD 2024 History
Contents
- 1 General
- 1.1 Support for IDEs and operating systems
- 1.2 Installers
- 1.3 64bit support
- 1.4 Package naming conventions
- 1.5 LMD 2024 DevUtil
- 1.6 NG packages now integrated into LMD VCL line
- 1.7 LMD 2024 Reg Utility
- 1.8 Free access to Git repositories for LMD VCL Complete
- 1.9 New subscription model and new customer area
- 2 Package Changes
- 3 Changes/Enhancements since initial LMD VCL 2022 release
General
Support for IDEs and operating systems
Major change:
- Supports any Delphi/C++Builder VCL release version XE2 or better (including new Delphi/C++Builder 12).
- 64bit support for all releases!
- Supported IDEs
- Delphi XE2 and better
- C++ Builder XE2 and better
- All corresponding RAD Studio Products (XE2, XE3, XE4 etc.)
- Supported operating systems
- Windows 7 and better
For recent Delphi/C++Builder releases LMD VCL package support same platforms as the VCL which is included in the IDE. [Top]
Installers
- New extended compatibility package which includes parts of LMD VCL which were moved to legacy package (LMD TextPack, LMD XML etc.)
- NG Packages are now integrated into LMD installers. There are no separate NG installers any longer.
- Demo projects are now stored in commpon documents folder (not in main folder like in previous releases)
- Registered versions: If no license file is found, you can now pick up a valid license file from within the installers
- All component installers are now dual signed with SHA1/SHA2 certificate.
64bit support
All packages were ported to 64bit.
Exception: Compatibility controls (dcllmdlegacy) can not be used in 64bit applications.
[Top]
Package naming conventions
Since LMD VCL 2012 package names have been changed to be more consistent with VCL naming convention. LMD version number and IDE version number were removed from package names. Runtime package names are prefixed now with "lmdrt", design-time package names with "dcllmd". Some examples of generated package file names are: lmdrtdocking.dcp, lmdrtdocking.bpi, lmdrtdocking.lib, dcllmddocking.dcp, dcllmddocking.bpi, dcllmddocking.lib. IDE version suffix is still included in generated "bpl", e.g. lmdrtdocking_260.bpl for Delphi 10.3 Rio.
This change simplifies porting projects (supposed they are compiled with run-time packages) to another IDE version. Since package references contain neither IDE version nor LMD platform version, migrating to a future IDE version requires almost no changes.
[Top]
LMD 2024 DevUtil
The DevUtil tool was updated (e.g. with Delphi/C++Builder 12 support) and improved. It is now easier than ever to switch between different workspaces (sets of component packages), even leaving the current IDE is no longer required!
[Top]
NG packages now integrated into LMD VCL line
NG packages are now integrated into the LMD VCL line, e.g. the new NG Drag&DropPack is included in LMD-Tools/ElPack/IDE-Tools, which simplifies Drag&Drop operations within but also outside your projects enormously. [Top]
LMD 2024 Reg Utility
Since 2016 release NG Controls uses same license scheme like LMD VCL product line. Thus you can review on your machine available licenses for both LMD VCL and NG products via the RegUtility. Since version 2013 RegUtility installer copies all files to the %APPDATA%\LMD Innovative folder (instead of system folder in previous releases). As known from previous releases the new reg utilities recognize earlier license files (regardless whether they are stored in system or appdata folder), so that only one reg utility is required for current and previous licenses. [Top]
Free access to Git repositories for LMD VCL Complete
We moved our sources to new git-based project structure. All VCL Complete 2024 customers receive free access to the Git repositories (based on GitLab). Visit your customer area and use the displayed link in your 2024 license to connect to GitLab. SSO with credentials for customer area is supported). Check also Quick overview for more info. [Top]
New subscription model and new customer area
We received some criticism for our old update policy (especially observing the very fast Embarcadero release cycle and our yearly updates).
Old update policy included free minor updates with same major version number - until next major release was available. We offered only for VCL Complete packages subscription models.
Following changes were introduced with 2016 licenses:
- Each full- or update purchase includes now a one year subscription (free-of-charge)
This one-year subscription refers to major version updates. If a new major version is released within subscription period, you'll receive automatically new version free of charge. VCL Complete customers will receive even fully new LMD VCL products released in subscription period.
- Minor updates with same major version number are handled like before:
These updates are always free of charge for all major (products LMD-Tools, ElPack, IDE-Tools, etc.) and standalone packs. These updates are placed in our protected download areas and can be downloaded free of charge - anytime (using your registration utility).
- What happens when subscription expires?
Subscription period refers only to the right receiving free major version updates.
If your subscription expires, your licenses behaves like before (free minor updates until next major release, perpetual use of the current license).
- How to renew
Renewals for existing licenses will be applied as extension period to the end of your previous subscription (for example, if your subscription expires 11-Dec-2016, renewing will give you updates until 11-Dec-2017). If your existing subscription has been expired for over three months, you will receive major updates for at least 9 months from the date of renewal. Please note that the term “subscription period” refers to major updates only. As usual product licenses never expire, minor updates with same major version number are always included free of charge and so on.
- Will I receive notification mails to renew?
We send you notification emails before subscription expires. If you don’t want to receive them, check your profile page and uncheck option “I want to receive mails about my licenses expiration”.
- Early renewal discounts and update pricing
We honour early renewals. Check your profile page to receive personal offers. Within one year (after subscription period expired) you can renew your subscription for a special renewal rate. After that standard price applies. Upgrade orders (from pre-2016 releases) as known before (to start initial subscription period) will be possible until end of 2016.
To reflect new changes we introduced a new customer area, where customers can review and check license status at one single place.
[Top]
Package Changes
NG HTML
Engine
- Default alignment (left, center or right; used by controls).
- Text colors bug fix.
- `HighlightBgColor`, `HighlightColor` - default value changed to `clNone`. Props not published anywhere, but affected content in HTML-view control.
- Center/right aligned content with small available space width bug fix.
- "Disabled" coloring is greatly improved using colors blending. Default disabled colors are now match the corresponding themed colors:
- 
- Dark themes link color.
- Layouting (prepatation) is optimized to some degree in word wrapping mode.
- Images:
- 32bit bitmaps support.
- Vertical align (images relative to text):
- 
- Controls (inside HTML):
- Rework, bug fixes.
- Allowed only in HTML-label, HTML-panel and HTML-view. Disabled in all other controls.
- Vertical align (relative to text, like for images) - 
- Drammatic HTML handling speed improvement (parsing: more than 6 times).
- UL/OL
- Support for mulilevel lists (numbering bug fixed).
- Unicode char based bullets (with anti-aliasing). Different for different levels.
- 
- Sub/sup - only simplified support. Based on the current font, not on the prev item font.
- LineGap before first line bug fix.
Common
- All controls are carefully checked agains the following drawing modes in all combinations:
- `IsHtml` (True/False)
- `Enabled` (True/False)
- VCl Styles (On/Off)
- `WordWrap` (True/False)
- Big text clipping.
- Ignore links (cursor) at design-time.
- Per-control VCL Styles support. Styled designer support.
- Rework of ParentBackground and DoubleBuffering.
Editor
- New toolbar icons.
- Simple rich-edit based (TOM) syntax highlighting. Added: variables highlighting.
- Reworked everything.
- Cancel on Escape, apply and close on Ctrl+Enter.
Html Storage
- Component editor: opens Items collection editor on double click.
- Items collection editor improvements:
- Item Name and Html Text columns.
- Opens HTML editor on item double click or Ctrl+Enter.
Label, Panel
- Rework of `Alignment`, `VerticalAlignment`/`Layout`, `Padding`, `AutoSize`, `IsHtml`. Works ok now in any combination.
- `Panel.ShowCaption` fixes.
- Label - default size changed to more appropriate value (100 x 17).
- Label - default `Caption`, like Label1 (similar to buttons).
ListBox
- `ItemHeight` & `ItemAutoHeight` - setting one property resets another.
- Items content is now center aligned vertically.
- New `ItemPadding` property. Default values are (2, 2, 2, 2). `Margin` property is removed.
- Colors fixes: respecting `Enabled`, `Focused`, `HideSelection` and VCL Styles.
- `IsHtml`related fixes: item padding and vertical alignment in plain text mode.
- `HorzGridColor` - VCL Styles support.
- New `WordWrap` property.
- New `lbltMultiline` enum value is added to `LargeTextOptions` property. `Multiline` property is removed.
- New `HorzGridMargin` property.
- 
HeaderControl
- New "Edit Sections" component editor menu item.
- New `WordWrap` property.
- Sections content is now center aligned vertically (including image).
- Some adequate hard-coded margins.
- Sections editor improvements: opens Html editor on item double click or Ctrl+Enter.
View
- `Caption` property type is changed from `string` to `TNGHTMLCaption` to support HTML editor.
- Full scrollbars rework.
- `Padding` related fixes.
- Drawing fixes (Html laytouing, `Transparent`).
Component icons for new controls
- New utility was used to restore transparency from non-transparent screenshots. For example, "ok" text on button icon is extracted from std TButton icon. As well, as check box and radio button shapes.
XXX
- Button
- `Multiline`, `WordWrap`.
- Content is horz/vert auto centered.
- Component editor with "Edit HTML..." context menu item. But, with OnClick event handler creation on component double-click.
- CheckBox, RadioButton
- `Multiline`, `WordWrap`
- Left/Right Alignment.
- Focus rect around content.
- Group (for RadioButton)
- GroupBox
- Caption
- CheckGroup, RadioGroup
- Layout (Padding, Columns, Stretch/Center/Top, ItemHeight, ColumnGap)
- Alignment
- WordWrap
- OnClick
- Check group:
- AllowGrayed, Checked\[index], State\[Index], ButtonEnabled\[Index]
- Value, Grayed (UInt64, published)
- Radio group:
- Checked\[Index], ButtonEnabled\[Index]
- ItemIndex (published)
- Html in caption
- ComboBox
- "List" mode only.
- `WordWrap`, multiline support.
- Separate edit and drop-down item settings: `EditHeight`, `EditPadding`, `ItemHeight`, `ItemPadding`.
- `ItemAutoHeight`, like in HTML list box.
- Customizable colors, like in HTML list box: `SelectedColor`, `DisabledColor`, `SelectedFontColor`, `SelectedFontStyle`.
- Content is auto centered vertically, like in HTML list box.
- Default Caption
- Instead of ugly `NGHTMLButton1`, which is not fit in default button size, the default caption will be simply `Button1`, which will be adjusted on `Name` change just like in std `TButton`.
- Same for check box and radio button.
- Same for label.
Changes/Enhancements since initial LMD VCL 2022 release
Common
[+] New component icons for DockPack, GridPack, ScriptPack and TLMDServiceProvider components.
[+] All installers were updated and fixed a problem which required system restart even for first time installation.
[*] Packages for RAD Studio 11 Alexandria were compiled and tested against the latest 11.2 update
[*] Packages for RAD Studio 11 Alexandria were compiled and tested against the latest 11.3 update
LMD Tools
[+] TLMDHint: New CancelHint method. VCL Styles related fixes.
[+] TLMDCalculator: New BtnWidth and BtnHeight properties.
[+] TLMDCalculatorComboBox: Adjusting drop-down calculator font sizes to fit the combo box font sze.
[+] Windows Server 2022 detection.
[*] TLMDTaskDialog: redeclaring the TLMDTaskDlgIcon type and changing icon kind names: tdiWarning -> diWarning, tdiQuestion -> diQuestion, etc. to prevent conflicts with standard TTaskDialogIcon type.
[*] TLMDCheckListDlg: Up to 64 items support by changing Value and DefaultValue property types to Int64.
[*] TLMDWindowProc: Finalization workaround for Halt before Application.Run case.
[-] TLMDStatusBar design-time but fix.
[-] LMDMessageBoxDlg.ShowMessage dialog height bug fix.
[-] Window hooks access violation bug fix.
[-] TLMDButton: design-time styling bug fix.
[-] TLMDButton: virtual image list issue woraround.
[-] TLMDHeaderListComboBox - Header sections font size bug fix.
[-] TLMDListBoxExt: Scrolling related fixes.
[-] TLMDHint: Long hints positioning bug fix.
[-] TLMDHint: MaxWidth in HTML mode bug fix.
[-] TLMDCaptionButtons: Invalid layouting in Delphi 11 bug fix (GetSystemMetrics in different IDEs).
[-] TLMDComboBoxExt, TLMDListBoxExt: High DPI scaling related fixes. Support for Delphi 11 DPI-aware form designer.
[-] TLMDHint: Sizing and large html-text flickering fixes.
[-] TLMDTrayIcon: Doubling popups hints in Win10/11, when Animated = True bug fix.
[-] TLMDMaskEdit: Currency settings symbol bug fix.
[-] TLMDProgress: Drawing bug fix.
[-] TLMDHint: Layouting bug fix.
[-] TLMDInputDlg: dialog layouting bug, in case when MultilinePrompt = True.
[-] TLMDFileCtrl: File size bug fix (type changed from LongInt to Int64).
LMD ElPack
[+] TElSpinEdit: New ApplyMode property, which allow to defer the conversion of the typed Text to integer Value until OnExit.
[*] TElXTreeItem.Tag type has been changed to NativeInt.
[*] TElComboBox: Showing vertical scroll-bar when Items.Count is big, and DropDownCount property value specifies more items than can fit on the screen.
[*] TElExplorerBar: Disabling unsupported by Delphi VCL-Styles.
[-] TElXTree: Virtual mode cell checkboxes click fix.
[-] TElCurrencyEdit: LinkedControl moving bug fix.
[-] TElPageControl: GDI resources leak buf fix.
[-] TElDbEdit, TElDbButtonEdit: Copy/Paste via hotkeys or context menu now properly turn the linked dataset into editing mode.
[*] SEC_NOCACHE flag disabled (in CreateFileMapping calls) for better virtualization/emulation support (x86 emulation on Windows ARM systems/VMs).
LMD DockingPack
[*] Panel.OnHeaderPopup event is now raised even if Panel.HeaderMenu = nil to allow custom behavior.
[-] DockPanel.Release bug fix.
LMD DialogPack
[+] TJSDialog: New MaxContentHeight property. Auto constraining dialog content height to 80% of the screen height.
[-] TJSEditDialog: New etMaskEdit edit type. NewEditProperties.Mask property.
[-] TJSDialog: Performance optimization for long text messages (TJSCaption.PaintCaption, LTextHeight, SplitForWrapping).
[-] LMD-Dialog: Fixing some layouting issues in case big fonts are used in for password dialogs (password, confirm password, change passwrod).
NG DialogPack
[+] Disabling dialog emulation mode at design-time for new IDEs.
LMD RichPack
[-] RichPack: C++ headers bug fix.
[-] TLMDRichSyntaxEdit: WordWrap default value bug fix.
[-] Removing std Windows _FILETIME, _LARGE_INTEGER AND _ULARGE_INTEGER declarations to prevent conflicts in C++.
[-] x64 bug fix (dwCookie callback parameter type).
[-] Small C++ related bug fix (replacing ULARGE_INTEGER with UInt64).
LMD ShellPack
[-] ShellPack: Empty caption in shell actions bug fix.
[-] TLMDshellList - Preserving column sizes (DefaultColumns = True) while updating.
[-] TLMDShellList: x64 bug fux.
LMD SysPack
[-] TLMDSysWindowsObject: Windows 11 product name bug fix.
LMD IDE-Tools
[*] IDE-Tools: Moving service provider DCR files away from the run-time package unit.
[-] Fixes related to latest IDEs (D10.4 and D11) VCL Styles changes.
LMD ScriptPack
[-] Native languages try/except bug fix.
[-] Access Violation in ConvToVar when creating new objects bug fix.
LMD SyntaxEdit
[+] SyntaxEdit: New TLMDEditView.SearchLastReplaceCanceled property, which allows to determine whether the replace operation has been canceled by the user via confirmation dialog's Cancel button.
[-] CSS scheme modification (@media support).
[-] EditView.SearchLastReplaceCanceled bug fix.
[-] TLMDEditColorSchemeDialog: Access violation on loading invalid XML fix.
Archive
- LMD VCL 2022 - What's new
- LMD VCL 2021 - What's new
- LMD VCL 2020 - What's new
- What's new in NG Controls 2020?
- LMD VCL 2019 - What's new
- LMD VCL 2018 - What's new
- LMD VCL 2017 - What's new
- LMD VCL 2016 - What's new
- LMD VCL 2015 - What's new
- LMD VCL 2014 - What's new
- LMD VCL 2013 - What's new
- LMD VCL 2012 - What's new
- LMD VCL 2011 - What's new
- LMD VCL 2010 - What's new
- LMD VCL 2009 - What's new
- LMD VCL 2007 - What's new
