Re: [Lazarus] Lazarus is invisible?

2010-01-23 Thread Graeme Geldenhuys
2010/1/23 Mike Parr :
>
> It seems to me that this is a major package, but it has (to my mind) zero
> prominence on the web.

Being a Delphi user too, I used to mention Lazarus and Free Pascal to
people in the Embarcadero newsgroups that complain about things like
"delphi doesn't have cross platfrom support", "kylix is dead, so what
do we us now" etc...

But apparently I pissed of way to many people doing that, and my time
for reading those newsgroups is very limited lately (having a family
and other responsibilities).


> 2.  When one eventually finds a link to it, this link goes straight to  a
> forum page.

This has been bugging me for age too. The link from the Free Pascal
page should take users to the Lazarus wiki site instead. The standard
Lazarus Website is definitely not a "product" page, but just a
location for the forums. Which I also think should be closed and users
should rather merge with the mailing list discussions. Having to many
options of where to ask questions is also not a good thing.

> 4.  No info on how many users, downloads, use on projects  (i.e no Advert)

Download count is managed and found on Lazarus SourceForge project
page. "use on projects", documentation, hints, etc are all on the Wiki
page.

Not even the Lazarus LCL class documentation or the IDE
Help/Documentation is available on the Lazarus website. So "official"
Lazarus website should rather be the Wiki.

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Re: [Lazarus] Lazarus is invisible?

2010-01-24 Thread Hans-Peter Diettrich

Graeme Geldenhuys schrieb:

2010/1/23 Mike Parr :

It seems to me that this is a major package, but it has (to my mind) zero
prominence on the web.


Being a Delphi user too, I used to mention Lazarus and Free Pascal to
people in the Embarcadero newsgroups that complain about things like
"delphi doesn't have cross platfrom support", "kylix is dead, so what
do we us now" etc...

But apparently I pissed of way to many people doing that, 


Of course, I had the same experience. OTOH you'll get many complaints 
about what's not working as expected in Lazarus, what could serve to 
assign priorities to the development items.




2.  When one eventually finds a link to it, this link goes straight to  a
forum page.


This has been bugging me for age too. The link from the Free Pascal
page should take users to the Lazarus wiki site instead. The standard
Lazarus Website is definitely not a "product" page, but just a
location for the forums. Which I also think should be closed and users
should rather merge with the mailing list discussions. Having to many
options of where to ask questions is also not a good thing.


Right. In most cases the Search fields lead to forum entries, not to any 
real documentation. The Embarcadero pages are in similar disorder, but 
for other reasons.




4.  No info on how many users, downloads, use on projects  (i.e no Advert)


Download count is managed and found on Lazarus SourceForge project
page. "use on projects", documentation, hints, etc are all on the Wiki
page.

Not even the Lazarus LCL class documentation or the IDE
Help/Documentation is available on the Lazarus website. So "official"
Lazarus website should rather be the Wiki.


+1

The documentation (online help) deserves much more work, before it can 
be presented to the public. I'm swapping between updating the help and 
the help editors...


DoDi


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Re: [Lazarus] Lazarus is invisible?

2010-01-24 Thread Graeme Geldenhuys
2010/1/24 Hans-Peter Diettrich :
> Of course, I had the same experience. OTOH you'll get many complaints about
> what's not working as expected in Lazarus, what could serve to assign
> priorities to the development items.

And it's because of complains and negative messages like that, that I
thought people should also see the positive of Lazarus IDE. Hence the
reason I started the "New IDE features since" page on the wiki, to
show that the IDE also has very good points, and more often than not,
way before Delphi IDE got them.  :-)

  http://wiki.freepascal.org/New_IDE_features_since


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Re: [Lazarus] Lazarus is invisible?

2010-01-24 Thread Hans-Peter Diettrich

Graeme Geldenhuys schrieb:

2010/1/24 Hans-Peter Diettrich :

Of course, I had the same experience. OTOH you'll get many complaints about
what's not working as expected in Lazarus, what could serve to assign
priorities to the development items.


And it's because of complains and negative messages like that, that I
thought people should also see the positive of Lazarus IDE. Hence the
reason I started the "New IDE features since" page on the wiki, to
show that the IDE also has very good points, and more often than not,
way before Delphi IDE got them.  :-)

  http://wiki.freepascal.org/New_IDE_features_since


At the first glance I was confused whether these are FPC or Lazarus 
features, mainly by the black background of the code windows.


I also couldn't find how to reach that page, from some typical entry 
page. It's a shame how Lazarus references are hidden in third or deeper 
level pages on the FPC site :-(


DoDi


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Re: [Lazarus] Lazarus is invisible?

2010-01-24 Thread waldo kitty

On 1/24/2010 22:51, Hans-Peter Diettrich wrote:

I also couldn't find how to reach that page, from some typical entry
page. It's a shame how Lazarus references are hidden in third or deeper
level pages on the FPC site :-(


+100 :?

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Re: [Lazarus] Lazarus is invisible?

2010-01-24 Thread Graeme Geldenhuys
Hans-Peter Diettrich wrote:
> At the first glance I was confused whether these are FPC or Lazarus 
> features, mainly by the black background of the code windows.

:-) I find the black background for the editor window much softer on my
eyes. Over the years, computers have really screwed up my eyes, so now I'm
trying to look after what I have left. :)

[Side note:
My efforts seem to be helping (and those scientists were not lying). I am
using better lighting conditions, LCD instead of CRT monitor, softer color
schemes in my OS and daily used applications, added rest periods (which
means drinking more coffee :-/). Since I started this 5-6 years ago, my
eyes have not gotten worse - for the first time since I started using
computers).]


> I also couldn't find how to reach that page, from some typical entry 
> page. It's a shame how Lazarus references are hidden in third or deeper 
> level pages on the FPC site :-(

The wiki searching ability really sucks. No advance search options at all!
If it doesn't give you results, it does the opposite and gives you too much
results. Either way, it is hard to find anything in the wiki. And the more
pages get added, the worse the problem becomes.

In such cases I often try and use Google to rather do the searching for me.


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  - Graeme -

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Re: [Lazarus] Lazarus is invisible?

2010-01-25 Thread Hans-Peter Diettrich

Graeme Geldenhuys schrieb:

Hans-Peter Diettrich wrote:
At the first glance I was confused whether these are FPC or Lazarus 
features, mainly by the black background of the code windows.


:-) I find the black background for the editor window much softer on my
eyes. Over the years, computers have really screwed up my eyes, so now I'm
trying to look after what I have left. :)

[Side note:
My efforts seem to be helping (and those scientists were not lying). I am
using better lighting conditions, LCD instead of CRT monitor, softer color
schemes in my OS and daily used applications, added rest periods (which
means drinking more coffee :-/). Since I started this 5-6 years ago, my
eyes have not gotten worse - for the first time since I started using
computers).]


I'm staring at monitors since 40 years now, and I found many "official" 
suggestions inappropriate for me, with regards to contrast, brightness, 
color schemes and other light sources. I prefer a bright environment for 
my desk, with no significant contrast between text on screen and printed 
or handwritten paper sheets before or beneath my keyboard. My eyes are 
degrading since several years now, and I cannot read any more text on a 
dark background, as found in many websites. I also found LCD displays 
less sharp than CRT monitors, but the bigger size of nowadays LCD 
screens allows to place them further away from my eyes, while my arms 
became too short to read newspapers without special glasses.


Perhaps there's a genetic difference between troglodytes and hunters, 
with regards to the preferred dark or bright background?



I also couldn't find how to reach that page, from some typical entry 
page. It's a shame how Lazarus references are hidden in third or deeper 
level pages on the FPC site :-(


The wiki searching ability really sucks. No advance search options at all!
If it doesn't give you results, it does the opposite and gives you too much
results. Either way, it is hard to find anything in the wiki. And the more
pages get added, the worse the problem becomes.


So it's not only me, who is lost in many web pages and wikis :-(


In such cases I often try and use Google to rather do the searching for me.


PasDoc has a nice full text search feature for the HTML documents 
(tipue), perhaps it should also be added to FPDoc?


DoDi


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Re: [Lazarus] Lazarus is invisible?

2010-01-25 Thread JoshyFun
Hello Lazarus-List,

Monday, January 25, 2010, 4:04:06 PM, you wrote:

>> In such cases I often try and use Google to rather do the searching for me.
HPD> PasDoc has a nice full text search feature for the HTML documents
HPD> (tipue), perhaps it should also be added to FPDoc?

The problem with this searchs like the wiki ones is not the "full text
search" capability which is quite easy to be created in any
environment, but the scoring of the searched terms. In current wiki
(in example) is almost impossible to find something usable if you must
use words like "object", "class" or "control", as they are present in
almost all documents, so "full text search" is useless.

That's the reason I suggested to add "Sphinx" search engine to the
Lazarus/freepascal wiki.

Also tipue is a javascript search which should no be used if you have
more than 20-40 pages to search in.

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Re: [Lazarus] Lazarus is invisible?

2010-01-25 Thread Graeme Geldenhuys
Hans-Peter Diettrich wrote:
> my desk, with no significant contrast between text on screen and printed 
> or handwritten paper sheets before or beneath my keyboard.

Reading black text on white paper is no problem for me. But trying the same
on a computer screen is very harsh for me. White text on black background
for computer screens is my personal preference. Apparently you use less
electricity too, if you use black backgrounds. :-)  Have you ever seen the
"Black Google" site?

  http://black-google.bpled.com/index.php

The original www.blackgoogle.com doesn't seem to work any more.

> 
> PasDoc has a nice full text search feature for the HTML documents 
> (tipue), perhaps it should also be added to FPDoc?

fpdoc does have support for search engines. And I have used tipue with
fpdoc. See the url belowe. Go into any of the section and you will see a
search option at the top of the screen.

  http://opensoft.homeip.net/fpgui/docs/

Tipue is quick and easy for small sites, but doesn't work for larger
documentation, because all search docs get loaded for each page viewed - so
it adds lots of size overhead to documentation pages.

I have on my todo list an item of using FTS support of PostgreSQL DB with
fpdoc and NNTP news group archives (mainly for tiOPF project). But I
haven't started that task yet.

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  - Graeme -

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Re: [Lazarus] Lazarus is invisible?

2010-01-25 Thread Graeme Geldenhuys
JoshyFun wrote:
> environment, but the scoring of the searched terms. In current wiki
> (in example) is almost impossible to find something usable if you must
> use words like "object", "class" or "control", as they are present in
> almost all documents, so "full text search" is useless.


I have implemented a full text search with scoring support in DocView
(fpGUI's INF Documentation Viewer application). Maybe that code and
algorithm could be adapted for fpdoc and wiki search support too? Umm, I
never even thought of doing that. :)


> Also tipue is a javascript search which should no be used if you have
> more than 20-40 pages to search in.

100% correct. It adds a big size overhead to each page.


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Re: [Lazarus] Lazarus is invisible?

2010-01-26 Thread Flávio Etrusco
On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 4:10 AM, Graeme Geldenhuys
 wrote:
> Hans-Peter Diettrich wrote:
>> my desk, with no significant contrast between text on screen and printed
>> or handwritten paper sheets before or beneath my keyboard.
>
> Reading black text on white paper is no problem for me. But trying the same
> on a computer screen is very harsh for me. White text on black background
> for computer screens is my personal preference. Apparently you use less
> electricity too, if you use black backgrounds. :-)  Have you ever seen the
> "Black Google" site?
>
>  http://black-google.bpled.com/index.php
>
> The original www.blackgoogle.com doesn't seem to work any more.
>

Actually this is only valid for CRTs. On LCDs, a black screen actually
uses 1 Watt more than a white screen ;-)

-Flávio

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Re: [Lazarus] Lazarus is invisible?

2010-01-26 Thread JoshyFun
Hello Lazarus-List,

Tuesday, January 26, 2010, 8:15:41 AM, you wrote:

>> environment, but the scoring of the searched terms. In current wiki
>> (in example) is almost impossible to find something usable if you must
>> use words like "object", "class" or "control", as they are present in
>> almost all documents, so "full text search" is useless.
GG> I have implemented a full text search with scoring support in DocView
GG> (fpGUI's INF Documentation Viewer application). Maybe that code and
GG> algorithm could be adapted for fpdoc and wiki search support too? Umm, I
GG> never even thought of doing that. :)

H... It would be great if I can put an eye over the code as I need
a 100% freepascal/lazarus solution to index/search a "great" amount of
text files (not only text files, but metadata associated with files,
images, etc...).

In my search travel looking for ready made I had found one project
that extract index terms (most relevant terms) in a collection of
texts based in a dictionary, or not, of terms related to the generic
topic about the documents, unfortunatly it was a Java product :(

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Re: [Lazarus] Lazarus is invisible?

2010-01-26 Thread Graeme Geldenhuys
JoshyFun wrote:
> 
> H... It would be great if I can put an eye over the code as I need
> a 100% freepascal/lazarus solution to index/search a "great" amount of

The code is available in fpGUI's repository on SourceForge, inside the
'docview' directory. See my signature for details on how to get the code.

Make no mistake, the docview code will not be a simple copy and paste and
reuse in something like fpdoc. Some work will be required, because the
search scoring system is specific built for INF files which already have
pre-built dictionaries of all text found in INF files.

An alternative FTS and Indexing system implemented in Object Pascal is the
IODA project [http://ioda.sourceforge.net/]. Maybe something useful can
come from looking at that code as well.

I asked about a general (easy) implementation of FTS and Indexing back in
Jan 2009 in the fpc-users mailing list. I still think a all-purpose FTS
implementation in Object Pascal could be handy for many projects.


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  - Graeme -

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Re: [Lazarus] Lazarus is invisible?

2010-01-26 Thread JoshyFun
Hello Lazarus-List,

Tuesday, January 26, 2010, 3:14:54 PM, you wrote:

GG> The code is available in fpGUI's repository on SourceForge, inside the
GG> 'docview' directory. See my signature for details on how to get the code.

I'll check it.

GG> Make no mistake, the docview code will not be a simple copy and paste and
GG> reuse in something like fpdoc. Some work will be required, because the
GG> search scoring system is specific built for INF files which already have
GG> pre-built dictionaries of all text found in INF files.

Yes I know, INF uses a indexed word recreation for documents.

GG> An alternative FTS and Indexing system implemented in Object Pascal is the
GG> IODA project [http://ioda.sourceforge.net/]. Maybe something useful can
GG> come from looking at that code as well.

Oh! great! I'll check if I can create some class around this code in
order to create a embedded FTS instead using the command line program.

GG> I asked about a general (easy) implementation of FTS and Indexing back in
GG> Jan 2009 in the fpc-users mailing list. I still think a all-purpose FTS
GG> implementation in Object Pascal could be handy for many projects.

Well, all-purpose would be almost "impossible" due the specialization
needed for each language (in my case there is no one language, but
many are possible) but a general one that can be used in non
specialized cases.

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Re: [Lazarus] Lazarus is invisible?

2010-01-26 Thread Guionardo Furlan
Well, I think that the black google isn't that great idea to save energy.
Gradually, all the CRT monitors will be replaced by LCD or other kind of
tecnology.
But, the LCD keeps this back-lamp allways on, and the "black" dots don't
mean energy saving.

(Sorry by any translation error).

2010/1/26 Graeme Geldenhuys 

> Hans-Peter Diettrich wrote:
> > my desk, with no significant contrast between text on screen and printed
> > or handwritten paper sheets before or beneath my keyboard.
>
> Reading black text on white paper is no problem for me. But trying the same
> on a computer screen is very harsh for me. White text on black background
> for computer screens is my personal preference. Apparently you use less
> electricity too, if you use black backgrounds. :-)  Have you ever seen the
> "Black Google" site?
>
>  http://black-google.bpled.com/index.php
>
> The original www.blackgoogle.com doesn't seem to work any more.
>
>
-- 
Timeo hominem unius libri
Cogito ergo sum - Carpe diem

[]s
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Re: [Lazarus] Lazarus is invisible?

2010-01-26 Thread Marco van de Voort
On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 05:05:43PM -0200, Guionardo Furlan wrote:
> Well, I think that the black google isn't that great idea to save energy.
> Gradually, all the CRT monitors will be replaced by LCD or other kind of
> tecnology.
> But, the LCD keeps this back-lamp allways on, and the "black" dots don't
> mean energy saving.

In television panels, they are slowly turning off lights locally for all-black 
segments.

But segmented lighting is only in the more expensive segment.

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Re: [Lazarus] Lazarus is invisible?

2010-01-26 Thread Graeme Geldenhuys
JoshyFun wrote:
> 
> Well, all-purpose would be almost "impossible" due the specialization

"all-purpose" was probably not the best word to use. I was looking for a
relatively simple implementation of FTL and Indexing to see how it works,
and possibly use that simple implementation or create my own implementation
that I could embed in applications (as you mentioned about IODA). I did not
want to use external tools for everything, maybe only for the generation of
Indexing database/text file over the text you want to FTS.


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Re: [Lazarus] Lazarus is invisible?

2010-01-26 Thread Graeme Geldenhuys
Flávio Etrusco wrote:
> 
> Actually this is only valid for CRTs. On LCDs, a black screen actually
> uses 1 Watt more than a white screen ;-)

:-) I suppose the underlying good news is that LCD's already reduce the
energy used dramatically compared to CRT monitors - irrespective of what is
displayed on the screen.


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Re: [Lazarus] Lazarus is invisible?

2010-01-27 Thread Paul Nicholls
- Original Message - 
From: "Graeme Geldenhuys" 
To: "JoshyFun" ; "Lazarus mailing list" 


Sent: Wednesday, January 27, 2010 5:39 PM
Subject: Re: [Lazarus] Lazarus is invisible?



JoshyFun wrote:


Well, all-purpose would be almost "impossible" due the specialization


"all-purpose" was probably not the best word to use. I was looking for a
relatively simple implementation of FTL and Indexing to see how it works,
and possibly use that simple implementation or create my own 
implementation
that I could embed in applications (as you mentioned about IODA). I did 
not
want to use external tools for everything, maybe only for the generation 
of

Indexing database/text file over the text you want to FTS.


Regards,
 - Graeme -


LOL! I must read too much sci-fi (is this even possible?!?!)...

I saw FTL, and straight away read it as Faster Than Light!! hahaha

cheers,
Paul 



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Re: [Lazarus] Lazarus is invisible?

2010-01-27 Thread Graeme Geldenhuys
Paul Nicholls wrote:
> 
> I saw FTL, and straight away read it as Faster Than Light!! hahaha

:-)  Sorry, that was a spelling mistake. It should have read FTS (full text
search). Either way, it would be nice to have a FTS implementation that is
FTL. ;-)



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