[Lazarus] How to solve this coding problem?

Anthony Walter sysrpl at gmail.com
Sun Apr 15 15:26:15 CEST 2018


So I am writing a tool to share with the community and found a problem with
using Lazarus and packages. I hope someone has an answer to this.

The problem is that when you are using packages, often there is no
practical way to find the methods and properties even if you have the
source code.

Here is an example of the problem:

https://cache.getlazarus.org/videos/code-tools-problem.mp4

Whats happening here is there is a VERY deep hierarchy of inherited
classes, there is no documentation, and the IDE provides no tool or way to
view the methods and properties of a type, except for what's actually
declared on the class.

This makes it near impossible to effectively make use of many things unless
you are the original author and know the methods and proeprties of the
entire hierarchy by memorization.

What we need is a tool window in the IDE that shows you a list of all
classes/interfaces/types/vars/consts in the packages loaded in a project,
and selecting said class/interface shows you all its methods and
properties. Both the methods and properties on the class, but also
inherited methods and properties in one single list, all the way down to
TObject/IInterface. Without the need to open the inherited class or method
to view them separately. It needs to be a single list, otherwise your
chasing a bunch of different windows/tree nodes jsut to figure things out.

So, we should be able to view these methods and properties in a single
window that isn't a hint window. In a window that can stay open for
browsing. In a window hopefully with the ability to be docked so it can be
used as a reference or guide while writing code.

Let me know your thoughts. Thanks.
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