Fast reports missing on tool palette - components

Im using delphi XE8 on a project that requires a form to be created from DB data.
My team was formerly using Rave Reports on XE4 version to do this but we decided to upgrade and use Fast reports 5.0.
The problem is: When I create a new Unit, all Fast Reports tools doesn't appear on the tool palette, I checked and all packages are installed (via Project > Options > Packages).
The weird thing is that when I create a new project, and a new Unit, all Fast Reports tools appear.
Can someone help me?

You're searching for the wrong term. FastReport components starts by frx prefix:

Related

InstallShield "Full" Redistributable forces internet access

I used Flexera's InstallShield Express to bundle my software into a Setup.exe file. I included .NET Framework 4.7.1 redistributable (2. Specify Application Data > 'Microsoft .NET Framework 4.7.1 Full' is checked and highlighted in middle panel, and says 'installed locally' > 'Install before feature selection' is checked on bottom panel).
I went onto my fresh installed Windows 7 computer with no internet access and attempted the install. It gave me the error:
"An error occurred while downloading the file
http://saturn.installshield.com/is/prerequisites/Microsoft.NET Framework 4.7.1 Full.prq"
I then connected to the internet, and it was able to go through. I looked for a text of the prq. There may be a way to find it thru InstallShield, but I found a forum post from community.flexerasoftware.com asking about 4.7.2.
The two parts of interest are:
<file LocalFile="<ISProductFolder>
\SetupPrerequisites\Microsoft .net\4.7.1\Full\NDP472-KB4054530-x86-x64-AllOS-ENU.exe"
URL="https://download.microsoft.com/download
/6/E/4/6E48E8AB-DC00-419E-9704-06DD46E5F81D/NDP472-KB4054530-x86-x64-AllOS-ENU.exe"
FileSize="0,0"/>
and
<properties Id="{BFF4A593-74C5-482F-9771-7495035EBBB0}"
Description="This prerequisite installs the .NET Framework 4.7.2 Full standalone package."
AltPrqURL="http://saturn.installshield.com/is/prerequisites
/Microsoft .NET Framework 4.7.2 Full.prq"/>
The fact that the file reads '4.7.1' is another can of worms I need to explore (not in the scope of this question). I'm assuming all prq files have a common structure. I believe that this information tells me the URL (download.microsoft.com) was skipped and the AltPrqUril (saturn.installshield.com) was used during my install. But even if the URL were not skipped, it would still looking at a page on the world wide web.
Question
Why do I need internet connection? The 'Full' version is specifically different from the 'Web' version in that you do not have to connect to the internet to install it.
Avoiding Internet Connection Requirement
To embed runtimes in the setup.exe and hence avoid the need for
an Internet connection, you can try to set the option "Extract
prerequisites from setup.exe" in the setup.exe tab in the
Release view as illustrated in the second screenshot below.
Then you select the "Full" .NET Framework version in the
Prerequisites View. Not 100% sure what features the Installshield Express version has vs the full versions. The below is from the Premier version.
You can check your finished bundle, by doing a "setup.exe /a" -
from a command prompt - on the final
setup.exe and extract the files to see what is really included in the bundle.
Quick Reminder
I think you should generally call Installshield support if you have a support agreement, or check their own community at: https://community.flexerasoftware.com.
Just mentioning this since people sometimes forget to check whether they have support agreements and support & community might resolve your problems in 5 minutes - if you don't get answers here.
Release Wizard
However, just shooting from the hip I would propose that the cause could be this setting that is available in the Release Wizard in the regular version of Installshield 2018. It is probably similar in the Express edition:
In the Release property pages, it seems this setting is under the Setup.exe tab and it is called "Installshield Prerequisites Location":
[
Prefer Download
For what it is worth I really dislike old, outdated runtimes included in bloated setups. This has to do with my experience as a corporate deployment specialists where much of the day consisted of extracting outdated runtimes from vendor packages.
I would always suggest you download very common runtimes from the web, or allow them to be installed via Windows Update. That includes basically all Microsoft runtimes.
I only like to bundle runtimes if they are 1) Rare and special, 2) Stable and well tested, 3) Small and well-behaving. Even then I would prefer them downloaded and installed separately - to allow security fixes to be installed without rebuilding your whole setup - you just put up the new runtime version on your server (marketing will want a new build for physical release - that is just added risk if you ask me).
War story: the SOAP merge module - back in the day - almost destroyed my package with global deployment scope. Deployment errors quadrupled. Prerequisites can really ruin your work, and you will face little understanding for the problem seen. Try to make it clear what breaks and why. And get rid of all prerequisites you can (pie-in-the-sky thinking, I know). Certain runtimes are unavoidable of course. I just ramble on :-).

MPS-based IDE: what are the best practices for embedding JRE/JDK?

MPS enables me to build standalone IDEs (see https://confluence.jetbrains.com/display/MPSD34/Building+standalone+IDEs+for+your+languages), however Windows builds would definitely need a JDK/JRE. The users get confused with installing Java, etc.
Are there "pre-built" JDKs compatible with MPS (IntelliJ platform)?
What are the approaches to update the bundled Java? IntelliJ platform does have an updater, however does it support updating the Java runtime? The updater is Java-based, so I wonder how does it update Java runtime when using the same runtime.
Can something like JetBrains Toolbox to manage updates of the "third-party" MPS-based IDEs?
PS. I'm using for MPS 2017.3, mbeddr if that matters.
I'm not exactly sure if the are publicly available but you can check JBs teamcity at teamcity.jetbrain.com where all their open source stuff is available.
The updater for intellij performs incremental updates to the jar files. It is not open source and it usually only used to do small updates. If there is a major update like new platform with a bunch of API updates it is not used and the user has to download complete new installer. In MPS the incremental updater is not used. So each MPS updates is complete new IDE to be downloaded by the end user (or JB toolbox).
I don't know how the JB toolbox works but you can use MPS/IntelliJs normal update mechanics to notify users about updates to your custom IDE. In the branding you create for your custom IDE there is field where you can point it to a update location. Which then serves a xml file with the update information. The format is pretty straight forward. Here is a sample. Your IDE will check on start up or at least once a day if an update is available.

Different version of VS2012 requires project migration?

I have a project that was created using VS2102 Premium. When a co-worker tries to open it with VS2012 Professional he gets a "Needs migration" message for the project. Is this due to the different flavor of VS2012?
I wouldn't have thought so for most projects, however if you've used some feature of VS Premium that is not present in VS Professional, then I guess this is the response you'll get.
If you open a project from a previous version (eg 2010) then it'll offer to upgrade the solution.
You can manually edit the project, its only an XML file. Create a new blank project to see the structure and then use winmerge or similar to copy relevant lines across.

How to get MvvmCross vNext to compile on Mac using MonoDevelop

I am trying to compile the vNext branch of MvvmCross on a Mac to try & start doing some iOS development using PCL's & MvvMCross.
I have spent a couple of days on this now but appear to be going in circles... being somewhat new to both C# & the Mac.
I have installed MonoDevelop 3.1.1 as recently referred to on #slodge's blog.
I have updated the targets file as per this reference https://files.xamarin.com/~jeff/Microsoft.Portable.CSharp.targets
I have downloaded the vNext branch from GitHub.
I have loaded the mvvmcross_all.sln in MonoDevelop however building it using the Debug|iPhone Simulator profile gives me 3 errors.
I have not been able to work out how to fix the references errors as for example appear in CrossUI.Core, ie references to
System
System.Core
System.Net
etc
Each of these lines has an error of Assembly not available for .NetPortable 4.0 Profile1 Profile (in Mono 2.10.9)
I realise its all a moving target but its obviously possible to get it to compile.
Any suggestions as to what I may have missed would be appreciated.
TIA,
Andreas
Thanks Andreas
In the version referenced in the blog at http://slodge.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/a-patched-monodevelop-for-pcls.html, it appears that MonoDevelop reports that CrossUI is missing its references - but it still compiles. See this screenshot from my Mac - solution explorer reports problems but 'rebuild all' on CrossUI succeeds.
If you get problems with building, please do report the build output and I'll try to help.
Note that the patched version of MonoDevelop also still has other problems - e.g. syntax highlighting and intellisense issues- MonoTouch: creating multiplatform apps using Portable Class Libraries
Alternatively, there are some iOS/Mac friendly binaries on SkyDrive - http://slodge.blogspot.co.uk/p/mvvmcross-binaries_7.html
The schedule for 'proper' support of Portable Class Libraries is aiming for a demonstrable version before Evolve (so less than 2 months away). Until then I'll personally continue to do most of my PCL work in VS, with the platform specific steps in MonoDevelop.

Building on Windows XP, when development is on VS2012?

We're planning moving from Visual Studio 2005 to Visual Studio 2012 (Visual-C++-11).
(We would very much like to skip 2010 if we can help it, since the newer version is already there and offers a better C++ experience.)
But we've hit a little roadblock:
Our build servers still run Windows 2003r2 (all inside dedicated virtual machines), and due to messy tool support/issues, we're in no position to upgrade the build servers to a newer OS.
Developers mostly have switched to Windows7 by now, so moving the remaining Windows XP developer boxes shouldn't pose a problem.
Since VS2012 only runs on Win7 we are wondering whether we can leverage it's tools (C++ compiler, C#) and still do a full equivalent build on the W2k3 build server - after all, we don't really need a VS GUI there, just build C++ and C# projects from VS2012.
What are our options?
Will the SDK (7.1? 8?) compilers + msbuild command line get me anywhere?
In Project Property Pages, there an option "Platform Toolset" that allow you to choose compatibility of your project. So, you can work in VS2012, but built it with "VS2008 compiler"
Here is what we do:
Use CMake
CMake allows you to create build systems for your operating system. Thus we are able to use the same code within VS2005, VS2010 and Eclipse, XCode etc.
You could do something similar: Install VS2005 on your old machines and let CMake create the projects for you from the sources. On your newer machines you can use CMake to generate VS2012 Solutions (I don't know if they have 2012 support yet, because we don't use 2012 yet too).
A big pro here is: If you plan to migrate to any other IDE or even Linux you just can re-run CMake and get your source code within these environment easily compilable.
A big con: You have to start reading about CMake and create CMakeLists.txt for all your projects (might be a lot of work depending on the amount of projects, amount of source code files within each project, specific compiler options, linker options etc.)
Our build servers still run Windows 2003r2 (all inside dedicated
virtual machines), and due to messy tool support/issues, we're in no
position to upgrade the build servers to a newer OS.
Well. Not much came out of this question. We recently re-evaluated this issue, and I see two options (I haven't tried any yet):
Just do a full VS installation on a supported OS (Win7), zip up the whole VS+WinSDK directories (as well as the neccesary runtme DLLs that live somewhere under %WINDR%), and try if you can get that thing working on an XP based OS. Might work. Not a great idea if you ask me.
Split up the build process to distribute the build across several OS, so that we can work with tools that are only supported on one of them. -- This actually sounds more complicated than it'll be. We already run our build spread over several Jenkins jobs, so I should be able to get that to work. (And all build nodes are already VMs anyway, so adding more VMs isn't that much of an issue.)

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