jv16's development blog

jv16

I have been working through the weekend to get some real progress to the PowerTools 2010 project. The current status is that everything compiles under Delphi 2010, the PowerTools GUI shows up with all the icons and graphics 98% correctly. File and registry access doesn't seem to be working yet, but that shouldn't be too difficult to fix.

While working on getting the GUI to show up properly, I got one bug fixed:

"49. Using the mouse wheel or the scroll area of a laptop, it is possible to make the Main Window get stuck in a very long scrolling loop where the category selector on left keeps moving rapidly."

The issue was supposed to be fixed with the last beta but it wasn't, now it should be fixed. At least I cannot reproduce the issue any longer.

After maybe one to two more days of fixing up the basics (to be Delphi 2010 compatible) I should be able to move on to fix the reported issues of the Beta4.

jv16

Upcoming Beta5 running under Delphi 2010 & Windows 7 (64 bit):

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jv16

There's still quite a bit of work to do before Beta5 is ready for release. But I'm gaining momentum and things are starting to work.

Here is the Change Log so far:

Issues Fixed (since previous Beta)

* From list "CONFIRMED ISSUES STILL EXISTING FROM BETA3":

1. (orig. 49.) Using the mouse wheel or the scroll area of a laptop, it is possible to make the Main Window get stuck in a very long scrolling loop where the category selector on left keeps moving rapidly.

* Not Reported

1. The Main Window is a few pixels too short to fully show the "Registry health" text on some system setups.

2. A Message Window can pop up during Initial Setup to show an error message.

Improvements Done (since previous Beta)

1. The Warning and Tip panels now have a X button at the top right corner for closing them, the method of clicking anywhere on the panel of Beta4 wasn't logical.

jv16

Still working on getting the basics back in order, the registry access seems to be now working, file access was fixed a few days ago already. I'm currently working on getting the Unit Test tool to run through without any errors, after that it's time to move on the bigger things, like the Registry Cleaner.

There won't be a new Beta in this month, migrating to the new development environment is taking more time than expected. But we are doing general code maintenance at the same time, so the result should be very good and worth the wait.

jv16

Today I have been going through the entire code base and fixing areas of the code that the new Delphi compiler warns about, so far I have got from 700+ warnings to 150 warnings. There were also some issues with the Registry Cleaner engine (relating to the old code being incompatible with the new compiler) and those have been fixed.

siliconman01

Considering the impact of the Delphi 2010 compiler upgrade, perhaps a "Pre-Beta5" release should be tested by a limited number of the beta testers....just to check/test it prior to a full Beta5 release. In other words, once you get Beta5 ready for release, pre-release it to a limited few.

jv16

siliconman01 wrote
Considering the impact of the Delphi 2010 compiler upgrade, perhaps a "Pre-Beta5" release should be tested by a limited number of the beta testers....just to check/test it prior to a full Beta5 release. In other words, once you get Beta5 ready for release, pre-release it to a limited few.

That's not a bad idea! We'll do an in-house testing round with it first, and if we find any reason for concern we might just do this.

jv16

The Unit Test now runs fully without any errors, and the number of compiler warnings is down from 150 to 89. The progress is a bit slower than what I was hoping for but at least the direction is forward.

jv16

Here is the Change Log at the moment:

Issues Fixed (since previous Beta)

* From list "CONFIRMED ISSUES":

3. The Registry Information window is not resizable.

* From list "CONFIRMED ISSUES STILL EXISTING FROM BETA3":

* Not Reported

1. The Main Window is a few pixels too short to fully show the "Registry health" text on some system setups.

2. A Message Window can pop up during Initial Setup to show an error message.

3. Double clicking a file in File Tool should open the file in the associated program, however, double clicking a file doesn't usually do anything.

4. File Analyzer tool shows random results for files it cannot open/read.

5. File Analyzer tool sometimes fails to analyze files that are under 1 KB in size.

Improvements Done (since previous Beta)

1. The Warning and Tip panels now have a X button at the top right corner for closing them, the method of clicking anywhere on the panel of Beta4 wasn't logical.

jv16

Today I have been working on a case of the Registry Cleaner (and all registry access for that matter) being very slow when the program has been compiled with Delphi 2010 and run under 64 bit Windows 7.

So far I have been able to boost the speed of the Registry Cleaner under 64 bit OS some 30%.

siliconman01

I see Microsoft guidelines concerning the Start Menu items for third party software is to not put uninstaller links in the Start Menu. JFI :

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa511447.aspx

jv16

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jv16

The Registry Cleaner is now running pretty nicely after all the changes, Beta4's Cleaner runs for 180 seconds and the Beta5's Cleaner 196 seconds. A few weeks back it didn't even complete

All these issues of getting everything back to work boils down to one thing: Delphi 2010 enforces all developers to use Unicode. So basically, we need to check and possibly modify every single function and part of code that has anything to do with strings (i.e. text).

Before, with Delphi 7 and Beta4, every single piece of textual data was basically ASCII coded. That means, that for every single letter of text, there are always 8 bits of data, that is, one byte. That makes it very easy to iterate through a piece of text - one letter equals one byte.

Now, with Delphi 2010 and Beta5, all textual data is Unicode. That means, that for a single letter of text, there are 16 bits of data, that is, 2 bytes. This breaks the ancient rule of thumb of one letter equals one byte, and also all code that assumes so.

The vast majority of the work has already done to fully migrate PowerTools to Unicode, we are already fixing the issues reported with the Beta4 and I'm most confident we will get a new beta version ready for you later in this month.

tullik

jv16 wrote
. . . Now, with Delphi 2010 and Beta5, all textual data is Unicode. That means, that for a single letter of text, there are 16 bits of data, that is, 2 bytes. This breaks the ancient rule of thumb of one letter equals one byte, and also all code that assumes so.

The vast majority of the work has already done to fully migrate PowerTools to Unicode, . . .

Will translators need to do anything differently?

jv16

tullik wrote
jv16 wrote. . . Now, with Delphi 2010 and Beta5, all textual data is Unicode. That means, that for a single letter of text, there are 16 bits of data, that is, 2 bytes. This breaks the ancient rule of thumb of one letter equals one byte, and also all code that assumes so.

The vast majority of the work has already done to fully migrate PowerTools to Unicode, . . .

Will translators need to do anything differently?

No, not at all. The only thing is that if you are translating to a language that uses special characters, such as Chinese or Japanese for example, you must save the translation file using Unicode coding for the characters to display correctly.

jv16

Here is the current Change Log:

Issues Fixed (since previous Beta)

* From list "CONFIRMED ISSUES":

2. After Registry Cleaner finishes scanning no Scan Report pops up.

3. The Registry Information window is not resizable.

10. Directory Finder: Access Violation when clicking Start.

48. Unit Testing Tool: stopped with “Error: TestFileToolsEx : 5”.

* From list "CONFIRMED ISSUES STILL EXISTING FROM BETA3":

* Not Reported

1. The Main Window is a few pixels too short to fully show the "Registry health" text on some system setups.

2. A Message Window can pop up during Initial Setup to show an error message.

3. Double clicking a file in File Tool should open the file in the associated program, however, double clicking a file doesn't usually do anything.

4. File Analyzer tool shows random results for files it cannot open/read.

5. File Analyzer tool sometimes fails to analyze files that are under 1 KB in size.

6. Registry Cleaner could stop updating the number of values and keys updated during the scan for a long period of time.

7. Registry Cleaner can list False Positives under 64 bit Windows relating to files in C:\Windows\SysWOW64\

Improvements Done (since previous Beta)

1. The Warning and Tip panels now have a X button at the top right corner for closing them, the method of clicking anywhere on the panel of Beta4 wasn't logical.

2. Improved the accuracy of the Error Severity field of the Registry Cleaner.

CLASSIFIED AS NOT A BUG:

46. Startup Manager –> Create new: when you add a task to HKLM Run/RunOnce, it is actually put in HKLM Wow6432Node. (x86)

Steps: Run the tool, click New, check HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Run or RunOnce, fill the Caption and Command line fields and click OK. Confirm with regedit.

I'll be away from the office tomorrow, but I will be working that on Sunday.

inkymycat

Wow...All this work the developer is doing and he wants to give it away for free . I am a VIP member and don't understand why people can't pay the $6 dollars (USA) for a cheap upgrade. Most software they charge and arm and a leg for. Most of the software I own and bought the upgrades are $50 dollars and up. I am glad the program is coming along.

How much would a extra key cost me for Windows 7 64 bit? I have a license for Windowx XP (32-bit). I have my computer set up as a dual boot as I had a hard time getting the xp mode win windows 7 to work.

jv16

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inkymycat

Thanks for the fast response. Do you ever plan on making a U3 version for the thumb drives that support the U3 operating System? Even a stripped down version that has the registry cleaner and registry compactor would be great to have. You could charge a few extra dollars for that. I bought and own an excellent file manager program called Directory Opus. He has the option were u can spend a few extra dollars to get a Thumb Drive version with U3 or without u3 (stand alone program) http://www.gpsoft.com.au/ Thanks again for all you hard work.

jv16

We don't have any plans for a U3 version at this time, but if we get more requests to do so, we will naturally do it.

I'm making progress in bug fixing department, five more bugs fixed today from the Confirmed Bugs list. I'll post the updated Change Log after a few more fixes.

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