Ide-a
=====

Ide-a introduction
------------------

Ide-a includes a set of Delphi IDE enhancements that will speed up your Delphi
programming. These enhancements are simple adjustments to the default Delphi
environment or component editors that will help you to reduce mouse usage and
increase standardization.

Ide-a is Freeware, please us it as such. Use Ide-a at your own risk...

Installation
------------

Install Ide-a like you would install any other package.

What does Ide-a do for you?
---------------------------

-=[ The prefix property editor ]=-

Ide-a includes a prefix property editor. On the name property of a component
a dialog button appears in the object inspector. Click it to fill the
name property with the prefix you assigned to the component class.

If you have not asigned a prefix for the component class of the selected
component you will be prompted for a prefix.

In the Delphi tools menu a new menu items appears to edit your list of assigned
prefixes. It also allows you to save and load your prefix list so you can share
your prefixes with colleagues or friends.

-=[ Align controls ]=-

Align controls in several types of containers. Simply right-click the container
and select the alignment setings to be used and off you go!

The align function aligns labels and wincontrols in the containers TPanel,
TGroupBox, TScrollBox, TTabControl and TTabSheet. Only labels that are linked
to wincontrols in their focuscontrol property are aligned.

You can set the alignment to attempt a vertical fit or select the number of
columns desired. It is also possible to select the column offset, the horizontal
label offset, the vertical distance between controls and the vertical label
offset.

You can select which components to align, which controls to default exclude from
align and which controls to treat as custom button controls (such as TCheckBox).
You can select custom button controls to be treated to have their caption
aligned as a label.

-=[ The data controls wizard ]=-

The data controls wizard replaces the drag and drop functionality from the
Delphi fields editor. The Delphi fields editor provides default lay-out and
component creation. The data controls wizard provides a flexible way of data
control creation. This was inspired by the etwDBScrollBox by Eric ten Westenend.

You can select a container in which all data controls should be created. The
containers that can be selected are TPanel, TGroupBox, TScrollBox, TTabControl
and TTabSheet.

After selecting the container, select the TFields for which you would like to
create data controls. You can manipulate the tab order of the controls that will
be created.

For each field you can select which type of data-aware control you would like to
create. So now you can also select InfoPower or Raize data-aware controls to be
created! You can set up a list of default classtypes to create for the available
fieldtypes (set it once, never bother again).

You can select if you want labels to be created for the data controls. Any
TCustomLabel descendant that publishes the caption and focuscontrol property can
be used.

You can also let the labels represent decapitalized versions of the display
labels so the labels will even look nice if the display label is in uppercase.
It is also possible to append a string to the caption of all labels created
(for example a semicolon).

Select your own width strategy for the controls to be created. Use the default
controls creation width, the width according to the display width of the
corresponding field, or the largerst display width of all fields.

Custom button controls (such as TDBCheckBox) can be treated differently. Their
caption property can replace the label functionality.

If a prefix is available for the control created then the control is named
using that prefix. After creating all controls the controls will be aligned
according to the alignment strategy if the selected container.

-=[ The multi-line component palette ]=-

No more clicking to scroll to the desired tab on the component palette! Reduce
the number of mouse actions by displaying the Delphi component palette as a
multi-line tabcontrol. Simpy right-click the component palette and select the
multi-line menu option. This feature was inspired by the Archaeopteryx package
for Delphi 3 (not yet released for Delphi 4, so I implemented this functionality
myself).

-=[ Custom shortcut functionality ]=-

You can define your own shortcut keys for all those Delphi non-shortcut commands
that you use very often. Simply select the shortcut list editor from the tools
menu and setup your custom shortcuts.


Have fun using Ide-a!

Erik Stok

PS: If you experience any problems using Ide-a, feel free to mail me at:

E.Stok@Knoware.nl
