Thursday, February 14, 2013

Happy 18th Birthday, Delphi!

It's Delphi's 18th birthday, and I am celebrating by coding in Delphi XE3 (the 16th version) and posting this picture of my first copy of Delphi.

Monday, February 4, 2013

Delphi Editor Key Combination Table Updated


In May of 2009 I blogged about a table of Delphi editor keystrokes that I assembled and made available online. That table, which was relatively complete (incomplete might be a more honest appraisal), was more or less current as of Delphi 2009. I had intended to keep this table up-to-date, but like so many casual obligations, intention met reality, and the table has been left untouched, until now.

What motivated the update is that this past December I had the pleasure to cross paths once again with fellow Embacadero MVP and Delphi advocate Brian Long. We were speakers at the annual Sofware Developer Network conference in The Netherlands, were one of Brian's sessions was titled "IDE Productivity Tips." A big part of his presentation covered useful editor keystrokes.

We got talking after his presentation, and I mentioned my negleted key combination table and asked if he'd care to take a look and help bring it up to date. He agreed, but I really don't think either of us could imagine how much work it was going to take. Now, two months later, after many email exchanges, and hours of review and research, we are prepared to share our efforts and publish the updated table of Delphi editor keystrokes and key combinations.

The updated table now includes the many key combinations that have been added in the four releases of Delphi since I published the original table, and boasts a whopping 185 different editor key and key combinations. The new list also includes those editor keystrokes that are active during debugging, which were missing entirely from the original list.

Brian has a keen eye. That, combined with his extensive knowledge of Delphi, significantly improved the scope and consistency of the original table. I am grateful for his effort, and hope that you will appreciate it as well.

Edit: I will make an effort to keep this table updated, and have made several changes since the original 4 February 4 2013 post. The most recent version of this table was updated on 6 February 2013.

You can access the latest version of the updated table using the following link: http://www.JensenDataSystems.com/DelphiEditorKeyTable.pdf