What's new in LMD-Tools 2016?

• • • Introduction
• • • New: LMD DialogPack! Improved: LMD DockingPack and LMD GridPack
• • • LMD Shared Runtime
• • • Updated Hint Controls
• • • Vista/Windows 7/8/10 style controls and support
• • • New shared packages
• • • Validator, XML and regular expression support
• • • Improved ThemeEngine support
• • • SVN access and DevUtil support

LMD-Tools 2016 provides several major changes against the previous release:

• Compatibility with Delphi/C++ Builder XE7
• Support for Delphi/CBuilder 5 and Delphi 8 was dropped (licenses for older releases are as always included, though).
  This resulted in code cleanup and optimization, because much redundant legacy code could be removed.
• Number of LMD-Tools editions was reduced to 2 (LMD-Tools SE and LMD-Tools, which is equal to previous LMD-Tools CE licenses minus DesignPack/ScriptPack)

LMD-Tools includes now LMD DialogPack, which allows creation of advanced dialogs with modern and impressive appearance.
LMD DockingPack was heavily improved and allows creation of custom Docking Styles/Themes - using an advanced visual editor.
By the separation from the LMD-Tools LMD GridPack was heavily improved and does now support e.g. VCL Styles (from XE2 on).

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LMD-Tools, LMD ElPack and LMD IDE-Tools share the same core runtime. This avoids redundant code and provides common advanced features for all major LMD products. This includes a shared Unicode library, improved HTMLRenderer (including support for display of TGraphic descendants) and shared imagelist support (all main LMD imagelist container are part of the LMD Shared Runtime packages), advanced designtime support (completely new editors for all LMD container controls, new splashscreen and configuration dialog, new component editor for TLMDGraphicList), shared component packages like LMD LogTools, LMD PrintPack, LMD InspectorPack and much more.
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LMD Hint Controls got a massive Update in technical (-> drawing mechanism, e.g. using regions ) and functional way (e.g. many new visual styles and HTML support). Besides that a new advanced HintSystem for displaying any number of hints was introduced. Finally hint processing was unified with LMD ElPack (e.g. Unicode support). New features are among others are:

• Titles
• Icon/Glyph support
• Customizable close buttons
• HTML Support (with images, clickable links, etc)
• Background gradients
• Customizable hint nose shape
• Support of system shadows
• Vista look.
• N-Hint controls: A new component LMDMessageHintController was introduced. It allows to design a collection of hints and display them all at once or grouped via their group index settings

Support of Vista/Win7 features - even in IDEs before Delphi/C++ 2009! Use TLMDVistaFormExtension, TLMDFormGlass, TLMDFileOpen- and TLMDFileSaveDialog to add features not available in older Delphi/C++ releases. Besides that methods for Vista and Aero Glass detection are provided. Includes updated TLMDTaskDialog (now with HTML and Unicode support) - use vista style dialogs even on non-Vista systems!
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LMD-Tools contains new additional packages:

• LMD InspectorPack: Powerful Object Inspector component
• LMD PlugInPack: Plugin Infrastructure for your projects. Allows to extend your applications with custom modules (Win32 only)
• LMD LogTools: Advanced logging services, for use with the AnyLogger client (when available, the local AnyLogger Client will be free for all customers who purchased a main LMD 2016 VCL product (LMD-Tools, LMD ElPack, IDE-Tools or VCL Complete).

The LMD VCL Shared Runtime contains a XML support library, which is extremly fast, fully unicode-enabled and which adds only a small footprint to your Exe-files. XML data can be loaded from files, custom streams, resources or strings. Like other new support libraries this one is written completely in Pascal - no need for additional DLL's or Object files.
Besides that Regular Expression evaluation support was updated! The RegEx support from previous version was replaced by a new unicode-enabled native RegEx library with PRCE compatible syntax.
New: Validator controls: Except TLMDHintErrorProvider (lmdcore package) all Validator and Error Provider controls are now included in lmdrtlx package and can be shared among LMD-Tools and LMD ElPack.
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The native ThemeEngine of LMD-Tools was improved and is part of to the LMD 2016 Shared Runtime. Like in previous releases any .MSStyles theme file can be used at runtime. Such .MSStyles can be also encapsulated in compressed CAB files.
But unlike previous releases this feature can be enabled/disabled dynamically at runtime. No more Theme switches and recompilation of library code, but a separate package which you can decide to use or not at runtime. E.g. creating applications which automatically uses *.MSStyles themes on non-themed platforms (like Win2k) and system themes on themed platforms (like WinXP/Vista) is now a snap.

For XE2 applications and better VCL styles are supported and the recommended approach for new applications."; [Top]

LMD-Tools can be purchased as standalone package or as part of LMD VCL Complete. The LMD VCL Complete Package includes all LMD 2016 VCL(.NET) packages distributed by LMD Innovative. This product is also available as Subscription release with (optional) SVN access (the LMD VCL source repository). The LMD VCL 2016 source branch is quite complex with three main products and various sub- and standalone packages: Therefore LMD DevUtil was created, which allows simple and fast compiling and installing of any possible package combination (check DevUtil instructions for more info) into any supported IDE. This is a complete automated process and saves a lot of time against compiling and installing the package within the IDE by loading project groups.
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