andersmelander/delphilauncher

Delphi Launcher

Using Delphi with different versions of 3rd party packages

Usage

Note: Terms are explained in the section "How to create a new environment..." below.

Execute the start.ps1 PoweShell script from the environment root folder of the desired run-time environment.

The script will verify that the environment is up to date by comparing the environment version in the registry with the one in the enviroment.ini file on disk. If it's not up to date, the script deletes the current package files, extracts the new ones from the zip file, and updates the registry.

It then copies the current Delphi registry keys to a custom registry branch and updates it with the environment package files.

Finally, it launches Delphi with a command line that directs it to use the custom registry branch.

How to create a new environment based on a current Delphi installation

Note:

Quoted, bold texts are examples.

1. Create a folder to hold the environment.

   DelphiLauncher\MyProject

   We call this the environment root folder.

2. Create a folder named Packages under the environment root folder.

   DelphiLauncher\MyProject\Packages

   We call this the package folder.

3. Export the content of the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Embarcadero\BDS\<version>\Known Packages registry key to a reg file named packages.reg in the environment root folder. denotes the version of Delphi. For example 20.0 for Delphi 10.3

4. Rename packages.reg to packages.txt

   DelphiLauncher\MyProject\packages.txt

5. Edit packages.txt Remove the first 3 lines of the file so the file only contains the package list.

6. For all the design-time packages in the list and all the run-time packages they depend on, copy the files to sub-folders ¹ of the package folder.

   DelphiLauncher\MyProject\Packages\Graphics32\GR32_DD110.bpl

   DelphiLauncher\MyProject\Packages\Graphics32\GR32_RD110.bpl

   DelphiLauncher\MyProject\Packages\DevExpress\dcldxRibbonRS28.bpl etc

7. Zip the content of the package folder into a file named packages.zip in the environment root folder.

   DelphiLauncher\MyProject\packages.zip

   The package folder can now be deleted. The folder and its content will be recreated by the script on demand.

8. Add the packages.txt file to packages.zip. The packages.txt file can now be deleted. The file will be recreated by the script on demand.

9. Create a text file named environment.ini in the environment root folder.

   DelphiLauncher\MyProject\environment.ini

   The file is an ini-file with the following content:

   [environment]
   delphi=<version>
   project=<name>
   revision=<value>
   

   where

   • is the version of Delphi used. It must match the value of mentioned in step 3.

     delphi=20.0

   • is the name of the environment.

     project=My project

     The value is displayed in the Delphi title bar.

   • is the environment revision number/id.

     revision=1

   The combination of is used to detect if the environment has been updated and should be refreshed. If you change, add, or remove any package files, one or both of and must be changed. Typically only is changed.

10. Copy the start.ps1 script from another environment into the environment root folder.

    DelphiLauncher\MyProject\start.ps1

Note:

• Packages that are listed in packages.txt but do not exist on disk are ignored.

• Packages located in $(BDSBIN) are assumed to be Delphi's own and are left as-is.

• The paths in packages.txt are ignored. Only the file names are significant.

• It's a good idea to place a text file named versions.txt in the environment root folder that contains the name and version numbers of the libraries contained in the package sub-folders. This makes it easier to determine what an environment contains.

  DevExpress 2022.1.3.0 TeeChart 9.0.26.0 madExcept 5.1.2 (madCollection 2.8.11.7)

• If the project will be used with several different versions of Delphi, just create an environment root folder for each version.

  DelphiLauncher\MyProject\Delphi 10.3 DelphiLauncher\MyProject\Delphi 11.0

Revision control

The following files define an environment and can be placed under revision control (e.g. checked into a Git repository):

• start.ps1

• environment.ini

• packages.zip

• versions.txt (optional)

All other files are transitory and can be ignored.

For Git it might be a good idea to enable LFS for zip files on the repository if the file is large. YMMV.

Footnotes

1. The names of the sub-folders are not important. The sub-folders are only used to better organize the files. ↩