TdfsVersionInfoResource v2.36
Description:
A component to read version info resources. It is intended for Delphi 3,
but should work with any file that contains a properly formatted resource.
Contact Information:
The lateset version will always be available on the web at:
http://www.delphifreestuff.com
If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please use the Delphi
Free Stuff Support Forum at:
http://www.delphifreestuff.com/discus/
If, for some reason, you can not use the web-based support forum, you can
email me at bstowers@delphifreestuff.com. However, the support forum will
always take precedence over direct email since it provides a resource that
others can use when they have a problem. Every message posted to the forum
is emailed directly to this account, so emailing me directly will not get
your message to me any faster. It will only make the message less important
for me to respond to since only one person (you) is benefiting from it
instead of everyone interested. Having said all that, please do email me
directly if it is regarding something that isn't really support related,
i.e. just to say thanks (as novel as that idea is).
Installation:
Delphi 1:
* Select the 'Options | Install Components' menu item.
* In the Install Components dialog, click the Add button.
* In the Add Module dialog, enter the full path name of the component's
registration unit (the unit that ends with 'Reg.pas', i.e.
'BrowseDrReg.pas') and click OK.
* In the Add Module dialog, click OK.
* The component library will be rebuilt and a new tab named 'DFS' will
be available on the Component Palette.
Delphi 2, C++Builder 1:
* Select the 'Component | Install' menu item.
* In the Install Components dialog, click the Add button.
* In the Add Module dialog, enter the full path name of the component's
registration unit (the unit that ends with 'Reg.pas', i.e.
'BrowseDrReg.pas') and click OK.
* In the Add Module dialog, click OK.
* The component library will be rebuilt and a new tab named 'DFS' will be
available on the Component Palette.
Delphi 3, 4, 5, C++Builder 3 & 4:
* Do one of the following:
+ Create a new package by selecting File | New and choosing Package from
the New tab in the dialog.
+ Open an existing package file. I suggest you do this if you already
have a package that you like to use for small, third party components.
I specifically have a package named "3rdParty.dpk" that I use for
small components that come from other people. Or, if you are using
several of my components, you might create a "DFS.dpk" package and
use it for all of my DFS components.
* In the resulting package window, click the Add button.
* In the Add dialog, on the Add Unit tab, enter the full path name of the
component's registration unit (the unit that ends with 'Reg.pas', i.e.
'BrowseDrReg.pas') and click OK.
* You may want to add the other source files (*.pas) to the package as
well in the same manner as you did the registration unit. While this is
not required, not doing it will cause compiler warnings when the package
is compiled. The component will function fine either way, but I
personally find the warnings very irritating and am not happy until
every compiler warning and hint is gone.
* If this package is new, or it has never been installed, click the
Install button in the package window. If this package is already
installed in Delphi, click the Compile button.
C++Builder 5 and up:
* Perform the "Delphi 3 and up, C++Builder 3 and up" steps above, except
for the last step (Compile or Install).
* Select the package the component has been added to, and choose
Project | Edit Option Source to open the package options in the editor.
* In the entry for PFLAGS, add the "-LUvcl50" option. For example:
* Perform the final step from above, Compile or Install.
* For Borland's official word on this situation, open the C++Builder help
file and search the index for "dsgnintf.dcu" and see the "Compiling
packages with DsgnIntf" section.
Delphi 6 and up:
* Perform the "Delphi 3, 4, 5, C++Builder 3 & 4" steps above, except
for the last step (Compile or Install).
* Add the DesignIDE package to the Requires list of the package into which
the component is being installed.
* Perform the final step from above, Compile or Install.
* This is necessary because of changes to the design-time support units
introduced in Delphi 6. For complete information, see the Del6New.hlp
file in your Delphi 6 Help directory. In the index, search for
"upgrade issues" and in the resulting list of topics, select the
"DsgnIntf renamed and related changes" topic.
Notes:
* You can now compile TdfsVersionInfoResource as a non-component class. I had the
need for using version info in an app that was needed to remain very small
in size, but as it was, many of the Delphi units were being used by this
component that bloated the compiled size horribly. The worst offenders were
the Forms and DsgnIntf units. So, I added a DFS_VERSION_INFO_AS_CLASS
conditional directive that will cause TdfsVersionInfoResource as a descendant
of TObject instead of TComponent. This means that you lose the ability to
drop it on a form and fool with it at design time, but it also means you
will cut 150k to 200k from the compiled size of your app. Now, you won't
get this savings if you are already using those VCL units in your app. In
practice, this is really only useful for console apps since any "normal"
delphi app uses these core units anyway. Also, it could be useful for
DLLs since they may not need those units. The biggest problem you are
likely to run into using this directive is switching between projects that
use the different versions. You will need to make sure you do a full build
of the project, otherwise you will get nasty errors since it could link the
component version DCU into your app that uses the TObject version, and vice
versa. I can not stress this enough: If you use this conditional define,
REBUILD YOUR PROJECT IMMEDIATELY when switching between projects that use
different versions.
* I have not tested this on anything but Delphi 3, 4 and C++Builder 3
generated EXEs with proper version info resources, and on Triplex generated
16-bit version info resources in a Delphi 1 EXE.
* The CreationDate property is faked under Delphi 1. If anyone has a
function, or even pseudo-code, for converting the dwFileDateLS and MS
variables into TDateTime format, please send it to me. For now, I just
get the date/time stamp of the file containing the ver info resource.
Known Issues:
* Using the version information built with Delphi 3 or C++Builder 3 and above
IDEs, (Project | Options | VersionInfo tab) will cause your ProductVersion
to always match your FileVersion. Here is what I've found:
It seems to me that this is a bug in the way Delphi builds the version
information resource. Here is what Delphi 3 builds in the project's .RES
file:
1 VERSIONINFO LOADONCALL MOVEABLE DISCARDABLE IMPURE
FILEVERSION 2, 1, 5, 3
PRODUCTVERSION 2, 1, 5, 3
[..snip...]
{
BLOCK "StringFileInfo"
{
BLOCK "040904E4"
{
[..snip...]
VALUE "FileVersion", "2.1.5.3\000\000\000\000\000R\203\003\000"
VALUE "ProductVersion", "1.0.0.0\000\000\000\000\000R\203\003\000"
}
}
}
Note in the "StringFileInfo" section, ProductVersion is 1.0.0.0. But,
notice in the fixed information (at the top), PRODUCTVERSION is 2, 1, 5, 3.
It looks like everything you put into the version info grid in the IDE ends
up in the StringFileInfo section. I'm pulling version numbers from the
fixed information, and it looks like the Delphi IDE just copies whatever
you assign to the FileVersion over to the ProductVersion for that.
You've got a few options to deal with this: 1) don't use the IDE generated
version info, build your own with a resource editor and use {$R xxx.res}
to compile it into your app, or 2) pull the product version from the string
info like this:
Info.Lines.Add('ProductVersion = ' + VersionInfo.ProductVersion.AsString);
I've set up the AsString property to work such that it reads the version
from the StringFileInfo section (if it's there) rather than just building it
from the fixed information numbers. That means that the numbers in
ProductVersion may be completely different than the AsString numbers in it.
That is, using the above example, if you read the numbers from
ProductVersion you would get 2.1.5.3, but if you used
ProductVersion.AsString you would get 1.0.0.0.
Revision History:
2.36: + Fixed a problem that occurred with some oddball version info resources.
Notably, Borland's Resource Workshop WORKSHOP.EXE file was unreadable
to the component (it crashed it even, I think). I finally figured out
what they were doing that was goofy and it now gets along fine with it.
+ Updated for Delphi 6 compatibility. See updated install directions
above.
2.35: + Updated for C++Builder 5 compatibility.
2.34: + Changing the Filename property wouldn't cause controls to be
repopluated.
2.33: + Changed the way the TVersionNumberInformation class' AsString property
works. Before, it just converted the number into a string, but now it
reads the string from the stringfileinfo section. This makes it
possible that the version number and the AsString version number could
be different. See Known Issues section above for full discussion.
2.32: + It's *really* D5 compatible now. Small change between the D5 eval
version and the real, shipping D5 version broke it.
2.31: + Classname changed.
+ D5 compatibility.
2.30: + Under Delphi 4, you could get AVs if the version resource didn't have
any translation info (I think). Stemmed from the fact that I was
mixing an unsigned for control variable with a signed value to loop
to. Thanks to Steve Sherwood for finding and fixing this.
+ Delphi 2 style line comment ("//") snuck in, so it wouldn't compile
under Delphi 1 without fixing it. I hate that...
2.29: + There were some strings left that should have gone into resource
strings for completeness' sake. The strings were never used in a
compiled application, but only in the property editor (Delphi IDE).
They have been fixed for those who want a "full" translation.
+ Added DFS_VERSION_INFO_AS_CLASS conditional directive. See Notes
section above for full description.
+ Added VInfoReg unit. All IDE specific code (i.e. registering the
component, property editors, etc.) are contained in this unit. This
was done for two primary reasons: 1) Using the component in a Delphi
or C++Builder expert would register the component as well. 2) Reduce
code size in some cases -- usually the smart linker removes this sort
of stuff since the app never references it, but now it's for certain
since it isn't even in the unit. This change means that you need to
install the component using the new "registration" unit instead of
the unit containing the component.
2.28: + Moved hard-coded strings to resourcestrings for Delphi/Builder 3 and
higher. They are normal consts for older compilers. This aids in
internationalizing an app.
2.27: + Peforming a Project | Build would cause an Internal Error L511 to be
generated. It has something to do with the way the VersForm and
VersInfo units used each other, but I couldn't isolate exactly what
was causing it. So, I've moved everything that was in VersForm into
VersInfo. You can safely delete VersForm.* from your system if you are
upgrading from a previous version.
2.26: + Update for Delphi 4 compatibility: Linked controls are no longer
populated at design-time because of a change in Delphi 4. Shouldn't
matter since you usually got the Delphi IDE version info at design
time anyway.
+ Some version info resources (notably those in Microsoft Office apps)
use a "language neutral" ID (zero value) for the language ID and only
give a valid char set ID. But, the actual version info uses a full
language and char set ID value. So, apparently this neutral value is
supposed to be treated as a wildcard, but I can't find that behavior
documented anywhere, and it is not supported directly by the API calls.
So, I have implemented it such that if the ID value(s) is zero, a
default is inserted ('0409' for language and '04E4' for char set).
This does fix the MS Office apps, but I can't guarantee it'll fix
everything that uses this (somewhat questionable) scheme. If you find
anything that it doesn't work for, let me know.
2.25: + Added Version property.
2.24: + If the resource does not have any language character set information,
a default value of '040904E4' is used now instead of ''. There are a
couple of DLLs out there like this, and using '' will not find the
info in them. Thanks to Jens Bretschneider
(j.bretschneider@hardsoft.de) for this.
2.23: + Fixed problem with C++Builder 3 run-time packages.
2.22: + The Comments element of the version information was not getting added
to the linked listview/grid.
2.21: + Updated for new DFS.INC file, component tab name, history/comments
file.
2.20: + Delphi 1 compile problems... '//' is habit forming...
+ The VERSFORM unit is no longer installed seperately. It is now
compatible with both Win16 and Win32.
2.12: + Fixed nasty little recursion bug (wasn't supposed to recurse).
2.11: + Small change for C++Builder compatibility.
2.10: + All items in version 2.10 were done by Grahame S. Marsh
(grahame.s.marsh@corp.courtaulds.co.uk). Many thanks to him!
name and email at work and will insert them here ASAP.
+ noted that build numbers were not cleared, fixed by adding
boolean to show when the data is valid.
+ Changed filename property from string to its own type to allow a
property editor to be hooked in.
+ Added a TListView for WIN32, retained TStringGrid for 16 bit.
+ Added ability to choose which resources are visible in the grid or
listview by a set selector.
+ Provided a filename property editor, and a component editor that
shows the current resource values of an attached file. This is
available in WIN 32 only, sorry. (Note from Brad, I will look
into adding this under Win 16 soon) Both of these are provided
in the VersForm unit -- this unit must be installed into Delphi to
use this functionality.
2.00: + In a nutshell, Greg Nixon (gnixon@whanganui.ac.nz) added the
CopyrightLabel, DescriptionLabel, ProductLabel, VersionLabel and
VersionGrid properties. I tweaked and fiddled with some of it, but
he gets the credit for the work.
+ Changed FileVersion and ProductVersion to be a new class type.
This class type will let you check individual values, as well as
get the entire version as a string. The properties are:
Major, Minor, Release, Build, AsString
AsString is built like this:
... ex. "2.1.0.391"
Thanks to Stefan de Vogelaere (Stefan.de.Vogelaere@telenet.be) for
this idea.
1.10: + 16-bit compatibility. (not released as 2.00 version came too fast)
1.00: + Initial release.