Today Telerik, perhaps the premier .NET control vendor, along with Pwop Productions launched TelerikTV.com a web site dedicated to showcasing applications that leverage their technology. The premier episode features none other than Falafel’s very own Lino Tadros demonstrating ActiveFocus. ActiveFocus (AF) is Falafel’s Web based Project Management application which uses lots of Telerik goodness to create a smooth Outlook style AJAX enhanced UX. The video is a deep dive into the features of ActiveFocus that use Telerik controls and has all the hallmarks of a Lino Tadros presentation.

Check it out!

I've blogged a lot about how CodeGear uses Continuous Integration (CI) in it's development process for Delphi/BDS. What want to talk about here is how you can use these same tools for your development process.

First, is the issue of version control and for that we use Subversion otherwise known as SVN. SVN is open source and fortunately there is a convenient "1 click setup" described as follows:

Svn1ClickSetup takes a user through the steps necessary to install the Subversion command-line utilities and TortoiseSVN, as well as creating a repository and initial project.

This setup really lives up to it's name so if you're looking for a fast and easy way to get started with some great source control software this is what you're looking for. The install includes the TortioseSVN client which is an SVN client that's implemented as a Windows Shell Extension and is what the majority of developers at CodeGear use.

A Continuous Integration Server

That may sound a bit more daunting than perhaps it should but basically it's the software that pulls from your repository, builds your project and reports any errors. The Delphi development team uses CruiseControl.NET server and CCTray for client side notifications of build failures both of which are open source projects and even though it has ".NET" on the end of its name the server isn't restricted to building .NET only projects.

Once again the installation is very straight forward and if you have IIS installed you'll even be able to monitor your CI server via a browser including forcing a new build.

Ok, now that you've read all about it have a look at the video. Or can download it here.

Here is the ccnet.config file used in the video, and no, "steve" is not my normal password.

[UPDATED: April 23, 2007] Fixed video and .zip file download links.

The other day I was talking to Nick Hodges about the videos that he's been posting and I mentioned to him that he needed to do one on the non-automatic code completion features to give them more exposure and he told me I should do it (thanks, Nick ). So, I've created a video of some of the uses of code completion and code browsing that require the user to manually invoke.

Thanks to Product Management I've been allowed to post a Flash movie of our one of our R&D smoke test suites running against an internal build of Highlander (vNext of BDS). The suite is rather simple but  exercises a number of critical sub-systems in the IDE and provides a broad pass at many of the different product areas.

Basically, the test suite covers the following:

1. Create a new project (13 project types in all are tested in this particular suite)
   
2. If the project has a designer toggle to the code editor dirty the file and toggle back to the designer
3. Project | Build All
4. File | Save All
5. File | Close All
6. File | Reopen | First project in the list
   
7. Project | Build All
8. File | Close All and return to step 1 for the next project type

The test suite itself, as well as the testing framework (Zombie), is entirely written in Delphi. Zombie tests are written as console applications and the output appearing at the bottom of the screen is from our TTestManager class which drives test execution. Errors output by the TestManager are MSBuild friendly so if an error were to occur it would be flagged in red in the console window and cause MSBuild to report a failure which eventually trickles back to R&D via the CruiseControl tray application.

Sorry in advance but I won't be entertaining questions related to Highlander, it's release date, feature set or anything else for that matter as it's currently under development. For more information I'd refer you to the publicly available roadmap.