Lazarus Documentation

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Lazarus and Pascal Tutorials

• Overview of Free Pascal and Lazarus - A brief discussion of kinds of things you can develop with these general-purpose tools.
• Lazarus Tutorial - A tutorial for beginners and a detailed description of the Lazarus IDE.
• Lazarus IDE Tools - An intermediate level tutorial about code completion and other IDE tools.
• Lazarus Database Tutorial - An introduction to using Lazarus with databases.
• Developing with Graphics - Some basic examples on graphic programming.
• Pascal Tutorial - Tao Yue's Pascal Tutorial (reposted with permission).
• Console Mode Pascal - using the Lazarus IDE for writing Pascal programs for text-mode operation.
• Executing External Programs - A short tutorial showing how to run external programs from inside your program.
• TXMLPropStorage - Using TXMLPropStorage to save user preferences.
• Hardware Access - How to access hardware devices, such as ISA cards, PCI cards, parallel and serial ports and USB devices.
• Networking - Tutorials about TCP/IP protocol, creating secure network programs, WebServices, etc.
• XML Tutorial - Writing and reading XML files
• Multithreaded Application Tutorial - How to write multithreaded applications using Free Pascal and Lazarus
• Streaming components - How to write components to streams and read/create components from streams
• OpenGL Tutorial - How to use GLUT in Lazarus
• Creating bindings for C libraries - How to convert C header files (.h) to pascal units
• Lazarus/FPC Libraries - How to create dynamic libraries (.so, .dll, .dylib) and how to use them
• Translations / i18n / localizations for programs - How to provide localized versions of your programs and packages
• Daemons and Services - How to write windows services and/or linux daemons.
• Office Automation - How to interact with office software and create spreadsheets, text documents, presentations, etc.

The Lazarus User Guides

• Lazarus Faq - General information about Lazarus and specifics for Linux and Windows users.
• Lazarus DB Faq - FAQ on database issues in Lazarus.
• Databases in Lazarus - An overview of using databases in Lazarus
• Code Examples - Example working code for Lazarus.
• Wishlist/Wanted Features - Features that you would like to see in Lazarus
• How do I create a bug report - You think you found a bug in Lazarus, how can you report it?

Installation

• Installing Lazarus - An installation guide
• Getting Lazarus - Instructions on how to download a released or SVN version of Lazarus
• Multiple Lazarus - How to install several lazarus versions on one machine

IDE

• IDE tricks - Tips, tricks and hidden features
• Lazarus IDE - The IDE windows
• Lazarus Packages - A guide for creating a package under Lazarus
• Install Packages - A small guide to install packages
• Extending the IDE - How to add functionality to the Lazarus IDE
• Adding Kylix Help - How to use the Borland Help files within the IDE editor.
• Using Lazarus for other computer languages - How to use the IDE for C, Java, etc.
• IDE Development - Various pages about current development of the IDE.

LCL

• LCL documentation - On line help for LCL (work in progress).
• The LCL in various platforms - A brief discussion about LCL features which behave differently in different platforms.
• Autosize / Layout - How to design forms that work on all platforms.
• Main Loop Hooks - How to handle multiple event sources
• Asynchronous Calls - How to queue methods for later execution
• File size and smartlinking - How to smartlink applications and create smaller executables.
• Accessing the Interfaces directly - Example how to access the LCL widgetsets
• Add Help to Your Application - How to create a Online Help for your application
• Anchor Sides - Description of Anchor Sides Feature
• LCL Tips - Tips and tricks
• LCL Defines - Choosing the right options to recompile LCL

Developing

• The Power of Proper Planning and Practices - common-sense programming best practices for the Free Pascal and Lazarus developer
• Multiplatform Programming Guide - How to develop cross-platform applications and how to port from one platform to another
• Using Pascal Libraries with .NET and Mono - yes, you can use your Free Pascal code with .NET and Mono
• Deploying Your Application - How to create an installer for your application
• Cross compiling - Creating executables of one platform, on another.
• Remote Debugging - How to debug your Lazarus application from another machine.
• Application Icon - Setting the application icon

Platform specific Tips

• OS X Programming Tips - Lazarus installation, useful tools, Unix commands, and more...
• WinCE Programming Tips - Using the telephone API, sending SMSes, and more...

Tools

• Lazarus Documentation Editor - Using "lazde" to create documentation
• LazDoc - An integrated editor for documentation files
• FPDoc Updater - A GUI tool for updating FPDoc files
• lazbuild - Compiling projects and packages without the IDE

Coming from Delphi

• Lazarus Components - Comparison between Lazarus and Turbo Delphi components
• Lazarus For Delphi Users - For Delphi users who are getting started with Lazarus
• Code Conversion Guide - How to convert existing code and components from Delphi and Kylix

The Lazarus Developer Guides

• How To Help Developing Lazarus - A guide to help newbies start improving Lazarus
• Version Numbering - Explanation of the different version numbers of Lazarus
• Creating a Patch - A guide to making a patch with changes made to Lazarus
• Creating a Backtrace with GDB - A guide to making a backtrace to help you debug a program
• Nomenclature - Guide to choose a name for a new method or property
• Design Guide Lines - A guide about how to procede when changing Lazarus Source Code.
• GUI design - Notes on guidelines when designing the lazarus GUI
• Roadmap - An idea of the current status of the various parts of Lazarus
• Road To 1.0 - What needs to be done for Lazarus 1.0 and To Do lists
• Moderating the bug tracker - Guidelines for lazarus developers and moderators for using the bug tracker.
• Codetools - How the codetools are integrated into the IDE
• Creating IDE Help - How to extend the IDE documentation
• Unit not found - How to find units - How to setup the IDE and source files
• Bounties - Need a particular new feature soon? Set a price here.

LCL - Lazarus component library

• LCL Messages - Guide related to LCL Messages
• LCL Internals - Some info about the inner workings of the LCL
• LCL Key Handling - Help! A key press, what now?
• LCL Internals - Resizing, Moving - How the LCL communicates with the LCL interface to resize, move controls
• LCL Unicode Support - Road to Unicode enabled Lazarus
• LCL Documentation Roadmap - Which units have to be documented
• LCL Bindings - Bindings to use LCL on other languages

Interfaces

• Lazarus known issues (things that will never be fixed) - A list of interface compatibility issues
• Win32/64 Interface - The winapi interface for Windows 95/98/Me/2K/XP/Vista, but not CE
• GTK2 Interface - The gtk2 for Unixes, Mac OS X, Windows
• Carbon Interface - The Carbon Interface for Mac OS X
• Qt Interface - The Qt 4 Interface for Unixes, Mac OS X and linux-based PDAs
• Windows CE Interface - For Pocket PC and Smartphones
• fpGUI Interface - A widgetset completely written in Object Pascal
• Adding a new interface - How to add a new widget set interface

Translations

• Getting translation strings right A few notes for programmers on how to create and use translateable strings in your application. Quickly discusses general things about creating strings, offers a few hints on implementation issues and points out some things to consider when using English as base language in particular.
• Localization Notes:

• German - Notes and guidelines for translating the Lazarus IDE to German, including a small dictionary to look up often used translations.
• Portuguese-Brazilian - Small dictionary containing common translations of terms used in the Lazarus IDE for the Portuguese-Brazilian translation.
• Russian - Notes and guidelines for translating the Lazarus IDE to Russian.

• Add language bar explains how you can add a list of translations to the top of a wiki page.

Additional Components Documentation

• Pascal Script and Pascal Script Examples - How to use the pascal script components in Lazarus
• OpenGL - How to use OpenGL in Lazarus
• KOL-CE - Free Pascal/Lazarus port of KOL&MCK library. How to create very compact applications for Win32/WinCE in Lazarus.

Free Pascal Compiler Documentation

In addition to this site, the latest version of the documentation can also be found online and in a variety of downloadable formats on the main Free Pascal Compiler site. There is now also a WiKi site for FreePascal [1] very similar in style to this one, to allow developers to submit documentation in addition to the official FPC documents below.

• User's guide
• Programmer's guide
• Reference guide for the system unit, and supported Pascal constructs
• Run-Time Library reference manual
• Free Component Library reference manual
• Free Pascal documentation tool manual
• Build messages

Lazarus related blogs and websites

Blogs

• Adventures of a Newbie - A blog of a newbie getting started with some tutorial information in a running log.
• On the road with Lazarus/Freepascal - A blog dedicated to register my experiences while programming with Lazarus and Freepascal (by Luiz Américo)
• Porting to Lazarus - This blog describes the porting of a medium-sized application (~100 kloc) from D7 with CLX to Lazarus (by Alexsander da Rosa)
• Living Lazarus - One mans exploration into the possibilities of an open source RAD (by Wibblytim).
• Bee.ography just (another) Bee’s buzz!

Websites

• swainbrain pascal wiki - unique free pascal tutorials and info swainbrain