Using IDE to Debug FormPaint()

[JohnC]

I give up.
How can one use the IDE to debug a call to FormPaint() ?
Everything I try causes repaints which makes it impossible to get anywhere.
In the past I've managed to figure out my problem without tracing, but this
time ... .
Thanks for your help,
John

[dhoke]

1) Debug it in "one" pass through formpaint (apparently something your
finding difficult to do)
or
2) Get yourself a multiple-monitor hardware setup and have your debugger
windows on the opposite monitor from your application,
or
3) Move the guts of your form paint into a "worker" routine, so that you can
control when/how it is called, call the worker from the vcl-called
formpaint(), perhaps subject to a global variable, that you can change from
within the debugger
or
4) Set your breakpoint on the formpaint, but make the breakpoint subject to
a conditional expression dependent on some (global/file-static) variable
that you set from within the debugger so it will trip on a next repaint,
that maybe gets reset at the end of formpaint()

I definitely like (2) best.

Post by JohnC
I give up.
How can one use the IDE to debug a call to FormPaint() ?
Everything I try causes repaints which makes it impossible to get anywhere.
In the past I've managed to figure out my problem without tracing, but
this time ... .
Thanks for your help,
John

[JohnC]

Post by dhoke
2) Get yourself a multiple-monitor hardware setup and have your debugger
windows on the opposite monitor from your application,

OK, suppose I decide to pursue this.
1. Can you recommend a good video card that supports 2 monitors?
2. Does the IDE support this kind of setup? How do you tell it to use
different monitors for each purpose?
3. Are there any special issues that need to be brought to light before
trying this?

Thanks,
John

[dhoke]

Post by JohnC

Post by dhoke
2) Get yourself a multiple-monitor hardware setup and have your debugger
windows on the opposite monitor from your application,

OK, suppose I decide to pursue this.

I don't think you'll go back if you do.

Post by JohnC
1. Can you recommend a good video card that supports 2 monitors?

I believe it is possible to actually use more than one PCI video card in the
same machine (at least with linux), so you may be able to try it out rather
cheaply if you've got expendable, mostly unused machines/monitors lying
around somewhere... haven't actually tried it with ms-xp/vista, but I
_think_ it may well work there also...

Otherwise - Not really. We've had Dells that came (were ordered) with a
dual-ported NVidia card (properties suggest it may be NVIDIA Quadro NVS 285)
that we've been using with bds2006 for two years with no problems. (Hmm,
thinking about that "no problems" bit - I think I did turn off some of the
nvidia software, after having "issues", where information searches turned up
reports of other app's/environs having similar "issues", that were solved by
disabling some of the nvidia software special features - right now I don't
remember exactly what that was... And I don't think I ever decided
conclusively whether it actually helped reduce any problems I was having. I
may vaguely recall that the nvidia software seemed to be inserting (a)
thread(s) into applications, such as bds2006 IDE, that I suspected of
increasing the unreliability of the IDE.)

Post by JohnC
2. Does the IDE support this kind of setup? How do you tell it to use
different monitors for each purpose?

I haven't really played with telling the IDE much of anything. I just move
the pieces I want onto the other monitor (usually debugging panes after
initiating debug-program), and at least for the current session, they mostly
stay there. I haven't had to do this for quite a while, but I think I
recall the IDE remembering the debugging "desktop", and maybe, when you got
the "right" pieces onto the second monitor and started a debugging session,
it would put them back there (at least for the current load/session of the
IDE/project), each time you had to restart the debugging session.

Post by JohnC
3. Are there any special issues that need to be brought to light before
trying this?

I have gotten myself lost on occasion when I'd leave some window (call
stack, event log) "hanging out" on the alternate monitor, and I couldn't
find it...

Post by JohnC
Thanks,
John

[JohnC]

Thanks for your thoughts on this,
John

[Remy Lebeau (TeamB)]

Post by dhoke
I believe it is possible to actually use more than one PCI
video card in the same machine (at least with linux)

The same is true in Windows as well. Multiple video cards has been
supported since Win98.


Gambit