Lazarus 0.9.30 released

[Vincent Snijders]

The Lazarus team is glad to announce the 0.9.30 release. This release
is based on fpc 2.4.2.

This release is available for download at the SourceForge download page:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/lazarus/files/

Minimum requirements:
Windows:       98, 2k, XP, Vista, 7, 32 or 64bit
FreeBSD/Linux: gtk 2.8 or qt4.5, 32 or 64bit
Mac OS X:      10.4, LCL only 32bit, non LCL apps can be 64bit


Highlights / Major changes:

LCL:
* Windows CE: support for clipboard and keypad devices
* GTK2 and GTK1 interfaces are now separated.
 GTK1 is no longer maintained by the Lazarus team,
 but patches are still welcome.
* fpGUI: the LCL interface to fpGUI now supports all components
 on the standard page.
* QT: support for Haiku
* Layout and autosizing is now more consistent across widgetsets,
 overhead was reduced, improved cross platform layouts and complex forms.
* Added gif reader
* TLazIntfImage - New function AlphaBlend, which can alpha blend
 an intfimage into another, using a separate intfimage as the
 alpha channel.
* Unit chart and its component TBarChar are deprecated.
 See the new package TAChartLazarusPkg.

IDE:
* Support for FPC resources:
 You can now use {$R *.lfm} instead of {$i unit1.lrs}.
* The Delphi converter has improved a lot.
* Build modes, build macros and conditionals now allows
 different sets of compiler options for projects and packages.
* Editor
   * Hiding (Folding) of comments in Pascal source.
   * Allow Multiple Source-Editor Windows
   * Allow several Views of the same Source
   * User-defined color-schemes.
   * Identifier-completion pop-up is now resizeable
* Project compiler options can now be saved as default for new projects.
* When opening a project only those forms are opened
 that were open when project was closed.
* Various designer usability improvements:
   * arrow and tab keys switching between components
   * resize/move cancellation using ESC key
   * save/restore of the form window state in the project session
   * skip snapping when Alt key is pressed
* When creating a new project the default unit output directory
 is now lib/$(TargetCPU)-$(TargetOS). Target file name is project1.
 This has no impact on old projects.
* IDE now preserves the line endings of source files (it uses
 the line ending of the first line, it does not preserve mixed
 line endings).
* You can now quickly switch between several versions / branches of
 packages by defining the preferred package file name for each dependency.
* You can now use the IDE directive %H- to hide individual hints,
 notes and warnings.
* The IDE can be made dockable. Install either the package
 AnchorDockingDsgn or EasyDockMgrDsgn.
* The ToDo list was moved to a separate package: todolistlaz.lpk.
* Czech translation added

Debugger / Editor
* Inserted/Deleted lines during a debug session are now tracked.
 Breakpoints and Execution-line are adjusted.
* Step out command implementation (by Flavio)
* Show execution point command
* Single Instruction step (over/into)
* UI Improvements: Toolbars for Watches, Breakpoints, Disassembler
* Watches: Enabled display formats (mem-dump, Hex, Default, ..)
* Disassembler added navigation: jump to address / return to execution point
* Improved reaction speed: It is possible to continue stepping
 without having to wait for all watches, locals, ... to be evaluated

Components:
* The IDE got some options to become easier for students and pupils
 and there is a new package EducationLaz adding options to hide
 complex parts of the IDE
* New AggPas (Anti Grain Geometry for Object Pascal) package,
 now supporting FPImage and LCL. AggPas highlights: Subpixel rendering,
 8-bit alpha channel, paths, platform independent rendering using
 pure pascal
* TAChart update, including: stacked and rotated series, 3 new types
 of series, axis transformations, interactive tools, 6 new demos and
 other improvements


And thousands of fixes and smaller changes. The detailed list of changes can be
found here:
http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Lazarus_0.9.30_release_notes

Edit: added Windows XP.

[mWaltari]

Hello

Very good work! Thanks...

-TP-

[FabienWang]

Congrats to all developers.
Since i joined the community, i see the great work you do all.

Many many devs, testers, we're all involved in a beautiful project in my opinion

Thanks for your contributions.

[michaelthuma]

Great Job, I use it since yesterday. Very professional.

Delphi Bunny

[FabienWang]

Do I need to rewrite environmentoptions.xml? Can I still open old programs?

Hey gyts, you can overwrite the environmentoptions.xml without problem.
Of course, old projects will still open and compile.

Best regards,
Fabien Wang

[fredycc]

Good news, thank Lazarus team, this is a great project. 

Amazing job!!

Regards.

[denver]

Great Job !
Thanks to everyone !

[JimBeam]

Thanks a lot to everyone involved in getting this new release made and out the door!

[eny]

GJ !

First results look good.

[Kyjan]

Thanks to all, guys! Good job!

Regards
Kyjan

[JD]

Very good work guys. Thanks a million.

Upon recompiling my projects, I noticed that the DropDownCount property of TComboBox is now working. 

[mas steindorff]

WOW and already over 1,000,000 downloads for just the win32 in 5 hours !!
opps, that for all win32.  it only 4,000 for this latest rev

[motaz]

WOW and already over 1,000,000 downloads for just the win32 in 5 hours !!

are you serious?

[laguna]

Thank you for your excellent work.

What are the plans for the future,
- is scheduled to version 1.0?
- Where is he planning to FPC 2.4.3?
- Android will be supported with a project wizard, built into the new project menu?

Thanks for everything.
by Laguna

[idog]

This is excellent news. Congratulations all around and thanks for the hard work!