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This is the former home of a library of assorted Delphi components, units and IDE extensions byDelphiDabbler.

➡️Active development of the library now takes place in a group of repositories in theddablib GitHub organisation.

⚠️WARNING: This repository is now archived. The code is frozen and out of date.

At the time the library was transferred toddablib, it contained the projects listed in the table below. Links are provided to each project's web page and to itsddablib GitHub repository.

† The About Box Component depends on the Version Information Unit, which must be installed first.

‡ Some of the Console Application Runner Classes demo programs make use of code from I/O Utility Classes.

The latest release of each project is available from the relevantddablib project page.

Many more releases can be found archived on SourceForge in theDDabLib Files page, where each project has its own folder.

Each sub-project of the library is fully documented. You can access the latest version of the documentation via:https://delphidabbler.com/url/ddablib-docs (:arrow_right:redirect).

Some sub-projects also have an FAQ page that can be accessed viahttps://delphidabbler.com/url/ddablib-faqs (:arrow_right:redirect).

Please report any bugs or request new features on the relevantddablib repository'sIssues page.

This library goes back a long way. When it was first created the code was not under version control. However, reasonably complete records of changes and releases were kept, either as change logs in source files or in separate documents. A file namedPreSVNHistory.txt, containing a summary of the project's history to date, was added to each library project.

At this time each library project was separately maintained in its own directory and received its own releases.

In 2009 the decision was taken to combine all the library projects into a single, monolithic, library. The intention was to release the whole library instead of making separate releases of each individual project.

This never actually happened!

A new Subversion repository was created to maintain the whole library. Gradually, the existing library projects were imported as sub-projects, starting with theSystem Information Unit on 2009-07-04 and ending with theClipboard Viewer Component on 2010-10-13. (Full details of import dates can be found in/common/Docs/svn-initial-import-dates.md). Each sub-project had its own sub-directory intrunk/projects. There was also atrunk/common directory for tools and anything else that could be shared amongst all sub-projects.

Originally the repository was maintained locally but eventually it was moved to GoogleCode as theddab-lib project. When the closure of GoogleCode was announced the repository was moved to SourceForge, now namedDDabLib. Dates when this move took place are not known.

The repository remained on SourceForge until 2022. During that time several new sub-projects were begun. These sub-projects do not have the aforementionedPreSVNHistory.txt file.

By 2022 the library was the last of my projects still being maintained in Subversion: everything else was using Git. There had already been one or two abortive attempts to convert the repo to Git, but finally, on 2022-01-16, the changeover was made.

Only the contents of the Subversion repository'strunk were exported. While the Subversion releasetags were not exported, equivalent Git tags were added at the last commit before each sub-project's release date. These tags had the form<projectname>-v9.9.9. There were no Subversion branches.

Because there wassome loss of information in the conversion, theSourceForge repository has been retained for archive purposes.

All Subversion commits were applied to the Git repo'smain branch. The last commit relating to code imported from the Subversion repo was tagged assvn-import.

After the conversion was complete the library was uploaded to GitHub as thedelphidabbler/ddablib repository.

New development on the Git repository was carried out on thedevelop branch, withmain being updated and tagged only at each sub-project release.

As has been mentioned, the intention to release the library as a whole was never realised. Instead, individual sub-projects continued to be released separately.

Keeping all the sub-projects in one repo meant that GitHub's tag-based release system couldn't be used effectively. Consequently, releases continued to be uploaded to SourceForge. It was clear that it would be more logical to split the library back into its constituent projects.

Therefore, on 2022-05-21, the long overdue decision was taken to split the monolithic Git repository into 17 different repositories, one for each sub-project. A newGitHub organization was set up and all the new repositories were uploaded there.

The Gitfilter-branch command was used to extract the individual library project repositories from the monolith. This flattened thedevelop branch into themain branch so that all changes that had been made indevelop now appeared inmain.

Tags were preserved, although some errors were corrected. Each release tag was renamed from<projectname>-v9.9.9 format toversion-9.9.9 format. A replacementsvn-import tag was added to each repository at the last commit before conversion to Git. Finally, a newddablib-split tag was added at the last commit made before the monolithic repository was divided.

A release was created on GitHub for the latest version of each project at the time of the split. Subsequent releases were finally being made available on GitHub as well as SourceForge. Earlier releases remain available onSourceForge.

Following the split, development ondelphidabbler/ddablib ceased. Further commitswere made tomain, but these were only for the purpose of archiving the repository. Thebegin-archiving-process tag marks the start of this process.

Thenew repositories adopted theGitFlow development methodology.