The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

On my research list: Not sure why, but sometimes the Delphi options display a regular application, but the IsConsole returns true because of AppType Console in the main PropertyGroup.

1. console applications are turned off in the linker
   
2. the debugger still shows it as a console application when stepping through the initialization section of the System unit
   

One of the problems is that unlike the {$APPTYPE directive (which has not changed much over time), the AppType element is undocumented (hardly anything in the .dproj file is documented).

The $APPTYPE lists two values: Console and GUI, defaulting to GUI:

• [WayBack] Application type (Delphi 2007)
• [WayBack] Application type (Delphi 2009)
• [WayBack] Application type (Delphi 10.2 Tokyo) – RAD Studio

Empirically, the AppType element can have these values:

• Application
• Console
• Package

This is the topmost part of the .dproj file does not matter, without AppType element valued Console, or with it or even having it valued Application: either way a console application is being built.

There is no $APPTYPE in the .dpr or any of the .pas files.

The IsConsole variable is always false and a console window always appears when debugging.

• [WayBack] System.IsConsole Variable (Delphi 2007)
• [WayBack] System.IsConsole Variable (Delphi 2009)
• [WayBack] System.IsConsole – RAD Studio API Documentation (Delphi 10.2 Tokyo)

That variable is not always conclusive, as there are situations where code is inside a BPL or DLL started by an EXE, so this works better: [WayBack] How to determine if I’m running as a console app? (Delphi on Win32) – Stack Overflow:

function IAmAConsoleApp: Boolean;
var
  Stdout: THandle;
begin
  Stdout := GetStdHandle(Std_Output_Handle);
  Win32Check(Stdout <> Invalid_Handle_Value);
  Result := Stdout <> 0;
end;

The .dproj files:

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An interesting read on Windows Manifest Files in Delphi [WayBack].

TL;DR:

Do not let Delphi manage your manifest. All versions are either limited, or buggy, or both.

Basically it’s the same as doing VersionInfo in Delphi: do not let the IDE do it, but do it yourself. In this case:

Write your own manifest in XML, then load it as a resource.

Via: [WayBack] Blogged : Windows Manifest Files – In this post I look at Windows Manifest Files, what they do, why we need them and how to use them in Delphi and Finalbuilder… – Vincent Parrett – Google+

–jeroen