Delphi 2006; dcc32: "--secret-sign" compiler switch

This is amazing! I fiddled around with PGP today. I wanted to sign my secret key and a couple of other keys, but - as always - I had to look up the name of the parameter for my command-line tool. A quick Google search reveiled that it was "--secret-sign". So I selected the text and copied the parameter into the clipboard. Changed back to the command window, pasted and pressed ENTER. Hmm...

This is what I saw on the screen:


C:\Documents and Settings\holger\apps\GnuPG>dcc32 clpbrdhist.dpr --secret-sign
Borland Delphi for Win32 compiler version 18.0
Copyright (c) 1983,2005 Borland Software Corporation (experimental compiler switch help)

Syntax: dcc32 --secret-sign [options] filename [options]
The --secret-sign parameter enables the following options:
-NATIVE64BIT = Build 64-Bit executable (experimental)
-ENABLE-GENERICS = Enable generics (experimental)
-COMPRESS = Compress executable for in-place decompression (experimental)

Use at your own risk!


Wow! What's that? I pasted the parameter to the string that was still there due to the command line history I use quite a lot. At first I could not believe my eyes, but then I simply typed the followingin my source directory:


C:\Documents and Settings\holger\source\clipbrdhist>dcc32 --secret-sign -NATIVE64BIT clpbrdhist.dpr

Then I wondered that it really compiled and yielded an executable. Then, I tried to execute it and had to realize: It did not work! I do not have Win64, nor do I have a 64-Bit processor... the message was:

Fatal error: Cannot execute clpbrdhist.exe -- operation not supported


Well, I guess, somebody of you has to try it on a Win64 system with a decent processor. However, I tried the "-compress" switch and it really decreased the size of the executable quite a bit! And I could not "feel" any performance decrease compared to the non-compressed exe. This is really cool!

The other switch is pretty useless, as I have no idea how the syntax would have to look like in order to use it... Well, maybe somebody way smarter than me will find out :-)

IntraWeb Studio: New Beta = WOW!

Today, Hadi Hariri from Atozed Software surprised me with an email if I was interested to check out the new user interface of the next version of IntraWebStudio (IWS). I already mentioned that this very page has been designed with it, but to give it away right from the start: Wow! The new screen layout and usabilty are awesome! The complete user interface matches the look and feel of the next Microsoft product line and I think it is just great that I can use IWS with the same user controls that Microsoft Vista or Office will offer in the future. also immediately noticed the major improvements in the document editor. It is much easyier to work with as almost every operation is on the toolbar now.

Just have a look what the main screen and the document editor will look
like: