Installation
Virtual Treeview is designed for Delphi 4 and higher and can also be used with Borland C++ Builder 4 and up. It is however not designed to work directly with Kylix. You will have to use a special descendant written by Dmitri Dimitrienko for Kylix support. The initial core source files are:
Compilers.inc
Include file which contains various compiler symbols which determine the target compiler and the target operating system.
StrEditD4.dfm
Form file for the Delphi 4 TStrings property editor.
StrEditD4.pas
Delphi 4 TStrings property editor.
VirtualTrees.dcr
Component image for the tree components.
VirtualTrees.pas
The actual implementation of Virtual Treeview and its descentants and support classes.
VirtualTrees.res
Resource file containing some check and miscellanous images used for all Virtual Treeviews.
VirtualTreesD4.*
Run time package for Delphi 4.
VirtualTreesD4D.*
Design time package for Delphi 4.
VirtualTreesD5.*
Run time package for Delphi 5.
VirtualTreesD5D.*
Design time package for Delphi 5.
VirtualTreesD6.*
Run time package for Delphi 6.
VirtualTreesD6D.*
Design time package for Delphi 6.
VirtualTreesD7.*
Run time package for Delphi 7.
VirtualTreesD7D.*
Design time package for Delphi 7.
VirtualTreesReg.pas
Registration unit for some property editors and categories.
VTHeaderPopup.pas
Unit containing a TPopupMenu descentant which provides a convenient way to implement a header popup used to switch visibility of columns.
Installation
There seems always to be some serious confusion about how to install components in Delphi (packages are not loaded after restart or are not found when used by other packages, suddenly error messages are shown like "device does not function properly", strange compiler messages appear because of version mismatches etc.), so let me first give you a solution which I found after many trials and errors. It solved most of my package problems now for a long time.
The core of the solution is to compile always every intermediate file into the same output folder and put this folder into the system's search path. This means, choose a path (I use C:\TempOut) and set it as dcu, dcp and bpl output folder. Set this path also as library default path in the IDE options and remove the default $(Delphi)\BPL path, which often led to misleading version information (or use this path exclusively as compile target). However using the shorter path will ease your life significantly since you will have to open it from time to time and going deep down the program path structure is very long winded. This way you will always find only one version of your bpls and the IDE is able to use them, particularly if you have deep dependency nestings, as I do. You can still have several source folders but use only one output directory. Of course, final project results like executables or DLLs can be compiled into their respective local folder. They are not shared and hence do not have this problem. Don't forget to take this output directory in the search path of the system (PATH variable in autoexec.bat on Win9x/Me and My Computer/Properties/../Environment Variables on Windows NT/2K/XP).
In order to install Virtual Treeview in the IDE you first compile the run time package (even if you don't use it later, the design time package needs it anyway). So open VirtualTreesDx.dpk, where "x" stands for your Delphi version and just compile it (do not try to install the package). Once the bpl is created open the appropriate design time package (VirtualTreesDxD.dpk) and install this. Don't forget to adjust search and output paths as well as other options if necessary. If the design time package does not install because it did not find the run time package then either you did not yet compile it or the target path is not in the system search path. It must be there, the IDE does not specify a search path for bpls!
By default the target page of the component palette is "Virtual Controls". If you don't like this then change the Register procedure in VirtualTreesReg.pas before you compile the design time package.
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