The main interface of PAL consists of a menu, a toolbar, a report list window, a viewer window, and a status bar. The toolbar provides speed buttons for common menu items, and the tree view enables quick report selection.
There are horizontal and vertical bars dividing the report list, report viewer and source viewer windows. Click on the bar with the mouse and drag it to change the sizes of the windows. If you click the hotspot button in the center of the bar (or F9), the report list window will be temporarily hidden. Click the hotspot button again (or F9) to make it visible. Click on the report window hotspot button (or F8) to toggle on/off viewing of the source window.
Select Options|Arrange in the menu to choose between possible arrangements for the report list and viewer windows.
Toolbar
The toolbar contains speed buttons for some of the menu selections.
Report list
The report list is displayed as a tree structure with reports. At the level below the reports, there are sections for the reports. Some reports only have one section, and in this case only the report level is shown.
If one or more report sections should be turned off (not selected), you will be notified of this by the report caption.
Click on an item in the report list window to move to a report or a report section in the viewer. The report is loaded in the report viewer window.
There is a popup menu associated with the report list that you can invoke by clicking the right mouse button. The popup menu has the following items:
- Display Root (collapse the entire list)
- Display Report Groups (collapse the list and show the report group level)
- Display Reports (collapse the list and show the report level)
- Display Report sections (expand the list fully)
Report Viewer
PAL presents the reports in a viewer window as a large read-only text block, which is also written to one or several files in the selected report folder. The format is ordinary text, HTML or XML.
HTML format (default) is suitable for web publishing. There are also more ways to customize the layout and appearance of the reports. An advantage with text files is that they are somewhat faster to load.
Navigate in the text by scrolling or with the PgDn/PgUp keys, or click on an item in the report list.
The following commands are available in the viewer for reports in text format.
Down |
Move the cursor down to the next line |
Up |
Move the cursor up to the previous line |
Left |
Move the cursor left one character |
Right |
Move the cursor right one character |
Home |
Move the cursor to the beginning of the line |
End |
Move the cursor to the end of the line |
PgDn |
Move to the next page |
PgUp |
Move to the previous page |
Ctrl+Home |
Move to the top of the text |
Ctrl+End |
Move to the bottom of the text |
Ctrl+Shift+0-9 |
Set the position of bookmark 0-9 to the current position |
Ctrl+0-9 |
Move to the previously set bookmark 0-9 |
Ctrl+C |
Copy the selected text to the clipboard |
Shift+Down |
Extend the selection down one line |
Shift+Up |
Extend the selection up one line |
Shift+Left |
Extend the selection to the left one character |
Shift+Right |
Extend the selection to the right one character |
Shift+Home |
Extend the selection to the beginning of the current line |
Shift+End |
Extend the selection to the end of the current line |
Shift+PgDn |
Extend the selection down one page |
Shift+PgUp |
Extend the selection up one page |
For HTML and XML reports, PAL uses the browser component in SHDOCVW.DLL, a library included with Windows. This gives the browser in PAL capabilities similar to the browser in MS Internet Explorer.
Source Viewer
If a row or an item on a row is double-clicked, three actions are possible:
- No action
- A source window is opened and the relevant source file is opened and displayed as plain text (default). The cursor is positioned on the line. This source window is for viewing only. To edit your source files, use the Delphi IDE or another editor. At the bottom right of the source viewer, there are two navigation buttons. Use these buttons to go back or forward through the list of source locations.
- The source file is opened in the editor window in the Delphi IDE and the cursor is positioned on the line.
Normally, double-click the word that describes the location of the identifier.
****************************************************************************
* Identifiers Report for *
* C:\PROJEKT\RAMVERK\GCACHE.PAS *
****************************************************************************
Identifiers (1286):
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
_FastCompareText Func, Interfaced GAsmCode (7)
_FastIntToStr Func, Interfaced GAsmCode (8)
_FastPosIntToStr Func, Interfaced GAsmCode (9)
_FastSameText Func, Interfaced GAsmCode (10)
In the report above, double-click on “GAsmCode” to locate the corresponding source line.
****************************************************************************
* Brief Cross-reference Report for *
* C:\PROJEKT\RAMVERK\GCACHE.PAS *
* 2002-11-20 19:18:22 *
****************************************************************************
Abbreviations: c=Created f=Freed i=Implemented r=Referenced s=Set u=Unknown v=Varparam
Brief crossreference:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
_FastSameText Func, Interfaced GAsmCode (10)
GAsmCode 90i
GTools 782r 805r 2070r 2084r 2092r
To locate each reference in this report, click on “782r”, “805r” and so on. Double-clicking on a line will in most reports trigger this action. One of the exception however is the Uses Report.
Of course, if you edit the Delphi source code, it may happen that the code line numbers in the reports are not longer valid, for example after deleting or adding lines. Double-clicking in the report will in this case probably locate the wrong line in the source code.
Status bar
The status bar presents different information, such as the currently loaded report file.
See also:
Introduction
Known limitations