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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-13T22:06:13+00:00

I’ve made a couple of programs which I release as freeware on my webpage.

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I’ve made a couple of programs which I release as freeware on my webpage. One of these programs uses TSpinEdit for some number input. It works quite well, so I haven’t really had any reason to use anything else.

However, yesterday, a user told me he didn’t like how small the buttons were. I can’t really disagree, because, well, they are. Unfortunately, the only way to make the buttons bigger is to make the control bigger, and that really doesn’t look nice. Instead, I decided to change the component a bit so the buttons were placed next to each other, instead of on top of each other.

Now, Delphi won’t let me include this new component directly in the DFM, because it’s currently not installed – it’s just a file that’s added to the project. Obviously, it would be nice to change this – not just because it’ll let me keep the controls in the DFM, but also because it lets me reuse the changed component more easily – so I’ll have to make a package and add it to there. That’s fine, I can do that.

But that brings me to my question: How should I manage this package?

Are there any problems in adding any other components I make to the same package, or would it be better for me to make multiple packages and divide them into logical groups?

I use version control, of course, so propagating changes to component code between my desktop and my laptop isn’t a problem – but will I need to rebuild the packages manually on each workstation every time I make a change, or is there a trick I should be using?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    I have a few “my” components which are grouped in single package. In package options set “rebuild as needed”. I believe it does a trick, at least in my case (I’m developing the application both on my home PC and my notebook, using SVN) – it recompiles the package during project compilation, but it is runtime one (shared package; for app and it’s plugins). I’m not sure how about designtime, I’m afraid you’ll have to reinstall them manually each time you change something …

    Or, if using the same delphi versio, why don’t you put binary files (.bpl, .dcp) in the shared (versioned) folder?

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