Storage Library
Description
Application settings management is a important and base part of any application. Usually TIniFile and TRegistry classes are used for this purpose. Our company is pleased to offer new way for application settings management. Storage library is a collection of components allowing for work with application settings. The concept of Storage library is very elegant and simple:
- The TrsStorage - main component that hold all data on tree-like in-memory structure;
- Several TrsStorageData components that exchange data with ini, bin, xml files, registry or TStream;
- Several TrsStorageClient components that simplify work with data;
- Several TrsEncryptor components that encode data with various algorithms using.
Using Storage library you can gradually add functionality of application settings management in you application.
Main features
- In-memory tree-like data structure.
- Data exchange with ini files, registry, binary files, TStream Delphi object, XML files
- Data types: Boolean, Buffer, Component, Currency, DateTime, Float, Int64, Integer, Persistent, Point, Stream, String, Variant.
- Data encrypting. Ability to save data to an external storage in the ciphered format.
- Unicode support.
- Working with the published properties of other components without programming (desing time dialog).
- Saving the form position and state without programming.
- Little programming for operation with unpublished properties of other components.
- Auto link references between Storage library components.
- Links with TCustomTreeView and TCustomListView descendants for data showing.
- SQL like search engine.
- All Storage library components are optimized for better speed.
Full context help file, demo programs, setup program are included.
Storage Library - Overview
Introduction
As a rule, each application has a set of control parameters called “application settings”. There are general settings and particular settings determined by a particular user. The application settings are stored in so called “ini “ files, in Windows registry, in special format files, in Data Bases (DB), etc. It is natural to try to automate the application settings managing, in order to facilitate the programming process and to develop a universal system for the application settings control, allowing the extension, modification and upgrading the computer program. The Storage library has been developed for the above mentioned purposes.
What is the Storage library?
The objective of the Storage Library is to control the application settings. It provides the user with the following possibilities:
- Reading/writing the application settings in “ini” files, in Windows registry, in special format binary files, in the standard Delphi stream. The latter allows the use of various locations for the application settings storage, e.g. the DB fields;
- Automated reading/writing of published properties of the other components;
- Facilitation of the development process by reading/writing both the unpublished properties of the other components and any arbitrary data.
How Does It Works?
TrsStorage is a main component of Storage library. It controls the data stored in the memory as a tree-like structure. The TrsIniData, TrsRegData, TrsBinData, and TrsXMLData components are designed for the purpose of data exchange between TrsStorage and the storage location. The TrsPropSaver component allows for automated reading/writing of published properties of other components located in the same application form as TrsPropSaver. In addition, TrsPropSaver can store the position and state of a form.Usually, the application being developed must contain:
- the TrsStorage component designed to store and to control the application settings;
- any of the TrsIniData, TrsRegData, TrsBinData, or TrsXMLData components, designed to read/write the application settings stored in TrsStorage;
- a certain number of TrsPropSaver components (a component for each form) which will read/write (automatically) the position and state of a form, published properties of components located on a form, the user data, unpublished properties of components located on a form;
- a TrsCustomProperties component allowing the unification of the unpublished properties managing for all TrsPropSaver components.
