Preview any text file

The preview pane in the File Explorer will preview .txt files, but it will not by default allow you to preview .json, .pas, .dpr files and many other files, even if they really are text files.
Luckily, there is a simple remedy for this.

Locate the extension you want to view as text – f.x. .json

You will find it under
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\.json
or
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\.json

Add a REG_SZ string named “PerceivedType” and give it the value “text”

This will instantly allow you to preview .json files in File Explorer. No restart needed, just click on the file name again.

Another example, is the Delphi .dpr files that do not preview.

Add the PerceivedType key for .dpr

and voila

Not rocket science, but kinda handy.

Migrating your Editor Colors to Delphi 10.4 Sydney

RAD Studio 10.4 Sydney introduces Custom themes for editor colors. Here is how to migrate your 10.3 settings to 10.4.

First, we make a custom color theme in 10.4 – go to Options | User Interface | Editor | Color.
With the current colors, just click on [Save As] and and give your personal scheme a name. 
I called mine Lars.

This creates a Registry branch, named HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Embarcadero\BDS\21.0\Editor\Highlight\Custom themes\Lars

In RegEdit, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Embarcadero\BDS\20.0\Editor\Highlight (i.e. the Rio branch)

Export to a file, f.x. MyColors.reg

In MyColors.reg, you’ll see

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Embarcadero\BDS\20.0\Editor\Highlight]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Embarcadero\BDS\20.0\Editor\Highlight\Additional search match highlight]
... and so on

Now, Open MyColors.reg in Notepad, search for “20.0\Editor\Highlight\” and replace it with “21.0\Editor\Highlight\Custom themes\Lars”.

Add the two branch paths for good measure.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Embarcadero\BDS\21.0\Editor\Highlight]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Embarcadero\BDS\21.0\Editor\Highlight\Custom themes]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Embarcadero\BDS\21.0\Editor\Highlight\Custom themes\Lars]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Embarcadero\BDS\21.0\Editor\Highlight\Custom themes\Lars\Additional search match highlight]
... and so on

Import the file into the registry, Restart the 10.4, go to Options | User Interface | Editor | Color and pick the custom theme “Lars”.

Agile’s Early Evangelists Wouldn’t Mind Watching It Die

“Way too much of agile has been not about technology, but about people and about managing things and about getting stuff done — not necessarily getting the right stuff done, but getting stuff done — rather than what engineering is about.

Agile has come to mean anything but the fundamental, underlying technical capability necessary to do really good software engineering.”

Source: Agile’s Early Evangelists Wouldn’t Mind Watching It Die

.NET 5 – One .NET to rule them all

There is No More .NET Core, it’s .NET 5

Here’s the umbrella of .NET 5 to the rescue. It’s a MAJOR change because of the following reasons:

As the first part of this unification scheme, Microsoft’s Xamarin mobile development platform will switch from using the Mono BCL to join other components leveraging the .NET Core BCL. With that move, Xamarin mobile development will be folded into .NET 5. That means that for the first time, one BCL-based framework will handle all app models:

  • ASP.NET Core
  • Entity Framework Core
  • Blazor
  • WinForms
  • WPF
  • Xamarin
  • ML.NET

Wait, WPF and WinForms made it into .NET 5? Yes, it’s true. Hello there, old friends! Nice to see them included in this runtime. The idea of using one SDK to build apps with is pretty exciting stuff, if you ask me.

Source: The Most Exciting Promise of .NET 5 | Okta Developer