Horizontal comparison of well-known Delphi skin control library.

The latest test results were updated on April 9, October 25.ArticleMarked in red.

 

Skin is a lot of comments, some people thinkProgramJust do it, and the interface is still stable in the original ecology. Indeed, stability is a crucial aspect of the program. Nothing else can be said without it, but it is undeniable that the aesthetics of both Microsoft, Apple and the masses are getting higher and higher, imagine the same QQ Software or cool dog software, with the same function stability. Do you like beautiful skin or the original ecology? Therefore, Program Interface beautification is also a very important aspect of the product.

 

Skin creation is actually a huge project. It is very troublesome, from art design, to textures, to program design. If it is not a very mature product and has a large user base, in addition, the company has considerable strength and generally does not make skin on its own. After all, there are too many things involved. Once a problem occurs, it will bring unpredictable consequences to the software itself.

 

Therefore, I chose to use the finished skin library on the existing software. To balance the effect and stability, I tested the skin controls on the current Delphi market one by one, A horizontal comparison is made among the five main items, including stability testing, memory leakage testing, texture Effect Testing, usage efficiency, and skin interface, so as to give some reference to friends who are preparing to use skin.

 

The products selected this time are all "Famous" control packages. Why does it make sense to add the word "Famous"? After skin is used, it directly affects program running, follow-up maintenance must be guaranteed. Imagine that you have used a skin control without subsequent protection, and no bug fixes have been fixed, and you have notSource codeExcept for skin control. Therefore, the well-known standard of Delphi controls is a control package that allows regular companies or individuals to maintain continuous updates and respond to problems.

 

The control package involved in this test contains: alphacontrols/businessskinform/dynamicskinform/vclskin/appface. I also tested some other controls that can be found on the Internet, however, it is eliminated directly because it is not updated for a long time. In terms of control packages, foreign products are much better than domestic products. For example, a QQ interface control package (which is not directly specified here) has many bugs, even the minimum UI re-painting, refresh, and memory leakage are not well done, and such products are sold out for full use. After finding that no one has purchased them, the author releases the control in the free name, but does not contain the sourceCodeAfter that, it has not been updated more than once in the past year. If you find that the bug is submitted to him, he will ask you to buy the source code at a price of-. We recommend that you do not need to use such a control package, directly pass, so as not to do a lot of futile work.

 

These control packages provide demo programs in addition to appface. Besides appface, they are provided in the form of delphi components, while appface is provided in DLL mode.

 

Ease of use stability Memory leakage test texture effect test efficiency skin Interface

alphacontrols is easy to use. Generally, leakage is good, high, and exquisite.

businessskinform is convenient, convenient, non-leak-free, generally high

dynamicskinform is convenient and easy to use. No leakage is generally high.

convenience of vclskin. Generally, leakage occurs. Generally, it is normal.

Appface convenience, no leakage, generally high

 

The above table summarizes the features of several interface control packages. The following describes the problems encountered during the testing of these interface packages.

 

Alphacontrols was the first to be tested. The latest version is 7.54 lite edittion and the source code version is 7.34. To be honest, alphacontrols is undoubtedly the best in these interface packages, it is also the most exquisite. It also provides more than 60 kinds of skin, and the texture effect is also the best as it continues to increase. During the test, it was found that the memory was slightly leaked, mainly concentrated on several controls. This problem is not serious. However, the title of the window is often followed by garbled characters, which is quite uncomfortable. I thought it was a problem with version 7.34. the problem still exists after it was updated to the latest official version 7.54. However, these can be ignored. The most major bug is that, after the interface is minimized, the recovery often leads to a crash. Note that the crash is not caused by the application being unresponsive, at this time, there is no way except hard start. I thought it was a machine problem. I still found this serious problem when I changed the machine to use the official demo. However, this problem does not occur every time, and the general appearance is 1/20. However, this problem is not serious. What is the concept of a crash? It is really speechless. Therefore, alphacontrols is also the first obsolete and reluctant control package. It is hoped that the new version will solve this problem in the future. (Check the official update history. I have updated this issue, but it does not seem to have been completely corrected)

 

The interface of alphacontrols is still fresh in our memory. Because there are few skin controls that are so delicate, we tested the crash problem in detail (October 25). After the latest test, we found that, the animation effect of the window is the cause of the crash. Therefore, when the animation effect of the window hide, minimized, and displayed is disabled, the crash disappears.

 

The second test is appface, which is a lightweight skin control. It is quite simple to use. Load a DLL. You can say that you do not need to adjust the program. There are few interface packages and the skin is not very delicate. But the memory leakage control is good. In the test process, I first loaded a simple small software for testing, there is no problem, and then took out a program similar to notepad I previously wrote. At this time, I found that after loading appface, when the software was started, an error was reported. To confirm whether it was a software problem, I took an open-source program (for script editing) and found that the same situation had occurred. You have to pass.

 

The third test is businessskinform and dynamicskinform. These two control packages can be said to be twins. Because they are developed by a company, dynamicskinform has fewer data-aware controls than businessskinform and does not use database programs, there is no difference. The interface skin package is also common, and there are more than 170 types. But to be honest, the level of refinement is not good enough. We found that it also provides many novel interface design components to design very distinctive interfaces. In the test, the standard demo provided by the manufacturer is used, and the memory has no leakage. This is very valuable. After all, it is such a large control package. The texture effect is also quite good, but it is a little inferior to alphacontrols, there is a small gap. Although more than 170 skin packages are provided, they are still exquisite, so you can choose to find some skin releases. In terms of efficiency, if the window does not use the animation effect, the display speed will be faster, but the interface switching will flash. If you use the animation effect, the efficiency will be much lower, giving you a casual feeling. These two controls found good stability during the two days of the test, without sending dead ends, no response, and automatic exit. However, it is found that the window title does not support Chinese very well and will not be displayed completely when there is Chinese. You can calculate the number of Chinese characters in the title by yourself, add so many spaces after the title to display the Complete title.

 

The last test is the old-fashioned vclskin. This control package is very convenient to use, provides many skin packages, and has good memory leakage control. It is very efficient to use. Although the interface is not exquisite, however, I also mentioned the past. Stability is also good, compared to the use of a few years ago, the stability is much improved, but there are still two exceptions during the test. Therefore, it seems that there is still room for improvement in stability.

 

After passing the test, I chose the businessskinform control package. Although the efficiency is not the highest, the interface is not the most exquisite, but you are stable. By the time the article was published, this group of control packages were still running for testing without any exceptions.

 

As of December October 25, the program had been modified to use businessskinform for more than half of projects, but the interface was not so comfortable. Although there were more than 170 skin sets, there were only a few excellent results. Because the bug of alphacontrols is found and there is no impact, we finally decided to give up businessskinform to use alphacontrols. alphacontrols is beautiful regardless of the fineness and details of the interface.

 

Delphi, Delphi skin control, skin control comparison, skin control test, skin package, alphacontrols, businessskinform, dynamicskinform, vclskin, appface

 

Horizontal comparison of well-known Delphi skin control library. (Alphacontrols/businessskinform/dynamicskinform/vclskin/appface)