FiveTech Support Forums

Hi everyone,

I'd like to share the latest progress on HarbourBuilder, an open-source visual IDE for Harbour inspired by Borland C++Builder / Lazarus.

The goal is simple: design forms visually, write event handlers in Harbour, and run natively on Windows, macOS, and Linux — same code, native controls on each platform.

=== What's working today ===

CODE EDITOR (Scintilla on all 3 platforms):

• Scintilla 5.5+ with C++ lexer adapted for Harbour syntax
• Syntax highlighting: keywords (blue bold), commands (teal), comments (green italic), strings (orange), numbers (light green), preprocessor (magenta)
• Harbour-aware code folding (function/class/if/for/while/switch blocks)
• Bracket matching, bookmarks (Ctrl+0..9), code snippets (8 templates)
• Auto-indent, auto-complete (150+ Harbour keywords and functions)
• Go-to-definition (F12), status bar (Ln/Col/INS/UTF-8)
• Build messages panel with clickable errors (jump to line)
• Incremental build (only recompiles changed files)

VISUAL FORM DESIGNER:

• WYSIWYG designer with dot grid, snap-to-grid (8px)
• Drag, resize (8 handles), rubber band multi-selection
• Copy/Paste controls, Align & Distribute (8 modes)
• Undo history (50 steps) for design operations
• Two-way code sync: designer changes update code, code changes update designer

OBJECT INSPECTOR:

• Properties and Events tabs with categorized grid
• Dropdown editors for enum properties (BorderStyle, Position, WindowState...)
• Color picker, font picker, inline editing
• Property validation (numeric ranges, non-empty names)
• Double-click event → auto-generate handler code

109 COMPONENTS in 14 palette tabs:

• Standard, Additional, Native, System, Dialogs
• Data Access (DBF, SQLite working, MySQL/PostgreSQL/etc. stubs)
• Data Controls (TBrowse, DBGrid, DBNavigator, DBEdit...)
• Internet, Threading, AI, ERP, Printing

IN-PROCESS DEBUGGER:

• Compile to .hrb bytecode (harbour -gh -b)
• Execute inside the IDE's own Harbour VM
• Debug hook (hb_dbg_SetEntry) intercepts every source line
• Step Into, Step Over, Continue, Stop
• Locals inspection, Call Stack, Breakpoints, Output tabs
• UI stays responsive during pause

ADDITIONAL IDE FEATURES:

• AI Assistant panel (Ollama integration, 6 models)
• Editor Colors dialog (4 presets: Dark/Light/Monokai/Solarized)
• Project Options (4 tabs: Harbour/Compiler/Linker/Directories)
• Project Inspector with tree view
• Tab order editor
• Dark mode on all platforms
• Two-row toolbar with file/edit and debug buttons

DATABASE:

• TDBFTable: native DBF via Harbour RDD (create, read, write, index)
• TSQLite: full SQLite3 support (tables, transactions, queries)
• Unified TDatabase API — changing backend = one line of code
• Data Controls: TDataSource, TDBNavigator, TDBEdit, TDBText, TDBComboBox

=== Platform status ===

All three platforms are at feature parity: zero placeholder stubs, all menus and toolbar buttons functional.

=== How to try it ===

Repository: https://github.com/FiveTechSoft/HarbourBuilder

Requirements: Harbour 3.2 compiler + platform tools (Xcode CLT on Mac, GCC + GTK3-dev on Linux, BCC on Windows).

Build:
macOS: cd samples && ./build_mac.sh
Linux: cd samples && ./build_gtk.sh
Windows: build_win.bat

=== What's next ===

• Visual Report Designer (FastReport/Crystal style)
• Form inheritance
• Full database binding for MySQL/PostgreSQL
• Pipe-based debugger for compiled executables

The entire project has been vibe coded 100% using Claude Code.

Feedback, testing, and contributions are very welcome!

Antonio Linares
https://github.com/FiveTechSoft/HarbourBuilder