Upgrade to OWLNext with ease (documentation, tips, FAQ, etc.)

Vidar Hasfjord — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 11:16:21 -0000

Scaling on High-DPI screens

Legacy applications that are not DPI-aware are scaled by Windows by default (unless overridden in the Properties for the executable or in the general DPI and scaling settings in Windows). This may or may not be what you want.

A problem on high-DPI screens, with or without the default scaling, is that the size of the original bitmap glyphs for the control bar may prove to be too small for comfort.

For more info, see "Support for high-DPI" [feature-requests:#171] and related discussion.

TControlBar

Vidar Hasfjord — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 01:55:47 -0000

Hi, and welcome to the forum!

Hi, firstly thanks to everyone who contributes here.

Thanks! Much appreciated.

I was able to get my old owl 5 program converted to owlnext 7 and its great. 64 bit and everything in VS2022 in a real treat.

That's great to hear! Please post a review.

The only issue i have remaining before testing is the TControlBar for all the shortcut buttons. The old one works fine but its way too small on a high res monitor.

As AI suggested, you can create larger source bitmaps. For configuration of size, you can use scaling or multiple sets of bitmaps.

See discussion thread in ticket "Support for high-DPI" [feature-requests:#171].

Note that Windows does automatic scaling by default for legacy applications (not DPI-aware). For example, OWLMaker will be scaled by default on a high-DPI screen (if not overridden in Windows).

See the Windows documentation for how to make your application DPI-aware.

If you create new (larger) toolbar bitmaps, make sure you get the BMP format right. In particular, 24-bit (and 32-bit) BMP files are not supported in OWLNext 7 and earlier. This is something we've worked on for OWLNext 8.

See "Support for 24-bit bitmaps in TButtonGadget" [feature-requests:#212].

I recommend you open your bitmaps in the bitmap editor in Visual Studio to make sure the colour depth is set and saved correctly. Compare with the predefined bitmaps, or use one of them as a template into which you paste a new bitmap, and then save with a new name.

Should the images be transparent and you set the background color in the TControl bar or solid?

The convention in OWL is to use TColor::LtGray as the transparent colour. A transparency mask will be created for this colour.

See "Transparent bitmaps with TButtonGadget" [discussion:6e4ad3ad].

TControlBar

Ognyan Chernokozhev — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 00:24:35 -0000

Hi, firstly thanks to everyone who contributes here. I was able to get my old owl 5 program converted to owlnext 7 and its great. 64 bit and everthing in VS2022 in a real treat. The only issue i have remaining before testing is the TControlBar for all the shortcut buttons. The old one works fine but its way too small on a high res monitor. Based on advice by AI i have creaded a strip bitmap 32 pixels high by 20 images. 20x32. To create the bitmap i downloaded a bunch of png icons from google materials and use chat gpt to build the bitmap for me. I have not found example code showing me the process. Should the images be transparent and you set the background color in the TControl bar or solid? Havent hud much luck making it look good. Currently black squares with the white image and when its disabled just a gray square with nothing. The status bar is also tiny but I should be able to sort that out. Thanks

Documenting regressions

Vidar Hasfjord — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 13:06:29 -0000

When upgrading from OWL to OWLNext, or from an earlier version, regressions can be a thorny issue, since they have not been explicitly documented in our upgrade guide. The current best practice is to meticulously go through our release history, which thankfully does a good job of documenting regression fixes.

That said, I think we can do better.

We have used the label "Regression" to mark such issues. Unfortunately, we have used this label also for issues in unreleased in-progress work, which made it less helpful for users looking for public regressions only.

So I have made a few changes to the use of the Regression label:

The "Regression" label is now used for regressions in public releases only (see filtered list).
Public regression tickets now document in which release the issue was fixed.
Tickets for temporary regressions regarding in-progress work have had the "Regression" label removed and are now private (see filtered list).
A new section "Regressions" has been added in our upgrade guide.

Tickets have been updated. Please review.

Dialogs not showing correctly in Windows 11

Vidar Hasfjord — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 09:39:09 -0000

Can anyone reproduce this? [bugs:#630]

Object Streaming in owlnext 7

Vidar Hasfjord — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 11:13:49 -0000

Hi, welcome to the forum!

I am converting an old owl 5 program to OwlNext 7

As Ognyan pointed to, did you follow the "Recommended step-by-step approach" in our upgrade guide? If you did, and you ran into problems, please let us know in which step problems occurred, so that the guidelines can be improved.

Also, see sticky post about upgrading [discussion:64acd4d0].

Object Streaming in owlnext 7

Ognyan Chernokozhev — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:13:08 -0000

Hi,

Persisten streams are being deprecated and available only when using the OWL5_COMPAT define. You need to add that define to the project options.
See https://sourceforge.net/p/owlnext/wiki/Replacing_the_Borland_C%2B%2B_Class_Libraries/#h-persistent-streams

Also you can check and test the Pstream example under examples/pstream.

Object Streaming in owlnext 7

Ognyan Chernokozhev — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 23:59:03 -0000

I tried to get 6.44 to work and coulndt get a simple hello world app to compile so switched to 7 and had much better luck. Now that my 7 app is running maybe I shoud try 6.44. I dont think Streamer is a part of TStreamableBase anymore. Here is parts of my OWL5 code

class TPair : public TStreamableBase
{
public:
TPair();
int On;
int Off;
int Credit;
char Length;
char AdjLength;
int TAFB;
int Number;
string FullIdent;
int Dops[31]; // 0 doesn't operate 1 it does 2 it is assigned
void DumpDataToClipboard(void);
friend class TPilot;
TPair& operator = (TPair& ThePair );
DECLARE_STREAMABLE(,TPair,5); // version is now 5
};

===== cpp file =======

IMPLEMENT_CASTABLE(TPair);
IMPLEMENT_STREAMABLE(TPair);

void* TPair::Streamer::Read( ipstream& in, uint32 version )const
{
int j;
in >> GetObject()->On >> GetObject()->Off >> GetObject()->Credit >> GetObject()->Length;
in >> GetObject()->TAFB >> GetObject()->Number >> GetObject()->Valid;
for(j=0;j<31;j++)in >> GetObject()->Dops[j];
if( version > 2 )in >> GetObject()->RestRequiredAfter;
if( version > 3 )in >> GetObject()->PRGData;
if( version > 4 )for(j=0;j<31;j++) in >> GetObject()->PairingType[j];
return GetObject();
}

void TPair::Streamer::Write( opstream& out )const
{
int j;
out << GetObject()->On << GetObject()->Off << GetObject()->Credit << GetObject()->Length;
out << GetObject()->TAFB << GetObject()->Number << GetObject()->Valid;
for(j=0;j<31;j++) out << abs(GetObject()->Dops[j]);

Object Streaming in owlnext 7

Ognyan Chernokozhev — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 21:52:19 -0000

It should be possible. What errors are you encountering?

Have you tried first to upgrade to OWLNext 6.44 as it is closer to legacy OWL?

Object Streaming in owlnext 7

Ognyan Chernokozhev — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 21:48:38 -0000

I am converting an old owl 5 program to OwlNext 7. Im trying to retain backwards file compatibility with the existing software. The classes are streamed to file and read back using DECLARE_STREAMABLE and IMPLEMENT_STREAMABLE macros then using the >> or << GetObject()->. Im having no luck getting this to work. Is this even possible? Thx

Recent posts to Discussion

Upgrade to OWLNext with ease (documentation, tips, FAQ, etc.)

TControlBar

TControlBar

Documenting regressions

Dialogs not showing correctly in Windows 11

Object Streaming in owlnext 7

Object Streaming in owlnext 7

Object Streaming in owlnext 7

Object Streaming in owlnext 7

Object Streaming in owlnext 7