GetIt is the package manager built into the Delphi IDE. It can be used in Online and Offline mode.
If you installed Delphi from an ISO, GetIt was left in Offline mode. That has some drawbacks:
- GetIt cannot notify you about new updates or patches as they become available.
- The “Manage Features” functionality of the IDE won’t work.
Unfortunately there is no way to switch GetIt to Online mode in the configuration.The usual way is to run the GetItCmd tool with the switch -c like this:
GetItCmd -c useonline
To switch it back ot Offline mode, use this:
GetItCmd -c useoffline
But there is a catch: This will change only the mode for the default IDE. If you are using one or multiple alternate registry branches for the IDE (usually for debugging purposes, passing the -r command line switch to it like "-rblablub"), these registry branches will still contain the old GetIt mode.
As there seems to be no option to pass an alternate registry branch to GetItCmd,
you will have to change the registry entry directly e.g. using the Registry Editor. The entry is here (for the “blablub” alternate registry key):
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Embarcadero\blablub\23.0\CatalogRepository] ServiceKind="Online"
(Note the “blablub” instead of the usual “BDS” after “Embarcadero”.)
If this entry contains “Online”, GetIt is in Online mode, if it contains “Offline” GetIt is in Offline mode.
This can even be done while the IDE is running. (So why is there no configuration option for it? It could be added to the existing “GetIt Package Manager” page of the Options dialog.)
Discussion about this post in the international Delphi Praxis forum.