I have experienced and everything quoted by "macrilllo" 2 years ago (just found this thread and may be ignored but felt like venting-I've moved to a new laptop and trying to get Pascal working in it and really frustrates me). I have adapted over thew last couple years but is extremely annoying. I've messed with both fp.ini or fpc.ini (both are present after the install) regardless how I've tried, I lose my screen setup and have given up so I just work with it. I also gave up long ago but don;t recall which version did it and "macrillo" might be correct that lockups in the IDE started with the 2.6 version. I will use the IDE to compile but never run from the IDE and have a CMD prompt in the same directory to execute complied programs. I am using Windows 10 and I DO NOT have a virus and I also get the exact same problems on multiple computers. I also agree that it is frustrating when I search for solutions and keep running into Lazuras solutions when I clearly searched for "Free Pascal".
Regarding switching to a visual interface like Lazuras, while that might be where you want us to move to, teaching young learners how to program is best done with a structured text based language such as Pascal. Pascal was originally labeled the "Teaching Language" as it teaches great problem solving skills. I;ve also read articles that state older programmers who develop code over a lifetime using text based languages such as Pascal or C have a seriously large percentage lesser chance of getting dementia than those using BASIC, COBOL and visual languages. Pascal is healthier for you!
I taught a programming class with Turbo Pascal at a community college and was able to impress on my students great ways to solve problems using Pascal structures. I am currently writing code in Java which is also a text language and if careful, can also write well structured code but is by far not as elegant as Pascal.
It seems that although new versions of FPC keep coming out, documentation and/or support for the IDE is dwindling.
I did load Lazuras onto a machine at work and tried to read in one of my many Pascal programs and appears that I almost need to start over with my code. Is that true?