Delphi - Why does ExplicitWidth and ExplicitHeight keep appearing in .DFM files and what is it?

Question

We've noticed that when checking in updates, our .DFM files have added ExplicitWidth and ExplicitHeight properties - but we don't know why.

My questions are:

• What are these properties for?
• Why are they automatically added by Delphi?

Below is an example showing the added ExplicitWidth property:

object Splitter2: TcxSplitter     Left = 0     Top = 292     Width = 566     Height = 8     Cursor = crVSplit     HotZoneClassName = 'TcxXPTaskBarStyle'     AlignSplitter = salBottom     Control = BottomPanel     Color = clBtnFace     ExplicitWidth = 8 end 

Answer 1

With DDevExtensions you can disable storing these properties in the dfm:
http://andy.jgknet.de/blog/?page_id=10

Adds Explicit* property remover to keep DFM files compatible to older Delphi versions