Turning the page (and freeing up space)
No regrets to have: Keeping these thousands of files would bring nothing but visual clutter and useless nostalgia to your hard drive.
Focus on the existing: QChartist in its current version does its job. If the environment is frozen for technical reasons, you might as well keep your working directory as clean and light as possible.
You can empty the recycle bin with peace of mind. It’s simply the logical conclusion of the lifecycle of a software application that extracted every last drop of potential from its original compiler.
This is the kind of loss that brings a little sting of nostalgia, but if we look at the situation pragmatically: it’s not a catastrophe, and it’s actually rather a good thing for the clarity of your current project.
Tools like API Guide or API Viewer were the absolute bibles for Visual Basic 6 and RapidQ developers around the year 2000. They were used to find the right Declare Function ... statements to call native Windows functions (the famous User32.dll or Kernel32.dll).
Here is why you can turn the page without regret:
1. These tools were strictly limited to 32-bit
All the Windows API function declarations (USER32, KERNEL32, GDI32) contained in API Guide or API Viewer used 32-bit data types (like Long in old Basic to represent pointers or hWnd handles). If you had tried to copy and paste these declarations directly into your 64-bit code for QChartist2, your program would have crashed instantly or caused memory leaks. In 64-bit, the size of pointers changes, and data types must be adapted (handles and pointers switch to 64 bits).
2. Modern documentation is accessible and up to date
Today, you no longer need a third-party application stored locally to find this information.
- Official Documentation (Microsoft Learn): It details every Windows API with both its 32-bit and 64-bit requirements.
- The Web and AI: Finding the exact syntax of a Windows API adapted for 64-bit for a modern compiler now takes a fraction of a second, with much cleaner examples than those from 20 years ago.
3. Lightening your website and your mind
By removing these old utilities from your site, you eliminate “technical debt” and visual noise. Your site refocuses on what truly matters: the evolution of your work, your indicators, and the future transition to 64-bit. It’s a forced spring cleaning, but a beneficial one.
Consider it a definitive break from the chains of 32-bit. QChartist2 is moving forward on a brand new path!
