Tag - FireMonkey

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2015-04-20

Delphi is not a cross-compiler, but a set of cross-compilers

It is worth saying again.
I'm not speaking this time about performance issues, but about a common misunderstanding of what the latest version of Delphi offers.

Since Delphi "NextGen" compilers did break the memory model (introducing ARC), and also reducing low-level types (e.g. RawByteString/AnsiString), we can not say that Delphi is a single cross-compiler.
In practice, it has a set of cross-compilers.

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2014-08-11

Cross-Platform mORMot Clients - Smart Mobile Studio

Current version of the main framework units target only Win32 and Win64 systems.

It allows to make easy self-hosting of mORMot servers for local business applications in any corporation, or pay cheap hosting in the Cloud, since mORMot CPU and RAM expectations are much lower than a regular IIS-WCF-MSSQL-.Net stack.
But in a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), you would probably need to create clients for platforms outside the Windows world, especially mobile devices.

A set of cross-platform client units is therefore available in the CrossPlatform sub-folder of the source code repository. It allows writing any client in modern object pascal language, for:

  • Any version of Delphi, on any platform (Mac OSX, or any mobile supported devices);
  • FreePascal Compiler 2.7.1;
  • Smart Mobile Studio 2.1, to create AJAX or mobile applications (via PhoneGap, if needed).

This series of articles will introduce you to mORMot's Cross-Platform abilities:

Any feedback is welcome in our forum, as usual!

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Cross-Platform mORMot Clients - Delphi / FreePascal

Current version of the main framework units target only Win32 and Win64 systems.

It allows to make easy self-hosting of mORMot servers for local business applications in any corporation, or pay cheap hosting in the Cloud, since mORMot CPU and RAM expectations are much lower than a regular IIS-WCF-MSSQL-.Net stack.
But in a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), you would probably need to create clients for platforms outside the Windows world, especially mobile devices.

A set of cross-platform client units is therefore available in the CrossPlatform sub-folder of the source code repository. It allows writing any client in modern object pascal language, for:

  • Any version of Delphi, on any platform (Mac OSX, or any mobile supported devices);
  • FreePascal Compiler 2.7.1;
  • Smart Mobile Studio 2.1, to create AJAX or mobile applications (via PhoneGap, if needed).

This series of articles will introduce you to mORMot's Cross-Platform abilities:

Any feedback is welcome in our forum, as usual!

Continue reading

Cross-Platform mORMot Clients - Generating Code Wrappers

Current version of the main framework units target only Win32 and Win64 systems.

It allows to make easy self-hosting of mORMot servers for local business applications in any corporation, or pay cheap hosting in the Cloud, since mORMot CPU and RAM expectations are much lower than a regular IIS-WCF-MSSQL-.Net stack.
But in a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), you would probably need to create clients for platforms outside the Windows world, especially mobile devices.

A set of cross-platform client units is therefore available in the CrossPlatform sub-folder of the source code repository. It allows writing any client in modern object pascal language, for:

  • Any version of Delphi, on any platform (Mac OSX, or any mobile supported devices);
  • FreePascal Compiler 2.7.1;
  • Smart Mobile Studio 2.1, to create AJAX or mobile applications (via PhoneGap, if needed).

This series of articles will introduce you to mORMot's Cross-Platform abilities:

Any feedback is welcome in our forum, as usual!

Continue reading

Cross-Platform mORMot Clients - Units and Platforms

Current version of the main framework units target only Win32 and Win64 systems.

It allows to make easy self-hosting of mORMot servers for local business applications in any corporation, or pay cheap hosting in the Cloud, since mORMot CPU and RAM expectations are much lower than a regular IIS-WCF-MSSQL-.Net stack.
But in a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), you would probably need to create clients for platforms outside the Windows world, especially mobile devices.

A set of cross-platform client units is therefore available in the CrossPlatform sub-folder of the source code repository. It allows writing any client in modern object pascal language, for:

  • Any version of Delphi, on any platform (Mac OSX, or any mobile supported devices);
  • FreePascal Compiler 2.7.1;
  • Smart Mobile Studio 2.1, to create AJAX or mobile applications (via PhoneGap, if needed).

This series of articles will introduce you to mORMot's Cross-Platform abilities:

Any feedback is welcome in our forum, as usual!

Continue reading

2013-09-19

FreePascal Lazarus and Android Native Controls

We all know that the first Delphi for Android was just released...

I just found out an amazing alternative, using native Android controls, and FPC/Lazarus as compiler and IDE.

It creates small .apk file: only 180 KB, from my tests!

It makes use of direct LCL access of Android native controls, so it is a great sample.

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2013-05-11

Delphi XE4 NextGen compiler: using byte instead of ansichar?

When I first read the technical white paper covering all of the language changes in XE4 for mobile development (tied to the new ARM LLVM-based Delphi compiler), I have to confess I was pretty much confused.

Two great mORMot users just asked for XE4/iOS support of mORMot.

Win32/Win64 support for XE4 will be done as soon as we got a copy of it.
I suspect the code already works, since it was working as expected with XE3, and we rely on our own set of low-level functions for most internal work.

But iOS-targetting is more complex, due to the NextGen compiler, mainly.

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2012-08-30

WinRT support for XE3

Apart the sad and concerning license change issue (which has been confirmed by David I. himself), XE3 has some features, in order to support Windows 8 new 'tile-based' interface (formerly known as "Metro").

Windows Runtime, or WinRT (not to be confused with Windows RT, which is a tablet manufacturer only version of Windows 8) is a cross-platform application architecture on the Windows 8 operating system.
WinRT supports development in C++/CX (Component Extensions, a language based on C++) and the managed languages C# and VB.NET, as well as JavaScript.
WinRT applications natively support both the x86 and ARM architectures, and also run inside a sandboxed environment to allow for greater security and stability.
WinRT will also be part of the upcoming Windows Phone 8 operating systems.
(source: Wikipedia)

It has been clearly stated that only Microsoft compilers and runtime libraries (RTL) will be able to have full access to the low-level API needed to create a decent RTL.
This has been done for security reasons, but it won't allow third-party JIT or compilers to work as expected. Only Microsoft's C++ and C# compilers / virtual machines have access to the needed API. Even if you do not have a JIT in your language (Delphi is compiled and do not have any virtual machine), you would need to access to some low-level API calls e.g. to mark some memory block as executable (e.g. for virtual methods stubbing).

So Delphi is not able to have native support of WinRT, due to this limitation.

This is a known fact, but let us tell about "Windows 8 sideloading" feature, available with XE3.
In short, even if you do not have 100% WinRT application, XE3 "Metropolis" (sic) styled Desktop applications have some potential to behave like native UI applications, even if not being native.

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2012-05-28

Is marketing the new native?

In a very nice (like always) blog post, trolling comments were dispatched about the "native" concept:

From the technical point of view, both assertions are false.

The article was subtitled: "Say a Lie Often Enough and You’ll Start Believing it Yourself".
At least, it is a trolling subject.

It remembered me about some of my past studies, i.e. five years of university studies in Medieval Theology in Italy and France (yes, I know, this is strange background for a Delphi programmer):

"Stat Roma pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus"

Our modern world is not thinking any more, it is sinking into nominalism, whereas IMHO the scientific approach is more compatible with a realistic approach of universals.

Today, marketing is everything.
Is it a necessary evil?

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2011-09-25

Some thoughts about OSX integration in XE2

You know all that one of the most exciting features of Delphi XE2 is the MaxOSX Cross-Platform feature.
You've got the UI part, that is FireMonkey, but underneath, you did have some RTL modifications in order to let our Windows-centric solutions be OSX ready.

The first main step was to make our code speak with the "Objective-C" way of coding.

Objective-C is the primary language used for Apple's Cocoa API, and it was originally the main language on NeXT's NeXTSTEP OS. It's some object-oriented C variant, but something other than C++ or Java. In fact, Objective-C sounds more like a SmallTalk variance of C than another  C++/Java/C# flavor. For instance, the Objective-C model of object-oriented programming is based on message passing to object instances: this is just another way of doing it. It has some advantages, and disadvantages (I don't want to troll here) - but it is definitively nice. And the memory model is just something else, more close to our reference-counting way (as in Delphi interface implementation) than a garbage collector.

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2011-08-11

FireMonkey and DXScene

For those how are interested in FireMonkey, I made some screenshots of some DXScene sample app.

It may give you some good starting point about the features of the upcoming Delphi XE2 user interface components.

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2011-08-08

Our mORMot won't hibernate this winter, thanks to FireMonkey

Everybody is buzzing about FireMonkey...

Our little mORMot will like FireMonkey!
Here is why...

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