Book Image

Expert Delphi

By : Paweł Głowacki
Book Image

Expert Delphi

By: Paweł Głowacki

Overview of this book

Delphi is the most powerful Object Pascal IDE and component library for cross-platform native app development. It enables building natively compiled, blazingly fast apps for all major platforms including Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, and Linux. If you want to build server-side applications, create web services, and have clear GUIs for your project, then this book is for you. The book begins with a basic primer on Delphi helping you get accustomed to the IDE and the Object Pascal language and will then quickly move on to advanced-level concepts. Through this book, we’ll help you understand the architecture of applications and will teach you the important concepts of the FireMonkey library, show you how to build server-side services, and enable you to interact with the Internet of Things. Towards the end, you will learn to integrate your app with various web services and deploy them. By the end of the book, you will be able to build powerful, cross-platform, native apps for iOS and Android with a single code base.

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Table of Contents (14 chapters)
Preface
Preface
What this book is not about
Why Delphi?
What this book covers
What you need for this book
Who this book is for
Conventions
Reader feedback
Customer support
Free Chapter
1
Fasten Your Seat Belts
Fasten Your Seat Belts
Delphi installation
Delphi compilers and toolchains
Hello World app
Deploying to mobile devices
Summary
2
Mind Your Language
Mind Your Language
Do you speak Object Pascal?
Object Pascal Phrase Book
Summary
3
Packing Up Your Toolbox
Packing Up Your Toolbox
Parallel Programming Library
Working with files
JSON
XML
Summary
4
Playing with FireMonkey
Playing with FireMonkey
Drawing in code
Get moving with timers
The power of parenting
Touch me
Game of Memory
Summary
5
FireMonkey in 3D
FireMonkey in 3D
Cross-platform 3D rendering
Using Context3D
Custom Wireframe component
Objects 3D
Moving Earth
Building an interactive 3D scene
Using 3D models
Starfield simulation
Mixing 3D and 2D
Summary
6
Building User Interfaces with Style
Building User Interfaces with Style
Working with built-in styles
Using custom styles
Embedding styles as resources
Customizing styles
Using frames
Working with inherited views
Previewing forms on devices
Summary
7
Working with Mobile Operating System
Working with Mobile Operating System
James Bond's toy
What I'm running on?
The life of an app
Sensing the world
Taking photos
Using share sheets
Camera, light, action!
Working with address book
Notify me!
Navigating the web
Working with maps
Creating and consuming Android services
Delphi language bridges
Summary
8
Extending to the Internet of Things
Extending to the Internet of Things
Communication protocols
Understanding BLE
Connecting to things with ThingConnect
Getting close with beacons
Proximity solutions with BeaconFence
App tethering
Summary
9
Embedding Databases
Embedding Databases
Architecting data-driven apps
Modeling data
Choosing a database
Accessing databases with FireDAC
Building data-driven user interface
Using visual live bindings
Fast user interface prototyping
Summary
10
Integrating with Web Services
Integrating with Web Services
Understanding web services
Native HTTP client
Consuming XML SOAP web services
Integrating with REST services
Backend as a service client
Integrating with the cloud
Summary
11
Building Mobile Backends
Building Mobile Backends
Delphi and multi-tier architectures
Getting low-level with WebBroker
Do it yourself with DataSnap
Easy REST API publishing with RAD Server
Summary
12
App Deployment
App Deployment
Deploying to App Stores
Enhancing your apps
Summary
13
The Road Ahead
The Road Ahead
What we have learned
Staying on top of everything
Your next Delphi mobile app
Summary

The life of an app

An app is not a lonely island. It is always executed by the operating system, within bounds that it imposes. Depending on the type of the app, we could be interested in responding to different application lifecycle events that the operating system sends to it. Every operating system has a slightly different app lifecycle model, but in the case of mobile the most tricky part could be properly handling the situation when our apps move from foreground execution to background, and back.

FireMonkey provides common abstraction for handling an application lifecycle through different types of application events defined in the FMX.Platform unit:

type 
  TApplicationEvent = (FinishedLaunching, BecameActive, WillBecomeInactive, EnteredBackground, WillBecomeForeground, WillTerminate, LowMemory, TimeChange, OpenURL);

If we want to receive the app lifecycle events, we need...

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