Book Image

Delphi GUI Programming with FireMonkey

By : Andrea Magni
4 (1)
Book Image

Delphi GUI Programming with FireMonkey

4 (1)
By: Andrea Magni

Overview of this book

FireMonkey (FMX) is a cross-platform application framework that allows developers to create exciting user interfaces and deliver applications on multiple operating systems (OS). This book will help you learn visual programming with Delphi and FMX. Starting with an overview of the FMX framework, including a general discussion of the underlying philosophy and approach, you’ll then move on to the fundamentals and architectural details of FMX. You’ll also cover a significant comparison between Delphi and the Visual Component Library (VCL). Next, you’ll focus on the main FMX components, data access/data binding, and style concepts, in addition to understanding how to deliver visually responsive UIs. To address modern application development, the book takes you through topics such as animations and effects, and provides you with a general introduction to parallel programming, specifically targeting UI-related aspects, including application responsiveness. Later, you’ll explore the most important cross-platform services in the FMX framework, which are essential for delivering your application on multiple platforms while retaining the single codebase approach. Finally, you’ll learn about FMX’s built-in 3D functionalities. By the end of this book, you’ll be familiar with the FMX framework and be able to build effective cross-platform apps.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
1
Section 1: Delphi GUI Programming Frameworks
4
Section 2: The FMX Framework in Depth
13
Section 3: Pushing to The Top: Advanced Topics

Handling changes in device orientation

Similar arguments can be applied to the next aspect I've listed: changes in screen orientation (within the lifetime of the application).

I am making the base assumption that we are talking about screens with an aspect ratio that isn't one (squared screen). This is an easy assumption to make regarding classic devices (desktop and mobile), but less certain if we also consider IoT or wearables devices. Having an aspect ratio of one, however, may greatly simplify the problem (but other peculiar aspects may arise as well).

Even if it's not an absolute truth, you are unlikely to find a desktop device where the orientation of the screen can be easily changed by the user during normal operation. On the other hand, the opposite generally applies to most mobile devices. Therefore, we can safely use the device family again to determine whether our UI will need to adapt to match a change in orientation of the screen.

In practical terms...