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

Considering the field of application

So far, we have seen how we can reasonably deduce typical input type and orientation capabilities by device type. This also applies to the last entry on my list of aspects: indoor/outdoor use. Even if it is not strictly tied to device type, I think we can agree that it is generally hard to see a desktop machine being used outdoors.

There are a number of topics relating to the fact that our device will be used indoors or outdoors and some of them have an impact on the UI as well.

Let's think about a mobile application being used outdoors: we may need to design our user interface in order to positively adapt to changes in the environment luminosity, so as to keep the user comfortable throughout the day and depending on all weather and light conditions. This may be accomplished by switching from a dark theme to (one or more) lighter ones, or the other way around, depending on the actual need.

Some operating systems already have some support in this...