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

Introducing 3D programming with FMX

3D programming is one of the most difficult areas to master as a developer. It involves a specific understanding of the geometric rules applied and also of the many techniques used to conveniently implement 3D graphics in computer software.

In this section, we will consider the main approaches to the 3D programming of applications and how FMX supports the typical use cases.

Adding a third dimension means to step outside of the classic and comfy computer programming environment. It generally also means having to deal with an augmented number of objects to render, easily paving the way to performance issues.

Over the years, computer graphics have evolved a lot toward 3D capabilities. Nowadays 3D-enabled GPUs and video hardware are almost ubiquitous and not only found in top-level expensive equipment. At the same time, many different approaches to 3D graphics programming have arisen.

Once again, the problem we are trying to address is not how to build...