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

Learning about the TCircle component

The TCircle component doesn't really add any relevant to the TShape implementation. As the intermediate class known as TEllipse, it only overrides the Paint method (and the PointInObjectLocal function) in order to properly draw the circle. It responds if a coordinate pair is actually inside or outside the shape (mostly to properly handle user interaction, such as clicks or touches).

However, circles are very common elements in modern UIs, so I thought it was worth having a closer look and covering a couple of use cases. Circles can be used to, for example, hold a profile picture (in a contact list or equivalent situations). By combining the Stroke and Fill capabilities, it is super easy to implement a UI element that shows a profile picture. Here are the steps you need to follow:

  1. Drop a TCircle component onto your form, set the Align property to Top, and set some Margins to get some space around your circle.
  2. Set the Stroke.Thickness property...