FireMonkey (FMX) is a cross-platform application framework that allows developers to create exciting user interfaces (UIs) and deliver applications on multiple operating systems. This book will help you learn visual programming with Delphi and FMX.

This book has been written with a classical approach. Topics are introduced by first examining the context that they belong to, and then adding some practical examples to showcase the features or capabilities under discussion. Examples are kept simple yet significant (and full code is provided with the book). We are going to cover essential components and advanced concepts, both of which will be clearly explained and used as building blocks for developing real-world applications.

In order to acquire the ability to deliver modern applications with a graphical user interface (GUI) on multiple platforms with a single code base, you will learn about FMX's UI-related features and capabilities, together with many useful techniques. Taking advantage of them all will make your applications stand up in terms of user experience (UX).

We are going to start with an overview of the FMX framework, including a general discussion of the underlying philosophy and approach. We'll then move on to the fundamental components and the deeper architectural details of FMX. Then we'll compare FMX and Visual Component Library (VCL).

We are going to address how to achieve visual responsiveness through alignment strategies, layout components, and built-in FMX technology (to deal with multi-resolution images, for example). Also, you'll learn how to enrich the UX with the help of transitions and visual animations. You'll get to grips with data access, visual data binding, and techniques to implement responsiveness effectively on desktop and mobile platforms. An entire chapter of the book is dedicated to the TFrameStand and TFormStand components, which are useful for properly modularizing your applications in terms of UI elements, promoting the reuse of UI views, and improving the UX through visual continuity.

The book covers the main FMX components (both simple and complex ones), but it also covers style-related concepts and explains how they are used to deliver consistent UIs while targeting different platforms. To address one of the most relevant issues in modern application development, the book provides you with a general introduction to parallel programming, specifically targeting UI-related aspects thereof, in order to achieve application responsiveness.

Later, we'll explore the most important cross-platform services in the FMX framework, which are the crux of delivering your application on multiple platforms while retaining the single code base 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 visual applications.