Book Image

Expert Delphi - Second Edition

By : Marco Cantù, Paweł Głowacki
Book Image

Expert Delphi - Second Edition

By: Marco Cantù, Paweł Głowacki

Overview of this book

Master Delphi, the most powerful Object Pascal IDE and versatile component library for cross-platform native app development, by harnessing its capabilities for building natively compiled, blazingly fast apps for all major platforms, including Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, and Linux. Expert Delphi begins with a quick overview of Delphi, helping you get acquainted with the IDE and the Object Pascal language. The book then quickly progresses to more advanced concepts, followed by the architecture of applications and the FireMonkey library, guiding you through building server-side services, parallel programming, and database access. Toward the end, you’ll learn how to integrate your app with various web services and deploy them effectively. By the end of this book, you’ll be adept at building powerful, cross-platform, native apps for iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS—all from a single code base.

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Table of Contents (21 chapters)
Preface
Preface
Who this book is for
What this book covers
To get the most out of this book
Download the example code files
Conventions used
Get in touch
Share Your Thoughts
Download a free PDF copy of this book
Free Chapter
1
Part 1: Building Blocks
Part 1: Building Blocks
2
Chapter 1: Fasten Your Seat Belts
Chapter 1: Fasten Your Seat Belts
Delphi installation
Riding the IDE
Deploying to mobile devices
Summary
3
Chapter 2: Mind Your Language
Chapter 2: Mind Your Language
Do you speak Object Pascal?
The Object Pascal language phrasebook
Summary
4
Chapter 3: Packing Up Your Toolbox
Chapter 3: Packing Up Your Toolbox
Technical requirements
Working with files and streams
Working with JSON
Working with XML
Summary
5
Chapter 4: Using the Parallel Programming Library
Chapter 4: Using the Parallel Programming Library
Technical requirements
Using threads
Access synchronization
Exploring the Parallel Programming Library
Summary
6
Part 2: Going Mobile
Part 2: Going Mobile
7
Chapter 5: Playing with FireMonkey
Chapter 5: Playing with FireMonkey
Technical requirements
Drawing in code
Get moving with timers
The power of parenting
Touching the screen
Game of Memory
Working with images
Designing the user interface
Building the main form of the game
Summary
8
Chapter 6: FireMonkey in 3D
Chapter 6: FireMonkey in 3D
Technical requirements
Cross-platform 3D rendering
Direct use of Context3D
Ready-to-use 3D objects
Mixing 3D and 2D
Summary
9
Chapter 7: Building User Interfaces with Style
Chapter 7: Building User Interfaces with Style
Working with built-in styles
Using custom styles
Using frames
Working with inherited views
Previewing forms on devices
Summary
10
Chapter 8: Working with Mobile Operating Systems
Chapter 8: Working with Mobile Operating Systems
James Bond’s toy
What am I running on?
The life of an app
Sensing the world
Taking photos
Using share sheets
Camera, action!
Notify me!
Navigating the web
Delphi language bridges
Summary
11
Chapter 9: Desktop Apps and Mobile Bridges
Chapter 9: Desktop Apps and Mobile Bridges
Technical requirements
Single source for mobile and desktop
Using the MultiView control
Using data grids
Leveraging layout controls
Building desktop apps for Windows, macOS, and Linux
App tethering
Summary
12
Part 3: From Data to Services
Part 3: From Data to Services
13
Chapter 10: Embedding Databases
Chapter 10: Embedding Databases
Technical requirements
Data-driven apps
Modeling data
Choosing a database
Accessing databases with FireDAC
Building a data-driven UI
Using visual live bindings
Fast UI prototyping
Summary
14
Chapter 11: Integrating with Web Services
Chapter 11: Integrating with Web Services
Technical requirements
Understanding Web Services
Building a native HTTP client
Consuming XML SOAP Web Services
Integrating with REST services
Integrating with the cloud
Using the AWS SDK for Delphi
Summary
15
Chapter 12: Building Mobile Backends
Chapter 12: Building Mobile Backends
Technical requirements
Delphi and multi-tier architectures
Working at a low level with WebBroker
Do-it-yourself with DataSnap
Summary
16
Chapter 13: Easy REST API Publishing with RAD Server
Chapter 13: Easy REST API Publishing with RAD Server
Technical requirements
RAD Server setup
Building RAD Server resources
The ToDo list in RAD Server
Creating a client app for RAD Server
Summary
17
Chapter 14: App Deployment
Chapter 14: App Deployment
Technical requirements
Deploying to app stores
Monetizing with ads and in-app purchases
Automate the development process
Summary
18
Chapter 15: The Road Ahead
Chapter 15: The Road Ahead
Review of what we have learned
Trends in mobile development
Ideas for new and innovative apps for you to build
Summary
19
Index
Index
20
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Other Books You May Enjoy
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Navigating the web

The debate about whether natively compiled or JavaScript-based web mobile apps are better seems to be over. Native mobile apps such as those built with Delphi, C++Builder, or Xcode are the most common choice for developers. However, sometimes it makes a lot of sense to combine these two different worlds and create a hybrid solution where an app is still native, but also embeds a web browser.

Luckily in FireMonkey, there is a special TWebBrowser component that makes it easy to embed web-browsing functionality in your app:

  1. Create a blank multi-device application. Save the form as uFormWebBrowser and the project as WebBrowserApp.
  2. Drop a toolbar component on the form. Drop a TEdit component on the toolbar and rename it to EdtURL. It will contain a URL for the web browser component to navigate to. For convenience, you can already put a valid URL into the Text property of the edit, so it is faster at runtime to check that our app is working correctly. This...
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