Previewing forms on devices

Delphi form designer gives us a “what you see is what you get” functionality, but we can go one step further and use Delphi’s built-in functionality to preview the form we are designing live on a physical device. For this, we will have to build from the Delphi samples and deploy them to our device, or download a special app published by Embarcadero Technologies and called FireUI App Preview from an online store.

With the FireUI App Preview app, you can preview the app as you are designing it live on a physical device. The Form Designer broadcasts the current form, with any changes applied by the developer, to all connected devices in real time. This app uses the App Tethering technology available in Delphi, where arbitrary apps written in either Delphi or C++Builder, desktop or mobile, can communicate with each other over a Wi-Fi network or using Bluetooth.

In this scenario, the Delphi IDE runs on a Windows desktop and communicates...