Expert Delphi : Robust and Fast Cross-Platform Application Development / Marco Cantù, Pawel Glowacki, and Stephen Ball.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cantù, Marco, author.

Głowacki, Paweł, author.

Ball, Stephen, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Delphi (Computer file).

Application software--Development.

Application software.

Mobile apps--Development.

Mobile apps.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (424 pages)

Edition:

Second edition.

Place of Publication:

Birmingham, England : Packt Publishing Ltd., [2024]

Biography/History:

Cantu Marco: Marco Cantu is an experienced Delphi expert, who started working with the product since its introduction in 1995. He is currently working as a Product Manager for RAD Studio at Embarcadero Technologies, an Idera company. Prior to that, Marco was a Delphi trainer and consultant for Wintech Italia. Over the years, Marco has written 20 books on Delphi, from the classic Mastering Delphi series to the recent Object Pascal Handbook. Marco has been a speaker at many Delphi and programming conferences worldwide, including over 10 Borland US Conferences, the Software Development Conference, Borland European conferences, EKON (Germany), DCon (UK), Conference to the Max (Holland), DelphiTage, the Italian Delphi Day, and a few editions of Delphi Developer Days. Marco is based in Italy. Gowacki Pawe: Pawe Gowacki was Embarcadero's European Technical Lead for Developer Tools. Previously, Pawe spent over 7 years working as a senior consultant and trainer for Delphi within Borland Education Services and CodeGear. Apart from working with Embarcadero customers across the region, he represented Embarcadero internationally as a conference and seminar speaker. Pawe passed away in mid-December 2017, but he is alive in the hearts of the Delphi developers community, worldwide.

Summary:

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.

Contents:

Cover

Title Page

Copyright and Credits

Foreword

Contributors

Table of Contents

Preface

Part 1: Building Blocks

Chapter1: Fasten Your Seat Belts

Delphi installation

Delphi versions

Running the Delphi installer

Installing custom components

IDE options

Riding the IDE

Delphi compilers and toolchains

The "Hello World" app

Deploying to mobile devices

Deploying to Android

Deploying to iOS

Summary

Chapter 2: Mind Your Language

Do you speak Object Pascal?

Program structure

Console application

Building a forms application

The Object Pascal language phrasebook

Tokens

Constants

Types

Inline variables declaration

Sets and arrays

Helpers

Generics

Anonymous code

Operator overloading

Runtime type information

Custom attributes

Chapter 3: Packing Up Your Toolbox

Technical requirements

Working with files and streams

Working with JSON

Writing JSON

Reading JSON

Using the JSON wizard in Delphi 12

Working with XML

Chapter 4: Using the Parallel Programming Library

Using threads

Access synchronization

Calling Synchronize

Atomic operations

Using a critical section

Using TMonitor

Exploring the Parallel Programming Library

Parallel loops

Using tasks

The beauty of futures

Part 2: Going Mobile

Chapter 5: Playing with FireMonkey

Drawing in code

Get moving with timers

Precise timing

The power of parenting

Shapes

Animations

Touching the screen

Touch

Gestures

Multi-touch

Game of Memory

Designing the game

Working with images

Designing the user interface

Aligning, anchoring, and margins

Layouts

Building the main form of the game

Storing the game's configuration.

The game's settings form

Chapter 6: FireMonkey in 3D

Cross-platform 3D rendering

Direct use of Context3D

Using a cube component

A custom wireframe component

Ready-to-use 3D objects

The Moving Earth app

Building an interactive 3D scene

Using 3D models

A starfield simulation

Mixing 3D and 2D

Chapter 7: Building User Interfaces with Style

Working with built-in styles

Adding more controls

Adding the dials

Using custom styles

Embedding styles as resources

Customizing styles

Using frames

Working with inherited views

Previewing forms on devices

Chapter 8: Working with Mobile Operating Systems

James Bond's toy

What am I running on?

The life of an app

Sensing the world

Using the location

Using the orientation and motion sensors

Taking photos

Using share sheets

Camera, action!

Notify me!

Navigating the web

Delphi language bridges

Vibrating on Android

Vibrations on iOS

Chapter 9: Desktop Apps and Mobile Bridges

Single source for mobile and desktop

Using the MultiView control

Using data grids

Leveraging layout controls

Flow layout

Grid layout

Scaled layout

Grid panel layout

Building desktop apps for Windows, macOS, and Linux

Creating apps for macOS

What about targeting Linux?

App tethering

Part 3: From Data to Services

Chapter 10: Embedding Databases

Data-driven apps

Modeling data

Choosing a database

Accessing databases with FireDAC

Building a data-driven UI

Using visual live bindings

Fast UI prototyping

Chapter 11: Integrating with Web Services

Understanding Web Services

Building a native HTTP client.

Consuming XML SOAP Web Services

Integrating with REST services

Integrating with the cloud

The Delphi Cloud API

Moving the ToDo List app to Azure

Using the AWS SDK for Delphi

Chapter 12: Building Mobile Backends

Delphi and multi-tier architectures

Working at a low level with WebBroker

Generating a standalone project

The Standalone WebBroker server

Adding Apache support

Adding a client application

Building the web module

Creating a new ToDo item

Reading the data and other operations

A client for the REST API

Do-it-yourself with DataSnap

Building the DataSnap server

Implementing the DataSnap server functionality

Building a DataSnap client

Chapter 13: Easy REST API Publishing with RAD Server

RAD Server setup

Building RAD Server resources

The ToDo list in RAD Server

Creating a client app for RAD Server

Chapter 14: App Deployment

Deploying to app stores

Apps artwork

Apps orientation

Publishing on the Apple iOS App Store

Publishing your Android apps to the Google Play Store

Monetizing with ads and in-app purchases

Automate the development process

App versioning

Practical version control

Sleeping well with unit testing

Chapter 15: The Road Ahead

Review of what we have learned

Trends in mobile development

A single screen is not your limit

Serverless backends and NoSQL databases

The AI revolution

Ideas for new and innovative apps for you to build

Index

Other Books You May Enjoy.

Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781805125181

1805125184

OCLC:

1424955148