I'm curious about what it takes to program for mobile devices (Windows Mobile 6.1) and if I can use the IDE's we're already used to (RAD Studio 2009).
Is there a Mobile Development Community around where Delphi or C++Builder users can learn from?
Are there differences in development techniques, like: Drivers, Memory Limits, Device Specific Considerations and others?
Links to Documentation and Tutorials are always awesome!
Thanks!
You can do Compact Framework development in Delphi.NET (Prism?) but not natively in 2009.
It was a hot topic in the community a few years ago when I was involved, and it basically came down to resources, cost of implementation and potential license fees that made it not worth doing for Borland (as they were at the time).
That may have changed now, but reading the 2009 feature sheet it appears not...
Edit: It appears there is no designer support for CF in Prism.
If you prefer using Pascal you can use FreePascal to develop for Windows Mobile 6.1
Related
I am embarking on a cross platform app, but not mobile. It will be win/osx/linux. Would love to use Delphi + firemonkey, but it appears linux is not a possible target?
The GUI will not be extensive. Most of the code is non visual.
What are my options here? (Do I end up using lazerous for the linux side.... and then I have to have a special UI there?)
Please let me know my options here, how to solve this cross platform dev project (and hopefully avoid c++).
Linux is not currently one of the supported operating systems, as can clearly be seen from the product description on the Embarcadero web site. If you need Linux/Unix support, XE4 and FireMonkey aren't an option. (XE4 supports Win32, Win64, OSX, and iOS.)
There's support for Linux planned at some point in the future (after Android, which is currently being developed and slated for release later this year).
Is it possible to develop apps for Windows 8 tablets and phones using Delphi XE2 or XE3? I think XE3 ust supports UI. I am not sure if we can create apps for Win8 tablets using Delphi. I have read somewhere we need to use Prism XE3 with Visual Studio. I don't want to purchase / upgrade to XE3 just because of this. I believe we can develop even using XE2 but not sure.
Also, does anyone know if Microsoft accepts apps to appstore which are written in Delphi?
Thanks.
-K
The Delphi XE2 and XE3 fact sheets, available at Embarcadero, clearly mention which operating systems and CPUs the IDEs support, and WinRT and ARM are not among the ones listed. So the answer would be "No".
I have a Mac app needs to migrate to windows. The app was created using objc and Lua.
I use Delphi to develop app for Windows.
Is it possible to integrate Lua to Delphi in and develop for windows phone7?
Welcome any comment
Thanks
To answer your first question, YES you can use Lua in Delphi. Simon J. Stuart has an incredible blog/website where he has created a number of really useful stuff for Delphi developers. His Lua4Delphi suite will help you integrate Lua scripting into your Windows application. Go to: http://www.lakraven.com/ or http://www.simonjstuart.com to check out the rest of Simon's stuff ... highly recommended!
With regards to the second part of your question (writing a Delphi app for WP7), that would be NO ... you're out of luck there (as Mason mentioned above).
It's definitely possible to integrate Lua with Delphi, but good luck getting it to run on Windows Phone 7. WP7 will only run apps built in the Silverlight or XNA frameworks.
Windows Phone 7 is not possible now, and is not likely to be possible in the near future, using Delphi, or even with Delphi Prism. Key elements of Microsoft's WP7 SDK are limited to the two current .NET core languages (C# and Vb.net). If Microsoft decided to help out remObjects a little bit, then a delphi Prism targetting Windows Phone 7 could become a possibility, but that is out of RemObject's hands, and its unlikely that Microsoft will be interested in helping them join in on the WP7 platform. Perhaps with sufficient engineering dollars, someone could figure out a way to force their way into the WP7 SDK.
Lua is a pretty simple C library, and it should be possible to put it into a DLL and load it into your delphi program. You could write your application in windows, with delphi, and use LUA scripting, and if you find a .NET "lua interpreter", like LUA.net, you might investigate integrating that into a WP7 app that you wrote entirely in C#.
First of all (before this question get down voted): I am a developer developing 99,99% of my programs using Delphi targeting Win32 (developing in Delphi 7 still, very slowly migrating to Delphi 2010).
When Delphi 2006 or 2007 (can't remember which version at the moment) came out I bought the RAD Studio edition to be able to start developing .net applications using Delphi.net and VCL.net.
I played around with it for some short time, but in the end, due to work load just kept using Delphi 7 as development platform.
When Delphi 2010 came was released, I decided to give .net a go once more, and (foolishly) bought the Studio License once more thinking the include PRISM was the previous Delphi.net (to be developed in the Delphi IDE).
Now that I have installed PRISM (and the Visual Studio 8 IDE - o horror), I am just wondering whether PRISM is a new version of Delphi.Net or not (probably not). And if I can use some of my Win32 code under Prism.
UPDATE AFTER SOME REPLIES: I keep the question open because you get more answers when a answer has not been selected yet.
I do miss the Delphi IDE though. It's all a mather of taste but having to develop in two different IDE's (where f.i. the keyboard shortcuts are different - and I don't want to give up the Delphi ones, thank you)) is not my idea of spending my development time.
Prism is a replacement for Delphi .Net - it has been developed by RemObjects and its original names were Oxygene and Chrome ( http://www.remobjects.com/ ).
Because it's much more mature than Delphi .Net in the .Net segment it now is included in Delphi RAD Studio instead of Delphi .Net.
You won't be able to use all of your W32 code, but the syntax is very similar and most algorithms will probably work without any change.
See http://prismwiki.codegear.com/en/Win32_Delphi_vs._Delphi_Prism for a detailed comparison of Delphi W32 and Delphi Prism.
No. Delphi.NET was designed specifically to be backwards-compatible with Win32 Delphi code. Prism is not. It was not developed by the Borland/CodeGear team, doesn't include VCL support, and has a handful of minor language differences. It's better to think of it as a new dialect of Object Pascal than as Delphi.NET.
The main difference was that Delphi.Net was mainly a port of the RTL/VCL to .Net, as well as an adaptation of Object Pascal to be a .Net language.
It had to include a full blown IDE with a special Delphi.Net Form Designer.
The goal was to help move a VCL Forms application to .Net with a minimum of changes, or create new application without having to re-learn the IDE and the library.
Delphi Prism is also an adaptation of Object Pascal to the .Net world but with more emphasis on being a fully fledged .Net language (even more so than C#) and much less worries on being compatible with Delphi.
It is just the language, hosted in Visual Studio, and does use whatever designer is provided by the IDE.
So in the end pure Pascal code will be very much similar, and easily ported, but rich GUI applications will need more rewriting/redesigning.
Yes and no.
Oxygene (FKA Delphi Prism) replaces Delphi for .NET, but it is not a new version of it.
They have different design philosophies and are not 100% compatible. As Francois pointed out, Prism does not include the VCL.Net. Instead it focuses completely on supporting the .NET GUI Frameworks: WPF, Silverlight, Prism, WinForms, ASP.NET, etc.
Delphi for .NET was all about migrating and backwards compatibility. Delphi Prism is all about being a full featured .NET development language and "forward compatibility."
You can create you pure business logic as code compatible between Delphi native and Delphi Prism, but all the GUI and IO code (anything that makes use of the VCL or RTL) will be specialized.
Check out the Oxidizer and ShineOn for more help in migrating and code compatibility with Delphi Prism.
No, Prism has been labeled Delphi more to make it more popular, like Delphi PHP.
It's not like Delphi.NET, with a VCL-alike etc, or even a compatible language (it uses method instead of procedure and many other deviations).
So you can see if you like it, but from what I have seen from it, having used Delphi won't be much of an help, and neither do existing codebases.
I tried to install Delphi 7 on Vista several times and Vista prevented me from doing so by telling me that there are known problems with this application (Delphi 7). Several other people in my company experienced problems with installing D7 on Vista.
This lead to the conclusion that we were at risk with our D7 application, as the company could within the lifetime of the app switch to Vista or Windows 7 and newer Delphi versions are not in the policy of the company. Therefore management decided on rewriting the app in C#.
My question(s):
How to install D7 on Vista
Experience with such an installation
Risk assessment concerning stability of IDE and developed programs
Risk assessment concerning executability under Windows 7
Not using any third party components or database - there should be no problem running the developed app under Vista. If not able to develop and debug under Vista (which at the point being will be the only customer platform, yes, internal programming) will result in a sort of cross platform development - if we would be allowed to keep XP as the development platform.
It is not a developers decision to rewrite, it has been done in the company for the last 3 years: if you had to significantly touch an app developed in Delphi or if there was a certain risk of it not to survive the planned life circle/life span, it had to be rewritten. The life cycle just expanded to 2015 due to canceling another project.
So the main issue here would really be: I would like to have educated arguments about the risks.
Running Delphi 7 under Vista is no problem if you can turn UAC off. With UAC on, you get an error message when starting D7, but it still works, just click ok and go on.
Programs compiled with D7 have no problem with Vista. But new features of Vista are supported by Delphi 2007/2009 only.
We use D7 on XP and on Vista, building and maintaining a commercial App which has gone from D2 to D4, D5 to D7. Besides problems with the BDE, which made us switch to DBX (Corelabs) there are no problems.
Just follow these instructions and you'll be fine. No reason to turn off UAC! I've been running Delphi 7 on Vista for about a year without any problem at all. Debugging is totally fine too.
http://www.drbob42.com/examines/examin84.htm
For installing Delphi 7 in Vista, you can try this patch from Microsoft.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/932246
As for the rest someone else I suspect will have more knowledge.
I have Delphi 7 working fine on my Vista development box. Yes there was a few issues during installation, but no more than other applications and these issues have been resolved in subsequent versions of Delphi.
None of this should cause problems with apps developed by D7 for Vista. We use Delphi as our primary development tool for all our applications and they work just fine with Vista.
It sounds like this is an excuse by someone in the company to get rid of Delphi and move to C#. Typical FUD tactics. There may be genuine reasons for your company to move away from Delphi, but Vista compatibility should not be one of them.
Also, if you'd like all the Vista-ready features in your Delphi 7 application, have a look at this article here: Creating Windows Vista Ready Applications with Delphi
This will make it so that your application correctly appears when doing Flip3D, or when showing a preview thumbnail when hovering over the app in the taskbar. Essentially, this will give you the "Vista-readiness" of Delphi 2007, from within older versions of Delphi (I have used this with Delphi 2006 and it works very well).
You also get the new Vista task dialogs and new Common dialogs with the modifications listed on the linked website.
I think there's a big jump from having trouble installing D7 in Vista (D7 which after all contains low-level bits and pieces for the debugger and which doesn't know about the 'correct' place to put things under Vista), to assuming that your own app will have problems with Vista...
You have the source code, you can test your program running under Vista, you can make whatever (usually minor) tweaks are necessary to your code.... I'm really surprised that you would decide to rewrite the app in another language just because you can't get the (old) development tool to install under Vista.
We need to know more about what your application does, and what components you make use of, to be able to make any guess at your 3rd and 4th questions. They're too general.
FOr instance, I have several D7 applications on the market, one of which uses open-source Interbase 6 with Delphi and can be a problem to get installed/working on Vista Home (the process seems less painful on Vista Business). Another of our apps uses SQL Express 2005 and runs quite happily on Vista. Our newest app, written in D2007, runs fine on Vista. On both Delphi platforms, our two main 'third party' tools are DevExpress controls and ReportBuilder.
I have been using D4 with Vista for year as one of our key products uses it, its good version still and there are workarounds to make it use new Vista features. You can call any win32 API (new functions) so there is no point to update to D7.
I installed/moved D4 to my new machine by hand:
1. by exporting registry hive(s)
2. registering a few components
3. copying files
thats it.. no need to run slow setupper.
As others have noted, there is no problem running Delphi 7 applications under Vista: We do this with a multi-hundred-thousand line Delphi 7 application that uses numerous third-party controls (Developer Express grids, TSILang translation components, etc.).
We use Vista as our primary operating system, but we run the Delphi 7 development environment in a Windows XP Virtual machine. It works perfectly, and there are no installation issues.
It is very simple really.. All what you have to is the following:
Search UAC (User Account Control) off and then intall delphi7 but, you must have no other version of delphi on your computer.
1,2 in Vista) no problems heard if you install http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947562 and configure UAC;
3) None stability issues are known to any of my friends here...
4) Not using Windows 7 with Delphi 7... But heard of many problems with both...