Firemonkey component description. What is Fire Monkey? LiveBinding allows you to connect any type of data or information to any user interface or graphical objects
You probably know that Embarcadero is actively promoting its new vision of creating a cross-platform gooey - FireMonkey ( they call it a framework, but for its current state it sounds too cool). One competition after another is announced in Runet, webinars are held, and although the quality of the latter leaves much to be desired, the activity pleases. Now, in fact, to the topic. As part of the last competition, it was proposed to develop some application for learning. And yesterday another work appeared, authored by Evgeny Chmel ( I don't know if this name is inflected or not.). In contrast to the previously seen, unpretentious "one-pieces", here an attempt was made to pull the monkey by all the limbs: stylization, 3D, shader effects ( Embarcadero evangelists love to talk about GPU accelerated graphics :))). Let's see what came of it. For those who have not watched the webinars, I will make a small digression. At one of the webinars, Embarcadero evangelist Vsevolod Leonov told a sentimental story about how he had to “reboot the computer, specifically, hard” (this is a quote), due to the fact that the Silverlight SDK and the Windows Phone 7 emulator “did not work” ( this is a quote) on his computer. they didn't like the video adapter or GPU settings. But the applications developed using FireMokey, Vsevolod continues, are completely undemanding to hardware. Let's see how he lied to us. An impartial witness will be Process Explorer v15.05 from Mark Rusinovich. So, download Eugene's application and run ( I don’t provide screenshots of Evgeny’s application, they are at the link to his work. Pay attention to blurry fonts).
Launched the application. Let's look at consumption:
Immodest, but can be forgiven " advanced technology". Go to the "Lessons" section and select "Lesson 5". Stage preparation begins. This process is lengthy took me a little over a minute, on a 3.3GHz quad-core Phenom II), please be patient. The stage has been built. Let's look at consumption:
The monkey was well fed. Very well. Now try moving your mouse over the answer choice buttons. The feeling that the GUI reacts is oh-oh-very sluggish, isn't it? Look at the CPU usage graph ( I mean you have to try it yourself, on your computer) – at these moments its load approaches 100% ( I had ~21.5% for a quad-core processor, which is equivalent to 86% for a single-core). But someone told us about GPU accelerated graphics. Okay, let's move on. We answer all the questions of the lesson. Let's look at consumption:
Eyes not rounded? Now look, for comparison, how much FarCry 3D shooter consumes with active gameplay ( the level is called the Factory, if anyone, suddenly, is interested) running in 1440x900 full screen mode:
Draw your own conclusions.
Released in September last Delphi XE2 contains a record number of innovations.
Brief overviews Delphi features XE2 has already been published on Habré. But, obviously, the FireMonkey platform has become the most striking innovation, and here I would like to pay a little attention to it.
I have made a small selection of links to materials that I hope will help you get a more or less adequate idea of this platform. But first, for those who are not in the know, I will briefly describe what FireMonkey is.
Embarcadero Technologies positions FireMonkey as a platform for building full-featured business applications for Windows, Mac and iOS. At the same time, this platform is native for each of the operating systems, i.e. when running an application created with FireMonkey, no additional add-ons are used.
FireMonkey links directly to a native (OS-wise) graphics library such as OpenGL or DirectX. Thus, the best solution from the point of view of the GPU is proposed.
The core of the FireMonkey architecture is powerful library classes (including visual components).
The target platform is selected during compilation.
The first version of FireMonkey only supports Win32, Win64, MacOSX and iOS, Embarcadero plans to port it to several other platforms in the future.
What should be considered?
Despite the fact that the FireMonkey platform provides extensive tools for developing 3D applications, it cannot be considered as a game engine. FireMonkey is positioned precisely as a platform for developing business applications.
Now the product is in the initial stage of its evolution. And many functionality FireMonkey is undergoing changes, both qualitative and quantitative.
I hope the links below will help you understand the main features of the new platform.
Official product page on the Embarcadero website (Russian)
Among the English-language material, I would like to highlight the series (English)
What to see?
As for the latest version of Delphi, there is more than ever a lot of video material devoted to the product's features and methods of working with it. Both official, from Embarcadero, and from independent developers. There are a lot of videos on YouTube about FireMonkey, you can just use the search. Among this abundance of material, I will single out a series of three videos from Marco Cantu - RAD in Action landing page., Thus, giving my research a vector of usefulness.
More than three years have passed since the CodeGear division responsible for creating such world-famous tools as Delphi, C++Builder and JBuilder, as well as the Interbase DBMS, became part of Embarcadero Technologies, a company known for its database design and administration tools. , and two years since we discussed on the pages of our magazine what to expect in the development of tools that are so popular among Russian developers. We asked David Intersimone, Vice President for Developer Relations and Chief Evangelist of Embarcadero Technologies, and Kirill Rannev, Head of Representative Office of Embarcadero Technologies in Russia. For our youngest readers, we will inform you that this is far from the first interview that David and Kirill give to ComputerPress - our cooperation has been going on for the second decade. And for about the same number of years, we periodically publish reviews of database management tools, in which a lot of attention is paid to Embarcadero products.
ComputerPress: David, your division has been part of Embarcadero for three years now. Two years ago, you were full of enthusiasm about the fact that it became part of a company close to you in purpose and spirit. Has anything changed during this time? Do you and your colleagues feel the same enthusiasm?
Yes, I'm still enthusiastic. The main change that has taken place since we became part of the Embarcadero company is that there has been a lot of investment in the development of Delphi. The number of employees working on development tools has increased, the number of technologies that we can develop or, if necessary, acquire has increased.
The release of RAD Studio XE 2, which we plan to demonstrate in Moscow, is the largest release of this product with huge capabilities and large quantity supported platforms since the first version of Delphi, created for the 16-bit version of Windows and the former innovative product that combined the component approach and compilation to native code. Now we support development not only for Windows but also for Macintosh, not to mention web development and creation of applications for mobile devices, and these applications for different platforms can have a single code.
The new development platform, FireMonkey, is a collaboration between Embarcadero and the recently acquired Ulan-Ude-based Russian firm KSDev, a manufacturer of vector graphics components, DirectX and OpenGL, graphics effects technologies, and Delphi components using GPU with PixelShader 2.0. We acquired the company KSDev (see ksdev.ru) a year ago and started working together to create a multi-platform development tool that includes a platform for developing FireMonkey applications with components for Delphi and C ++ Buider for creating application user interfaces, integrating with databases , graphics processing using a graphics processor and integration with the operating system.
Using FireMonkey, you can create an application that runs the CPU and GPU together, and then using different compilers and run-time libraries (Run-time Libraries, RTL) you can compile it for Windows, Mac OS or iOS. Rather than learning programming with different graphics libraries, learning APIs from different platforms that have different coordinate systems and different capabilities, developers using Delphi and C++Builder can use the same component approach, visually editing forms and connecting to databases by moving the component with the mouse. It is fundamentally new way creating applications that run on different platforms, and the future lies with it. If you want to add support for other operating systems and platforms to your application, you do not need to redesign and develop it - it will be enough just to recompile it.
We create new compilers that generate native code. Today there are Delphi compilers for 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows, 32-bit versions of Mac OS 10. And we are working on next-generation Delphi and C++Builder compilers that will allow you to create high-performance native code for both these and others. platforms like Android or Linux and keep the same design, the same components, the same code by using different compilers and runtime libraries.
As you can see, I have enough reasons for enthusiasm. And the developers I meet around the world know that Embarcadero is investing a lot in Delphi and C++Builder as well as PHP development tools.
KP: What progress have you made in integrating the tools of the two companies over the past two years? What are Embarcadero's plans for the future in this area?
DI.: At the time when the CodeGear division became part of Embarcadero, this company had development teams in Toronto, Monterrey and Romania, we were and still are in Scotts Valley and in Russia, in St. Petersburg. Embarcadero had developer tools and database administrators, CodeGear had application development tools, but the latter also use databases. The merger of companies is a combination of expertise, knowledge in the field of databases, code optimization, including server code. The merger also resulted in the creation of a new product, AppWave, a special technology for turning an ordinary Windows application into something very easy to use (like applications for iPhone or other devices). AppWave allows you not to install an application, but simply select it and run it from the prepared application storage (app) server, while it will be executed on the user's computer without making changes to its registry and system area file system. By the way, the AppWave application browser is written in Delphi. Embarcadero uses Dephi for its own development and our application development expertise.
iPhone app (iOS) created by
using the FireMonkey platform
You can also use the integration of our development tools and DB Optimizer to optimize SQL queries when building applications. By passing SQL code directly to DB Optimizer, you can profile it, test it, and return an optimized version of it back to the development environment. Embarcadero's database expertise has also improved the DataSnap technology. Thanks to the developers from Toronto, we have gained a lot of knowledge about the architecture of multi-tier systems and databases. We now have joint expertise in server code and stored procedures in both companies. We have tools like RapidSQL and DB Change Manager, and development environments that make it easy to create server-side code, such as Code Insight and Code Completion technologies that have made it possible to create SQL insight and SQL Completion technologies. Our common approach to creating client and server code, our common philosophy, allows us to share common features between database management tools and application development tools.
Kirill Rannev: I want to add something important. From a commercial point of view it is very important how we deliver our tools. For example, the new release of RAD Studio XE 2 Ultimate includes the full set of DB Power Studio tools. It is a very powerful set of tools, including the RapidSQL query authoring environment, the DB Change Manager change management tool, and the DB Optimizer query optimization tool, that allow you to perform an important part of the development and deployment process, managing changes in the data model, database, code, etc. This is a very good and correct combination of technologies.
DI.: But, if needed, developers can use Subversion for version control. source code and DB Change Manager for metadata versioning. You can use code profiling and DB Optimizer to optimize server code, RapidSQL to build and debug server code, and our development environments to build and debug applications. This combination of technologies in RAD Studio XE Ultimate Edition demonstrates the parallels between database and application development models. Most developers building business applications with Delphi and C++Builder work with databases and need these tools, and RAD Studio XE Ultimate Edition is a great combination for those developers.
KP: The modern user is no longer a user of one Windows platforms. We apply mobile devices, iPhone, iPad, Android devices. This means that developers need to start targeting different platforms without a significant increase in investment in training - that is, universal tools are needed. Obviously, it is unrealistic to expect the emergence of universal tools from platform manufacturers, and in this matter we can only rely on independent tool manufacturers. Where can we rely on Embarcadero?
DI.: We still have a lot to do in the area of platform support. Today we are introducing support for the iOS platform for iPhone and iPad, followed by support for Android, Windows 7 and Blackberry smartphones. In RAD Studio XE 2, we started by building the FireMonkey platform for iOS and will later port FireMonkey to other platforms.
At the same time, there are a large number of operating systems that support touch screens(touch screen), for phones, tablets and desktop devices, and we will continue to add support for them. In addition, there are voice control systems, motion control systems, biometric systems, accelerometers, so we must continue to expand FireMonkey so that all developers can take advantage of new platforms. For example, the Microsoft Kinect device was designed for the Xbox 360, and now there is a corresponding SDK (Software Development Kit) for Windows. And we already have examples where we use motion to control an application in much the same way that we would normally use a mouse or keyboard.
When you create applications with lots of complex graphics, you generate a whole world of new user interfaces. If we are dealing with the Windows operating system, we encapsulate its application software Windows interface API in the VCL library (Visual Component Library - a library of visual components that is an integral part of the Delphi and C ++ Builder development tools. - Note. ed.), which, by the way, can be applied further. And in FireMonkey, we encapsulate the operating system API. But today we manipulate forms and graphics much more widely. You can also add physical space properties for animation and special effects. In addition, there are a huge number of other additional features for creating user interfaces that we are going to implement in the next few years for different platforms, mobile and tablet devices.
Microsoft recently released details on Windows 8, which is due out in a year. We will support these innovations in the VCL library and in the FireMonkey platform. But Delphi is a development tool designed not only for Windows, but also for Macintosh, iPhone and iPad. We also develop our PHP products, support jQuery Mobile, use the iOS API to develop mobile client applications, and create server-side PHP applications using wizards and tools to generate client-side JavaScript, HTML, and Cascading Style Sheets. We can package PHP applications and iPhone iOS native client applications, with the client talking to the PHP server. And that, in turn, will communicate with the database server and with web services - with everything that is needed for business.
RadPHP XE2 development environment. Create a mobile web application
using jQuery Mobile components for iPhone 3G
In other words, we plan to expand the capabilities of FireMonkey and VCL, including support for mobile platforms.
KP: Could you elaborate more on the FireMonkey platform?
DI.: As I already noted, the VCL library created for Windows will continue to develop and improve. But today, if you want to actually develop business applications, you must create them for different platforms. This is what the FireMonkey platform is designed for. It supports the creation of high-resolution user interfaces, high-performance 3D graphics, high frame rates, and, importantly, uses a GPU for this.
You can use these features when creating scientific, engineering and business applications. Similar Applications can connect to databases using dbExpress technology, still using non-visual components familiar to developers, such as ClientDataSet or DataSource, use DataSnap technology, connect to any databases, SOAP and REST servers. You can create attractive controls, buttons with boxes, unusual tables and other interface elements, and in two and three dimensions. You can load a ready-made 3D model into the application and combine it with a 2D shape, in which it can be rotated and viewed from different angles. You can create a data cube or a 3D business chart and rotate it using your mouse, keyboard or even a Kinect device, or you can go inside the cube and look at its different surfaces from the inside. And all this can be done with a high-speed GPU. The same application can then be compiled for another platform, such as Mac OS.
Application containing a rotating cube with data,
placed on its edges
Or you can create a 3D shape from scratch and use cameras and lights to light and rotate parts of the user interface. The form designer already has a built-in environment to support the 3D user interface directly at design time.
On Windows, you can use the Direct2D libraries to work with high-resolution 2D graphics, and for 3D graphics- Direct3D. Mac OS uses the Quartz and OpenGL libraries for the same purpose. For iOS, the Quartz and OpenGL ES libraries are used. But all this is hidden from the developer - he uses the FireMonkey platform, its coordinate system and application programming interface, without thinking about these libraries, and can compile the same application for different platforms.
Let's remember what VCL is. The VCL is a component "wrapper" around the Windows API. We are dealing with resources, menus, dialog boxes, colors, styles, Windows messages. Being a multi-platform wrapper, unlike VCL, FireMonkey retains the same event and component models, allowing you to think in terms of events (for example, OnClick, OnHasFocus, onMouseDown, and onKeyDown events), but handle Macintosh or iPhone events.
The FireMonkey platform also comes with complete system animation of user interface elements. It's certainly not a comprehensive Pixar-type animation system, but it allows you to apply effects such as animating bitmaps, highlighting the focus of a user interface element, and working with vector graphics. The developer has access to more than 50 visual effects: blur, black and white, dissolve, transitions, reflection, shadowing - all types of effects available in modern graphics processors, which are now found in almost any computer. An application built using the FireMonkey platform sends commands to the GPU, which does all the work of displaying graphics and building the user interface. At the same time, the central processor is free for calculations and accesses to the operating system. The developer only needs to correctly place the components.
The most fundamental thing about the FireMonkey platform is the way it builds the user interface. There are facilities for placing bitmap graphics on interface elements such as menus, buttons, and scrollbars. In FireMonkey, we use GPU vector graphics for this purpose. From a programming standpoint, these are all the same controls, but the graphics processor does all the work of displaying them. We can apply styles to controls, make the application look like an application for Mac OS or Windows, create our own style, apply our styles to interface elements (for example, make a button rectangular or round by changing its style in the form editor) - for this the development environment has a style editor. You can create your own style, or you can change the style of an already finished application.
FireMonkey Platform - Development Tools
and supported platforms
If you remember, in the VCL library there was a limited number of controls - containers (that is, allowing you to place other elements in them), and in FireMonkey each control is a container. This means that every control can contain any other control. For example, dropdown list items can contain images, buttons, edit boxes, and other controls. And you can also place components on layers.
The FireMonkey rendering system is quite flexible - it can use the Direct2D, Direct3D and OpenGL libraries by sending commands to the GPU. To achieve the same in VCL, it was necessary to generate a separate off-screen buffer, create an image in it by calling the appropriate graphics library functions, and then display it on the form.
Examples of graphic effects supported by FireMonkey
If you don't have a GPU, you can still apply 2D or 3D shapes and use FireMonkey controls. In this case, the FireMonkey platform will use the GDI+ libraries or other similar libraries and perform the same effects and animation or manipulation of 3D objects.
Another feature of FireMonkey is new system binding interface elements to data, open and flexible. There are two types of interface elements in the VCL: data-bound and non-data-bound (for example, TDBEdit and TEdit). In FireMonkey, every control can be associated with data, of any type. It can be just an expression, a field from a dataset, data from developer-created objects, or the results of method calls.
In addition, when creating an application, you can load a ready-made 3D model into it and use it - such capabilities are often required in both business and engineering applications. We have a client who creates applications for logistics. They had Information system, built with Delphi, and in it - an application that drew a plan and displayed information from data sources. They recently did something interesting - they drew a fully automated 3D warehouse in AutoCAD, and their application allows you to see how an automatic loader moves through the warehouse and places goods on shelves. And they lay out data from sources on the corresponding image.
Examples of Changing Application Styles
KP: What 3D model formats are currently supported?
DI.: In this release, we support loading models from AutoCAD, Collada (an open source 3D modeling tool. - Note. ed.), Maya, an OBJ format supported by many 3D graphics vendors.
KP: What other formats are planned to be added?
DI.: We plan to add 3DS (3D Studio MAX), SVG (usually this format is used for 2D vector graphics, but sometimes for 3D), Google SketchUp. We may support other formats as well.
KP: Does the use of 3D models in applications built with FireMonkey require a license for the appropriate 3D modeling tool?
DI.: No, it doesn't. All we do is read the model file. We are importing the model but not exporting it (although of course you can write an application that saves the model in your own format). We do not claim to be a manufacturer of 3D modeling tools - for this you can use AutoCAD, 3D Studio Max, Maya or any other 3D modeling tool, and import the created models into our applications.
KP: How performant are applications built with FireMonkey on modern hardware platforms?
DI.: The performance is quite high. For example, a 3D shape with three spheres and three lights can be rendered at 100 frames per second on a MacBook Pro. And it can reach 600 - it depends on what exactly we are doing. Again, it all depends on the power of the GPU.
KP: Does this mean that with the help of FireMonkey you can create games that meet modern requirements?
DI.: We do not position our development tools as a tool for games. Nevertheless, using the high performance of modern graphics processors, you can also create games with FireMonkey - after all, they are created using Direct3D or OpenGL.
KP: What work are you doing now in the field of support for gesture recognition and other newfangled things? Is such support available?
DI.: We don't have gesture support in this release yet. Gesture control will be added in a future release of FireMonkey, but for now, you can use the gesture support built into the operating system.
Mikhail Filippenko, director of Fast Reports, Inc.
K.R.: We have already said that the FireMonkey technology has Russian roots - its foundations were created in our country, and then the technology itself and its developers merged into Embarcadero. In general, it is gratifying to see the growth of the Russian component in RAD Studio and Delphi. This is the activity of our development center in St. Petersburg, and the contribution of independent Russian developers. For example, Rad Studio XE2 includes the FastReport report generator, which is known all over the world and very popular in our country. He is from Rostov-on-Don.
KP: I would like to talk about compilers. What compiler is used to create iOS apps?
DI.: We do not have our own Delphi compiler for the iPhone or iPad - we have not yet developed compilers for the ARM processors used in these devices. For iOS, we temporarily use the Free Pascal compiler and runtime library. But we are working on the next generation of compilers, including those for ARM processors. But there are compilers for Windows and Mac OS, since both hardware platforms are based on Intel processors.
KP: And what has been done in the field of compiler development in the last two years?
DI.: We have 32 and 64 bit Delphi compilers for Windows and Mac OS. And we are working on a new generation of Delphi and C++ compilers. Work on them is still ongoing, but when it is completed, we will have Delphi compilers for ARM processors, Android platforms, Linux and whatever. And we will have 64-bit C++ compilers for Windows and other platforms compatible with the latest C++ language standard just adopted by ISO.
KP: What's going on with cloud computing support in Embarcadero development tools today?
DI.: With RAD Studio XE 2, we support migrating applications to the Microsoft Azure or Amazon EC2 cloud using the Platform Assistant. And we have server components for Cloud Storage for Azure and Amazon S3 for storing tables, binary data, message queues. V previous version In RAD Studio XE, we also supported deploying applications to Amazon EC2, but it lacked storage support.
Cloud computing support in RAD Studio XE 2
KP: Two years ago you talked about the new All-Access solution. How much was it in demand? What are its benefits for system integrators and developers?
DI.: The All-Access solution and the AppWave cloud tool are widely used around the world. They are designed to make it easier to use both our company's and third-party applications. In fact, this is a solution for managing licenses and applications, and it is convenient for large companies. Smaller firms that don't have a dedicated application management team can put the application in a repository, fetch usernames from a database, and ensure that those applications are used without having to remember where license key and how many licenses are available. All-Access and the AppWave browser are designed to manage both versioning and access control.
K.R.: The market is so diverse, and users are so different, that it is impossible to cover all needs with one solution. Therefore, we strive for a variety of "packaging" solutions. We've done a lot of work to unify licensing, license management, and product installation. This line of solutions includes license and access management tools not only for Embarcadero products, but also for any other products, including internal developments of companies.
The work of bundling development tools into effective user kits is still ongoing. We have All-Access - a superset that combines all Embarcadero products. If the customer purchases the All-Access Platinum version, he receives all the tools that are in Embarcadero. But sometimes this set turns out to be redundant, for example, we made two other sets for database specialists - DB Power Studio Developer Edition and DB Power Studio DBA Edition. The difference between them is that for the developer we offer RapidSQL, a server code development tool, and for the administrator, DBArtizan, a database administration tool, is built into it, a broader product than RapidSQL. For professionals, we have the following All-Access suites: the all-product suite, DB Power Studio for developers, DB Power Studio for administrators, ER Studio Enterprise Edition for architects and anyone involved in modeling. There are combinations for application development and for administrators. Delphi is a developer's tool, and it makes a lot of sense to add SQL development tools and optimization tools to it. Finally, DB Change Manager is a very logical tool for managing the complexity of the changes that occur to databases during their life cycle.
Thus, All-Access is the head of a large family of different product sets.
KP: If it's not a secret, who in Russia uses All-Access?
K.R.: We have customers who bought All-Access based on Delphi. Many of them create complex client-server systems with SQL Server and Oracle, and they immediately liked our cross-platform database toolkit. We have a client company that has been working with Delphi since the first version, and a year ago it moved from using Delphi to the All-Access kit. Two tools that are guaranteed to be used by all developers in this company are Delphi and DBArtisan. And there are customers who came to All-Access from the database side. Their primary job is to administer databases, but they also occasionally develop applications. Clients using All-Access include media companies, machine builders and other industries.
Separately, I would like to dwell on small companies. Very often in small teams, the developer does everything, and such a company sometimes buys large All-Access food packages for one or two developers. In large teams, it is not encouraged that the developer also perform the role of a database administrator, for example, so small food packages are usually popular there, and in small companies this combination of duties is quite acceptable.
Delphi Architect is a heavily marketed product that includes modeling and programming tools. The number of copies sold, however, is less than the Delphi Enterprise versions, but it is also large. I note that in 2010 we were the best country in terms of sales, despite the fact that all countries survived the crisis. This growth was not so much due to economic factors, but with the fact that the version of RAD Studio XE, released at the end of 2009, turned out to be very popular. And while we expect further growth in sales.
We have taken another reasonable step, which is highly demanded in Russia. The degree of legalization of different versions of our products is different: the higher the version, the more legalized it is, because earlier the software was not so actively purchased. Starting with RAD Studio XE, the license covers versions 2010, 2009, 2007, and even Delphi 7, a widely used product.
Today, developers are faced with the fact that they have both new projects and projects in a state of support. A large number of projects have been transferred from early versions Delphi to version 7 and remains within this version, continuing to work on relatively small resources. No one is moving them to newer versions, but they are kept viable. And now we allow for little money (less than the price of a Delphi 7 license) to get both RAD Studio XE and Delphi 7 - that is, we legalize the developer both for the implementation of new projects and for support projects.
KP: How do you assess the current state of the Embarcadero community?
DI.: This community is large and very demanding. They need everything and immediately - they are developers. But sometimes it takes a long time to get something right.
A few years ago we took the Windows component architecture and put it on Linux desktops. Now we see that it was not the right decision. The right decision is to create a platform for applications. Applications even for different platforms have menus, windows, graphics, network access and access to devices. Different platforms may have different models flow control or exception handling, but in the application code we see the same try blocks. Our job is to make it easy for developers to create business applications and compile them for the platforms on which they are supposed to be used, regardless of how the instruction system of the corresponding processors is arranged and what other features of these platforms are. And FireMonkey is exactly what you need to solve this problem.
KP: If a company creates a new device and wants to have FireMonkey support for it, would that be possible?
DI.: With new generation compilers that will have a platform-independent front-end and a platform-dependent back-end, this will be quite possible. In the meantime, for each operating system, we create a compiler and runtime library from scratch.
Any modern new device usually has a graphical user interface (many of them have a dual-core processor and GPU) and standard SDKs for developers. All this simplifies the creation of device support in FireMonkey. If the new device only has libraries for 2D graphics like Quartz, we will be able to support such a device in FireMonkey, but this will take approximately several months. However, a lot depends on the platform: not all platforms support all features, for example, iOS does not have a menu and dialog boxes and you will not be able to place the corresponding components on the forms of such applications.
KP: Has anything changed in the policy of working with partners? What is being done to increase the share of users of your products? What is being done in Russia?
DI.: Our partner ecosystem is wide - there are hundreds of manufacturers of tools and components not found in our products, and we have a technology partnership program. Therefore, a wide range of components, technologies and tools are available to developers. And the solutions they create for their customers are better than if only our products were used. And for sales, we have offices in many countries, resellers and distributors.
K.R.: What matters to us is not the number of partners, but the quality of work of each particular partner. For now, we want to focus on working closely with existing partners, although the pool of partners remains open. We have many partners, and we must help them in terms of technology. We work with developers, and they know what they want and know what is available on the market, and the capabilities of partners must match this.
We have business partners who have invested heavily in Embarcadero as a line of business - they have trained specialists, marketing of our products, dedicated employees who are responsible for this area and monitor what happens with our products, price list, marketing. Naturally, they are more successful in terms of sales of our products than companies that sell our products on a case-by-case basis.
KP: David, Kirill, thank you very much for the interesting interview. On behalf of our publication and our readers, let me wish your company continued success in creating your amazing tools that developers need so much!
Questions were asked by Natalia Elmanova
What is Fire Monkey?
FireMonkey (FMX) is a framework for cross-platform development for both desktop systems (Windows, Mac OS + support for the server side on Linux in the near future) and mobile (iOS and Android) using the Delphi/C++ language.
Peculiarities:
single code base for all platforms;
any control (visual component) can be a container (parent) for other components;
the presence of a very advanced relative arrangement (20 types) of components on the form;
LiveBinding allows you to connect any type of data or information to any user interface or graphical objects;
presence of form/component styles;
Multi-Device Preview allows you to customize the visual presentation for each of the platforms;
FireUI Live Preview - Displays the app view on real devices in real time.
Opportunities:
use of the native API of each of the platforms, as well as the ability to call third-party native libraries;
interaction with all sensors (GPS, Accelerometer, Compass, Bluetooth (including LE) and others);
support for push notifications, IoT;
support for asynchronous HTTP requests;
support for most databases (MsSQL, MySql, Oracle, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, etc.);
work with Cloud Service (Amazon, Azure);
android service support.
Cons (currently):
lack of support for customization of native classes;
the implementation of specific things is either impossible (widgets, extensions (iOS), etc.) or a dance with a tambourine is necessary (background service, broadcast message, etc.);
customization Splash screen (initial screen) to put it mildly, no;
FMX controls use their own rendering (visualization, drawing), which is purely visually similar to native;
the use of native controls is associated with large body movements;
with a large nesting of components, incredible things happen: the application crashes in various places, focus is lost, freezes, etc.;
the information content of debugging an application on mobile platforms is zero;
descriptions of errors on mobile platforms are reduced to useless “Error 0x00000X”;
compilation time wishes to be the best for medium and large projects;
the need to use a file to refine mobile applications for each platform;
no support for Intel Atom architecture;
inadequate price compared to competitors.
Pros:
very active recent development of both the product and the community, support for more and more new technologies;
the presence of a huge number of free and commercial components;
the speed of the application is very close to native;
a very advanced visual editor and environment in general, the presence of styles;
the ability to test the application on Win, and only then deploy it to devices, which greatly speeds up development;
change mode/platform with a flick of the wrist;
PAServer provides easy interaction with MacOs when developing for Apple OS;
support for 3D graphics out of the box.
In conclusion, I want to say that over the past couple of years, FireMonkey has grown into a professional tool for cross-platform development of business applications and not only. Many shortcomings are gradually being solved and with each release the product becomes more modern and self-sufficient, the existing skepticism towards the Delphi language itself, associated with many years of stagnation, also disappears. Writing new projects on FireMonkey is "safe" and promising.
Enough time has passed since the term FireMonkey has become more or less familiar, if not to all developers, then at least to those who use Delphi. During this time, there were books on FireMonkey, articles on FireMonkey, entries about FireMonkey in numerous blogs. Reading all this is very interesting. But no theory can replace practice. And I, like many before, had an itch to try writing something using FireMonkey.
In doing so, however, a problem arose. For some reason, I decided that I just needed to implement some not very complicated working project.
To explain why this turned out to be a problem for me, it will take some (one wants to write, lyrical) digression. An excursion into my past as a developer. Explain some of my views on programming using Delphi.
I must say that I started using Delphi on Windows 3.1, that is, from the first version. And since then I have been studying VCL. Studied in the original, so to speak. Watched, addressed, traced source codes. Again and again.
It is known that at various times the set of components shipped with Delphi included third-party components that were supposed to fill in the gaps in the VCL, and which probably went through some kind of quality control before being included. Some of these components continue to be supplied to this day. Take the same Indy. I don’t want to offend anyone, this is purely my personal opinion, which also applies to myself as a component developer: not a single set has been so deeply thought out and implemented as well as a huge and diverse VCL. No, I do not pretend to be the ultimate truth, and, of course, there are many errors in the VCL itself, decisions that cause misunderstanding, cause rejection and with which you want to disagree. But I always got the impression of a certain single style. There is in VCL, in my opinion, a beautiful and strong core that supports the entire Delphi design, and around which both the software infrastructure and the developer community itself are built. Thanks in large part to the VCL, again, in my opinion, the rumors about the death of Delphi are still rumors. And when third-party components were included in the delivery of the VCL, it was immediately noticeable, they were different.
But then the moment comes and I hear that VCL is a technology that is outdated. A technology that should be left in the past. Developers should implement all their new projects on FireMonkey, but about old ones ... it would be nice to transfer them to new rails. FireMonkey is everywhere and always. And I hear it from different sources. And quite persistently. No, nobody kills VCL. he stays with us. But he is no longer number one. He should be a stand-in. At least that's how I understand what is being said about the future of the product.
In principle, I understand this alignment. A course has been taken for multi-platform, and, more importantly, for cross-platform. After all, what is VCL? Visual Component Library. Library of visual components. You may not agree with this. For example, I have always considered a lot of non-visual components, and not components, but just classes, an integral part of the VCL, and a huge number of third-party classes and components - a continuation, an extension of the VCL. Well, I can't consider the TDataset's heirs as not part of the VCL. Although, for example, the term DBExpress Library says that it is, as it were, not a VCL. Apparently, Embarcadero really divides the monolithic, from my point of view, VCL into a number of separate libraries. No, of course, not entirely separate, but nonetheless. And if you take this point of view, FireMonkey is intended to replace the visual part of the VCL (how should I still call the complete class and component library, maybe Borland Component Library?).
What are the visual components of the library built around? Around the low-level, basic elements provided by the operating system. Window handles, fonts, windows themselves, input elements, messages, device contexts, and much more - these are not the concepts of the library that comes with Delphi, but the concepts of the operating system. Yes, that's right, Windows. And if you want to build a cross-platform library, then it is logical to refuse the infrastructure offered by the operating system that executes the program written using the library.
This is exactly what FireMonkey is trying to do. They are trying to create an infrastructure based on the underlying mechanisms supported by various operating systems that can replace the service that the operating systems themselves offer.
Many remember trying to makecross-platform not only the library, but Delphi itself. Parallel to Delphi 6, the Kylix product and the CLX library were released. All this was done in order to be able to develop for Linux. However, Linux does not have many of the basic GUI windowing concepts that Windows does. The window interface for Linux is generally not a native phenomenon. This is an optional application. And I had to write some kind of synthetic library. With its help, it was possible to write a program for both Windows and Linux. However, I still remember that feeling, not of frustration, rather of annoying inconvenience, that I experienced when I tried to use the analogues of visual components from CLX. I started missing a lot. What I used to do without thinking when developing with the VCL turned out to be difficult, very different, or simply impossible to do using the CLX.
I felt about the same when switching from BDE to DBExpress. Old, familiar from Field Test-a BDE (Borland then already used it in Quattro Pro for Windows and in Paradox for Windows, and it was called ODAPI, and then IDAPI, and was a cut above, in my opinion, Microsoft's ODBC) was declared obsolete technology, which should give way in new projects to a new library. I was always missing something in DBExpress at first, especially knowledge.
At the same time, I in no way want to scold or criticize either the libraries listed above, or the decisions that led to their appearance. It's just about my impressions, sometimes first impressions.
Now, perhaps, it becomes a little clearer why the decision to write a small working project using FireMonkey brought a number of problems. For many years, in the development of projects, projects and projects, a certain stereotype has been formed, a certain template of what and how to do. And in my case, I had to face the fact that the template needs to be changed. Because you can't transfer everything you're used to using VCL to a project built on FireMonkey.
At the start of the project, I experienced a certain sense of deja vu. Namely, a feeling of discomfort. For example, the usual input elements do not have many properties. Tricks that have become firmly established in practice, based on tricks related to the knowledge of some features of the operating system, do not work in a new context. Not to mention that some components have changed radically.
Well, another important nuance. What kind of projects usually have to be done at work, if it (work) is not related to writing compilers, modeling systems, or anything else highly scientific? I think for most it's about developing something that involves using databases. Moreover, something highly scientific can also use the services provided by the DBMS.
Here another ambush awaited me. For some reason, when you come across in practice that FireMonkey does not contain elements focused on working with data stored in the database, you are not quite ready for this (to put it mildly). Although I have already read about this many times and you know (theoretically) what you should use. It's about Live Bindings.
I don't want to get into an argument about whether really cool programmers should use db-aware components or shouldn't. In practice, starting new project, I was faced with a fact: you have to get used to both new visual components and a new way of extracting data for display, editing and, ultimately, saving. Which, again, is neither bad nor good. It just happened that way for me.
This concludes my first impressions post. Next in line are stories about what and how they overcame while working on the project.
