Dimensional Data

Sooner or later your applications need to create some sort of visualization of the data they handle. RAD Studio users already get a bundled version of the TChart graphing component so you can easily produce pie, bar and line graphs. Our rich eco-system of technology partners also provide a number of different takes on report writers and generators ranging from spreadsheet-based generators thru PDF creators to banded reporting tools. Reporting and Visualization 101 – in case you’ve been living under a rock Reporting and visualization tools include generalized reporting in the style of a typed document, decision-making pivot tables, and market analysis graphing. It’s really about translating raw data into marshalled, organized, hard-copy to make it more ‘human friendly’. But then you knew that already, didn’t you? Name your price Prices for reporting tools vary quite widely from under $100 US to several thousand. Or..free… as is the case with FortesReport. What is FortesReport? FortesReport is a powerful report generator available as a package of components for Delphi developers. In FortesReport, the reports are composed of bands that have specific functions in the print stream. uses ufrmReport, ufrmReportImagem; {$R *.dfm} procedure TfrmPrincipal.btnRelatorioImagemClick(Sender: TObject); begin if OpenPictureDialog1.Execute then begin frmReportImagem.RLImage1.Picture.LoadFromFile(OpenPictureDialog1.FileName); frmReportImagem.RLReport1.Preview(); end; end; procedure TfrmPrincipal.btnRelatorioTextoClick(Sender: TObject); begin if OpenDialog1.Execute then begin frmReport.rlmmTexto.Lines.LoadFromFile(OpenDialog1.FileName); frmreport.RLReport1.Preview(); end; end; 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 uses   ufrmReport, ufrmReportImagem;   {$R *.dfm}   procedure TfrmPrincipal.btnRelatorioImagemClick(Sender: TObject); begin   if OpenPictureDialog1.Execute then   begin     frmReportImagem.RLImage1.Picture.LoadFromFile(OpenPictureDialog1.FileName);     frmReportImagem.RLReport1.Preview();   end; end;   procedure TfrmPrincipal.btnRelatorioTextoClick(Sender: TObject); begin   if OpenDialog1.Execute then   begin     frmReport.rlmmTexto.Lines.LoadFromFile(OpenDialog1.FileName);     frmreport.RLReport1.Preview();   end; end; You can define groupings, sublevels, and totals simply by the hierarchical relationship between bands. Moreover, the FortesReport has a rich palette of components for text, charts, formulas, bar codes, filters, and layout. The repository also has several demo applications so you can see it in action for yourself. Head over and check out the FortesReport report generator components here: https://github.com/fortesinformatica/fortesreport-ce Great work, excellent quality and quite amazing for it to be an open-source product too.

Rafael Antonio Rojas Jaque started to use Delphi in 2008. He has submitted a showcase entry (SADIS) for the Delphi 26th Showcase Challenge and we wanted to know more about his application. You can check it out at SADIS. When did you start using RAD Studio/Delphi and have long have you been using it? En el 2016 RAD Studio, Delphi lo uso desde 2008 I have been using RAD Studio since 2016, and Delphi since 2008. What was it like building software before you had RAD Studio/Delphi? Antes de RAD STUDIO era mas demorado crear software, no existian programas para desarrollo multiplataforma en Delphi. Before RAD Studio, it was more time consuming to create a software. There were no programs for cross-platform development in Delphi. How did RAD Studio/Delphi help you create your showcase application? Me ayudo en integrar las herramientas en una sola plataforma, facilitando e integrando los desarrollos, ademas de poder crear aplicaciones web. It helped me to integrate the tools in a single platform, facilitating and integrating the developments, in addition to being able to create web applications. What made RAD Studio/Delphi stand out from other options? Ya tenia aprendido Delphi, fue natural pasar a RAD STUDIO, otras opciones no daban tantas herramientas en una sola plataforma. I had already learned Delphi, so it was natural to go to RAD Studio. Other options did not give so many tools in a single platform.  What made you happiest about working with RAD Studio/Delphi? Pase naturalmente a trabajar en RAD STUDIO, lo que tenia aprendido en DELPHI  no se perdio, antes aprendi mas. Naturally, I went to work with RAD Studio. What I had learned at Delphi was not lost, I learned more before.  What have you been able to achieve through using RAD Studio/Delphi to create your showcase application? Logre crear una plataforma que soporta el trabajo en web, que envia y recibe los datos desde una aplicacion celular. Envio de Fotografias, Firmas, GPS, Datos capturados en terreno que fluyen a la nube o los servidores SADIS. I managed to create a platform that supports web work, which sends and receives data from a cellular application. Sending of photographs, signatures, GPS, data captured in the field that flow to the cloud or SADIS servers. What are some future plans for your showcase application? Seguir agregandole modulos, la plafaforma atiende diferentes clientes de diversas areas, Ingenieria, Salud. To keep adding modules. The platform serves different clients from different areas, engineering, and health. Thank you, Rafael! Open the link below to view his showcase entry. Showcase

The great thing about Delphi is that it makes the tough jobs really easy. For instance, take the task of controlling cloud servers. By using RAD Studio Delphi’s cross-platform Firemonkey FMX framework you can actually EASILY write a small application which allow your users to control cloud-based virtual machines, cloud computer instances and even full-on “bare metal” cloud servers. What’s more; we’re going to do it in just FIFTEEN lines of code! There are almost no other programming languages around which offer this kind of power in so few lines of code. What is Vultr? Vultr is a commercial company offering a range of cloud-computing resources along the lines of Microsoft Azure, Amazon AWS and Digital Ocean. We wrote about Digital Ocean before when we accessed their API in the post: Easily Automate The DigitalOcean API From Windows And Mobile Just like DigitalOcean and many of the other cloud hosting companies, Vultr (https://www.vultr.com) also has a comprehensive collection of APIs to access from our applications. What are we going to use the Vultr API for? We’re going to produce some code which allows us to start, suspend/pause and end Vultr virtual instances. The basics of this technique can be used to control other vendor’s offerings too such a DigitalOcean Droplet because the access process to their APIs are very similar. How do I set up an  Application with Vultr’s API? Go to the main Vultr website and sign up for an appropriate account which meets your needs. There’s something for everyone there but even the most basic levels support the API. Sign in to Vultr Account here https://my.vultr.com Go to Account Menu and then the API tab – by default it is disabled, so you have to enable it. Just follow their instructions which are straight-forward. Vultr API is using Access Control layer to using our API Key, We have to set the IP subnet to access our API Key, or temporarily set “Allow” to all for development purposes. Now, create a new Multi Device Application in your RAD Studio Delphi IDE. In the previous DigitalOcean post we created a client API Rest connection to control the process of instance creation, deletion and to get all instances. For Vultr you can read the process in their documentation here, but of course you can check full source code here for how to code them. Since in this article we’re discussing how to Start, Stop or Halt the Vultr instance we have created the first thing we should do Start a Vultr instance. In the Vultr API documentation the examples says we can call their API as shown in the examples below: Start a Vultr instance curl “https://api.vultr.com/v2/instances/{instance-id}/start” -X POST -H “Authorization: Bearer ${VULTR_API_KEY}” curl “https://api.vultr.com/v2/instances/{instance-id}/start” –X POST –H “Authorization: Bearer ${VULTR_API_KEY}” Reboot a Vultr instance curl “https://api.vultr.com/v2/instances/{instance-id}/reboot” -X POST -H “Authorization: Bearer ${VULTR_API_KEY}” curl “https://api.vultr.com/v2/instances/{instance-id}/reboot”   –X POST   –H “Authorization: Bearer ${VULTR_API_KEY}” Reinstall a Vultr instance curl “https://api.vultr.com/v2/instances/{instance-id}/reinstall” -X POST -H “Authorization: Bearer ${VULTR_API_KEY}” -H “Content-Type: application/json” –data ‘{ “hostname” : “Example Instance” }’ curl “https://api.vultr.com/v2/instances/{instance-id}/reinstall”   –X POST   –H “Authorization: Bearer ${VULTR_API_KEY}”   –H “Content-Type: application/json”   —data ‘{     “hostname” : “Example Instance”   }’ Delphi Vultr API code example Based on those examples, we can create the Delphi code as follows like so: function InstanceCommand(AnInstanceID, ACommand: string; AData: TJSONObject = nil): boolean; var LRestClient: […]

OK, so you’ve written something brilliant, the Next Big Thing.  You’re taking the modern approach.  You’ve read up – or watched – our series on Fluent UI and maybe even applied a few visual things like neo skeuomorphism we learned about at the Desktop First conference.  Perhaps you’ve applied some VCL themes to your app and integrated the ability to detect Windows 10 dark mode / light mode in your Delphi application? Everything is going well… until the users try to use your applications. This is the message you get when you run a very popular open source project which has 100,000+ downloads. You start getting complaints from your users they can’t download your application.  Or, when they do finally manage to fight back against the modern web browser’s paranoia your app gets blocked by Windows 10 or, more mysteriously, simply disappears altogether into a blue cloud of corporate group policy genie smoke. You didn’t take the last step: signing your code to prove that your wonderfully-crafted application is from you, and only you, and has not been infected by a computer virus or cryptolocker trojan. In the recent security-themed TCoffeeAndCode we had intended to talk about code-signing but we kind of got distracted by the many other security things which cropped up.  To be fair, we did say it’s not scripted! What is code-signing? Code signing is a manual process which you can make happen just after or at the point of the final building of your application.  It adds a small resource to your exe containing a digital signature.  The signature identifies who, in theory at least, wrote the code and adds in information which takes a checksum of your application’s exe file.  This information – the code signature – when taken altogether means that any user running your applications can be sure that the exe file has not been modified since you created it on your computer or build server.  Any changes to the exe, for example, by a virus, will break the cryptographic checksum so users can tell something has gone wrong. A properly code-signed app (the image is old – the certificate would show a current expiry date) Delivering apps via a weblink pretty much demands code-signing Code signing doesn’t just help identify the original developer, it also plays a part when your programs are downloaded from a website or similar online delivery mechanism.  Most browsers (probably all) will warn you about downloading exes from a website, especially one which is not using HTTPS. Microsoft Edge and Windows combined goes a little further and will actively scream at you if the exe does not bear a digital signature (another way of saying it’s not code-signed). Unsigned apps look just like computer viruses If your users do finally manage to jump through all the various hoops and actually get the exe to download on your computer some of them may find that the downloaded file has magically disappeared.  This is because it’s fairly common for corporate networks to enforce a rule which says that users may only run certain trusted applications.  No code signature usually means your application is not trusted.  Some go even further, although this is less common and insist that all user applications must be 64bit, especially server-side applications and Windows services. Corporate […]

Luis Hernandez has been developing on Delphi for two and a half years. He submitted a showcase entry (VisualNEO Web) for the Delphi 26th Showcase Challenge and we wanted to know about his process with developing the software. His works can be found over at VisualNEO Web. When did you start using RAD Studio Delphi and have long have you been using it? Two and a half years ago the opportunity arose to continue with the development of NeoSoft’s software products, because its main developer, David Riley, left the project. For that reason I had to start programming in Delphi in order to continue with the development of NeoAppBuilder, then a beta and now called VisualNEO Web. What was it like building software before you had RAD Studio Delphi? Although I consider myself mainly a web developer, my previous programming tool for Windows was NeoBook (now called VisualNEO Win). It is an extremely simple but very powerful tool, although not as much as Delphi of course. How did RAD Studio/Delphi help you create your showcase application? Delphi is a very powerful programming tool, which allows to make almost any software project a reality. Thanks to its easy-to-understand structure and syntax, it has allowed me to take on a complex project without being an expert. What made RAD Studio/Delphi stand out from other options? In my case, I had no choice. When I took over the VisualNEO Web project it was still a beta but in a very advanced state of development. I found it such an interesting opportunity that I decided to learn Delphi, which I am still doing today. If VisualNEO Web had been programmed in another programming language, it might not have been possible for me. What made you happiest about working with RAD Studio Delphi? What makes me happiest about working with Delphi is knowing that it is a platform where almost everything is possible.  It’s hardly possible to find something Delphi cannot do. What have you been able to achieve through using RAD Studio Delphi to create your showcase application? Thanks to this powerful tool, I have been able to push through a number of upgrades and new versions of VisualNEO Web. I keep alive a software that is indispensable in my work and that otherwise might have been abandoned. I have been able to grow an incredible community of users passionate about the VisualNEO project and meet people from all continents. I can say that my life has changed since I decided to learn Delphi to continue with the development of VisualNEO. What are some future plans for your showcase application? VisualNEO Web is based on web technologies and as such, has no limits. There are many fields yet to be explored and incorporated into NeoScript, VisualNEO’s simple programming language, to make web application programming easier and faster for everyone. I would also very much like to expand the compilation options to reach more platforms. Personally I would like to involve more programmers in its development since right now it is a personal project to which I cannot dedicate as much time as I would like. Thank you, Luis! Read about his showcase entry by clicking the link below. Showcase

SongShow Plus demonstrates how a well-written application can breeze through seemingly difficult tasks like real-time streaming. On the face of it SongShow Plus – which is now on version 8 – is portrayed as a remote control and aid for live presentations and stage performances, but behind this modest public face is a whole lot of power. How does SongShow Plus flex its Delphi muscles? Aimed primarily at Churches and similar organizations SongShow says: “many churches use standard business communication tools like PowerPoint to display content, but these tools are not designed for the church environment and have serious limitations. SongShow Plus is presentation software designed specifically for churches with tools for displaying scripture, song lyrics, custom built slideshows for sermon content and much more“. Video production is a major part of Church budgets as they modernize and invest in technology to engage and inform their congregations with live video and mixed media such as text overlays.  SongShow plus manages live video throughput and can easily handle multiple layers of media, all in real-time. More on SongShow Plus The company president, Doug Reece, has a comprehensive amount of information on the main SongShow Plus website and he also hosts a blog and news forum. SongShow Plus’ collection of tools not only allows you to display the right content, they allow you to do it quickly and on-the-go with a creditable collection of amazing mobile control features. Mobile control functions for SongShow Plus include Remote Control, Program Control, and Stage Monitor. The SongShow Plus mobile application is designed to work in companionship with the SongShow Plus 8.4 desktop application. With SongShow Plus 8.4 installed and the mobile device both on the same network the two work in harmony, seamlessly for the users, but with all the technicalities of how they interconnect hidden and taken care of for them. RAD Studio is the secret to success RAD Studio’s components, themes (SongShow Plus uses the FMX themes to look good), and the Delphi or C++ language can lift your applications from a design to an actual program in the iOS and Android app stores. Website SongShow Mobile Control Google Play SongShow Mobile Control Screenshot Gallery When are you going to take that great idea you had and turn it into reality?