Dimensional Data

Our ever growing FNC framework now already brings a whole portfolio of components to a myriad of devices and operating systems: Windows, Android, iOS, macOS, Linux, Raspbian, Web …. So, it is clear that our R&D team is always looking out for new technology and trying to be ahead of the curve. For this reason, our team was excited to be involved in a very forward looking project for a customer that brings Delphi and our FNC framework again on the bleeding edge of technology.  For this project, we researched how we could bring the FNC framework to a new M1 CPU + NVidia Titan V based device that features an AI driven holographic display. We tweaked the Delphi OSX64 compiler to produce M1 CPU code as well as NVidia SIMD GPU instructions to render FNC on the holographic display. When we received the test device here, the results are without a doubt stunning! You can see a glimpse here: While playing with this cutting-edge technology, our team mesmerized how predictions of technology in movies of the seventies and eighties already got real and we wondered therefore, if we could bring Delphi and FNC at the same time to this for us nostalgic area. A first attempt was to port FNC to the Sharp LR35902 processor and after this was successful, it permitted us to run FNC on the Nintendo Game Boy. It is surprising how crisp the FNC graphics are rendered on the small Game Boy LCD screen as you can witness here: And this achievement inspired us to go back in time even further. Surprisingly this was somewhat easier as making Delphi compile on a Intel 8080 CP/M machine. We tweaked the original Turbo Pascal 8086 compiler to use only 8080 instructions and got it working. It was however a lot more effort to downscale the FNC graphics abstraction layer to a 80×25 character CRT screen. But as you know by now, we are not scared to make our hands dirty in such challenging task. It is with pride that we can share the first FNC components now also running on a CP/M driven Intel 8080 machine from 1974 connected to a Sperry Univac Uniscope 200 terminal.  Are you still using devices for which you like to use Delphi and FNC? Let us know, it could become the next challenge of our team! We look forward to hear what nostalgic or futuristic device you would which to bring alive with your beloved development tools.

Intro We have been working on multi component, multi data source binding for quite some time now, providing a foundation for future improvements and new features and today we can proudly announce that TMS FNC Core 2.5 makes the first version available via the TTMSFNCDataBinder component. The TTMSFNCDataBinder component is a non-visual component that acts as a bridge between components and datasources and uses RTTI to detect bindable properties. Read-only Important to know is that this initial release of the TTMSNCDataBinder component supports read-only data binding. It listens to dataset changes, and automatically updates values in the component. In future updates, writing data to the dataset is planned as well as updating the active record based on the selection. Supported modes The TTMSFNCDataBinder component supports 4 modes: single value list column/list grid (via interface) To point out how a binding is done, below is a sample of binding a single value and a list component. (Based on TTMSFNCHTMLText and TTMSFNCListBox) single value procedure TFormDataBinding.UpdateLinks; var it: TTMSFNCDataBinderItem; begin TMSFNCDataBinder1.BeginUpdate; it := TMSFNCDataBinder1.Items.Add; it.&Object := TMSFNCHTMLText1; it.BindType := dbbtSingleValue; it.DataSource := DataSource1; it.FieldName := ‘Common_Name’; it.PropertyName := ‘Text’; TMSFNCDataBinder1.EndUpdate; TMSFNCDataBinder1.Active := True; end; The below code actually sets up the same binding as the code above with a convenience method ConnectSingle. procedure TFormDataBinding.UpdateLinks; begin TMSFNCDataBinder1.ConnectSingle(TMSFNCHTMLText1, DataSource1, ‘Text’, ‘Common_Name’); TMSFNCDataBinder1.Active := True; end; list procedure TFormDataBinding.UpdateLinks; var it: TTMSFNCDataBinderItem; begin TMSFNCDataBinder1.BeginUpdate; it := TMSFNCDataBinder1.Items.Add; it.&Object := ListBox1; it.BindType := dbbtList; it.DataSource := DataSource1; it.FieldName := ‘Common_Name’; it.PropertyName := ‘Items’; TMSFNCDataBinder1.EndUpdate; TMSFNCDataBinder1.Active := True; end; Again as with the single value binding, the below code uses a convenience method to add an item and set all the properties in one go. procedure TFormDataBinding.UpdateLinks; begin TMSFNCDataBinder1.ConnectList(ListBox1, DataSource1, ‘Items’, ‘Common_Name’); TMSFNCDataBinder1.Active := True; end; HTML template For the single value and list bindings, there is support to add a HTML template instead of binding to a specific field name. The HTML template supports multiple fields as long as they follow a specific kind of format. The HTML itself is based on the mini HTML reference (https://www.tmssoftware.com/site/minihtml.asp) The format for adding fields is: . So when applying this to the single value binding for example we can add an item using the TMSFNCDataBinder1.ConnectSingleHTMLTemplate(TMSFNCHTMLText1, DataSource1, ‘Text’, ‘Name: ‘); or procedure TFormDataBinding.UpdateLinks; var it: TTMSFNCDataBinderItem; begin TMSFNCDataBinder1.BeginUpdate; it := TMSFNCDataBinder1.Items.Add; it.&Object := TMSFNCHTMLText1; it.BindType := dbbtSingleValue; it.DataSource := DataSource1; it.PropertyName := ‘Text’; it.HTMLTemplate := ‘Name: ‘; TMSFNCDataBinder1.EndUpdate; TMSFNCDataBinder1.Active := True; end; Editor The databinder component installs an editor that is available at designtime and at runtime. The editor allows to visually edit the bindings that you have set up. You can also create, update and delete new or existing bindings. To start it at runtime, call TMSFNCDataBinder1.ShowEditor; At designtime, you can right-click the TTMSFNCDataBinder component and select “Edit…” to start the editor. Want to know more? Active registered users of FNC (TMS FNC Core) can download the update and get started right away! A demo (“Databinding”), is included in the distribution and there is separate documentation that gives more details on what the TTMSFNCDataBinder component can do and can mean for your application.

TMS Aurelius 5 has been released with lots of new features! Photo by Tony Hand on Unsplash As we have antecipated in a previous blog post, lots of new features were expected for the next major release of TMS Aurelius, our state-of-art ORM framework for Delphi. And indeed, Aurelius 5 was released last week! The what’s new section in the documentation provides you can see the full list of new features, improvements and bug fixes. Here are the major new features, and at the end of this article we have a special invitation for you! Data Validation You can now add data validation via attributes directly to your entity classes. [Entity, Automapping] [Filter(‘Multitenant’)] TTrack = class strict private FId: Integer; [Required] FName: string; FGenre: TGenre; FComposer: Nullable; [Range(0, 3600000)] FMilliseconds: Nullable; FTenantId: Nullable; function GetDuration: string; public All fields will be proper validated according to the validation attributes applied. With a few lines you will guarantee that the entity will be persisted with a valid state. The above class is part of the Music Library demo provided with TMS Aurelius (trial and registered versions). Note how the track name is required, and the duration must not be greater than one hour (3600000 milliseconds). If you try to save something with wrong data, Aurelius will automatically prevent the user from doing so and raise an exception: Global filters and multitenancy Aurelius now includes global filter mechanism. Users will be able to define filters globally, including parameters, and choose which entities will have it applied. The Music Library demo was made multitenant with a few lines of code. The entities were marked with a new global filter definition: [Entity, Automapping] [FilterDef(‘Multitenant’, ‘{TenantId} = :TenantId’)] [FilterDefParam(‘Multitenant’, ‘TenantId’, TypeInfo(string))] [Filter(‘Multitenant’)] TGenre = class strict private FId: Integer; [Required] FName: string; FTenantId: Nullable; And, from that, Aurelius allows you to enforce values in filter (to prevent a wrong tenant id to be saved) and also enable filters to retrieve data: Manager.EnableFilter(‘Multitenant’) .SetParam(‘tenantId’, CurrentTenant); That was it! Music Library demo is now multitenant, with a few UI changes to allow the end-user to choose which tenant to use, data is now fully separated between tenants. Attribute-based event handlers Events are an important feature of any framework, and with Aurelius is not different. It provides several events you can use to add custom business logic. You can add specific code just before an entity is being saved, after an entity is deleted, when an SQL is being executed, among others. But now you can add event handlers directly in your classes, using attributes. You can use it for logging for example, or even to add custom, more complex data validation. The Music Library demo also shows how to do it: TGenre = class {…} public [OnValidate] function Validate: IValidationResult; {…} function TGenre.Validate: IValidationResult; begin if SameText(Name, ‘Experimental’) then Result := TValidationResult.Failed(‘Experimental music is not allowed’) else Result := TValidationResult.Success; end; Such validation will be applied, and Experimental genres will not be allowed in our Music Library app! Come See it Live! There are more new features, actually: TObjectManager.AddOwnership method, Aurelius Dataset can now refresh fields directly from objects and automatically destroy the source list, etc. But, what about if you come and see the new features live, in action, with a more deep explanation? The free webinar […]

Register for the free webinar “TMS WEB Core with HTML/Bootstrap templates”. The webinar is scheduled on March 25, 2021 16h00 UTC  17h00 UTC (17h CET – 18h CET) at the TMS Web Academy! “TMS WEB Core with HTML/Bootstrap templates” Ivan de Souza, former senior consultant at Embarcadero Brazil will demonstrate how to create web applications with Delphi and TMS WEB Core and use HTML with Bootstrap to create modern, responsive and good looking web user interfaces.  You will learn techniques to bind Object Pascal user interface control logic to existing HTML & CSS. NOTE: The webinar will be presented in Portuguese! “TMS Web Core com templates HTML/Bootstrap” 25 de Março de 2021 / 13h (Horário de Brasília) Ivan de Souza, ex-consultor sênior da Embarcadero Brasil, irá demonstrar como criar aplicações web usando Delphi e TMS Web Core, com HTML e Bootstrap, para criar aplicações web com visual moderno e responsivo. Você irá aprender técnicas para ligar a lógica de interface escrita em Object Pascal em templates HTML e CSS existentes. O webinar será realizado em sua maior parte em português, tendo algumas interações em inglês com o CEO da TMS, Bruno Fierens. 

Today, we have a look at another often overlooked but yet convenient feature of TAdvStringGrid (and also TDBAdvGrid) from the TMS VCL UI Pack: HoverButtons! Activating HoverButtons With the HoverButtons, you can quickly setup actions to be performed on rows in the grid where the mouse is hovering. It is enabled by just setting grid.HoverButtons.Enabled = true. This means, that when the mouse hovers over a row, a small panel hosting buttons will appear at a column of choice in the grid. This column is set with grid.HoverButtons.Column. WIth the property grid.HoverButtons.Position, you can specify in what relative position with respect to this column the panel should appear.  Configuring the buttons  To add any number of buttons on the panel, the collection grid.HoverButtons.Buttons can be used. This is a collection of the type THoverButtonsCollectionItem and allows to set the caption of such button, an imagelist ImageIndex, a picture, the hint, enabled state of the button … Just add any number of buttons needed for different actions to be performed on the row. Reacting to HoverButtons clicks When a button on the HoverButtons panel is clicked, this triggers the event OnHoverButtonClick returning the index of the button clicked. Performing the different actions for the different button clicks as such is simple: procedure TForm1.AdvStringGrid1HoverButtonClick(Sender: TObject; ARow: Integer; AButton: THoverButtonsCollectionItem); begin case AButton.Index of 0: begin // select the entire row and copy it to the clipboard AdvStringGrid1.SelectRows(ARow,1); AdvStringGrid1.CopySelectionToClipboard; end; 1: begin // invoke the inplace editor for the 2nd column cell AdvStringGrid1.Col := 2; AdvStringGrid1.ShowInplaceEdit; end; 2: AdvStringGrid1.RemoveRows(ARow,1); end; end; Hovering & hints Now we are discussing hovering, we can as well highlight another small but neat feature of the grid and that is to show the content of cells via a hint when the mouse hovers the cell. This is activated by setting grid.ShowHint = true as well as grid.HintShowLargeText = true. Whenever the text does not fit in the size of the cell, the grid will automatically display it as hint text for the cell. As a standard Delphi hint is just a single line of text hint, we add the TMS THTMLHint component on the form. This will replace the standard Delphi VCL hint and this hint can display multiple lines of text. The THTMLHint component also offers a MaxWidth property with which we can set the maximum width of hints to be displayed. And of course, if the text exceeds this MaxWidth, it will be rendered wordwrapped (and even formatted) in the HTMLHint. No code needs to be written for this. Drop a THTMLHint on the form, set HTMLHint.MaxWidth property and set the grid properties grid.ShowHint = true and grid.HintShowLargeText = true. The effect can be seen in this recording. Want more goodies? Looking for more interesting features in the VCL TAdvStringGrid or in other components uncovered? Let us know what you want to see demonstrated in a next episode!