Dimensional Data

In the last weeks, we’ve been working on a component to allow you to import and export FNC Grids to the xlsx file format. We’ve also used the opportunity to rename the existing “Grid Filters” and “FMX Grid Filters” to “VCL Grid Excel Bridge” and “FNC Grid Excel Bridge” because the word “Filter” has a different meaning in a grid. We hope the new “Bridge” naming proves less ambiguous. Same as the “Filters” before, the new Bridge components are free, but they require to have both TMS FNC UI Pack and TMS FlexCel licenses. You can get the components here: And the documentation is available here: So what is the state now if you want to export or import a grid to/from Excel?  We have the following choices: (VCL Only) You can use StringGrid.SaveToXLS and StringGrid.LoadFromXLS. Those methods will use OLE Automation under the hood, and so they require that Excel is installed in the machine. Because they need Excel, they can only work on Windows. You can use TAdvGridExcelIO (VCL), TTMSFMXGridExcelIO (FMX) and TTMSFNCGridExcelIO (FNC). Those components use an older trimmed-down FlexCel 3 to do their job. Because they use FlexCel 3, which predates the XLSX file format, they can only work with XLS files, not XLSX. You can use the “TMS Grid Excel Bridge” components. Those components use an existing  FlexCel 7 to do the work, and so they can export to xls and xlsx, but also HTML and PDF.  Because they require a FlexCel license, they can access the full FlexCel behind it, to do extra customization. Just as an an example: You could add conditional formats to the generated files, as shown in the example here: https://doc.tmssoftware.com/grid-excel-bridge/fnc/guides/user-guide.html#customizing-the-export. Note: FNCGrid already supports exporting to PDF and HTML natively, you don’t need the bridge components for that. But if you are customizing the xlsx output, you might want to have a PDF or HTML exported with those customizations, and that’s where the Bridge’s exporting to HTML and PDF can be useful. Up to now, the “Bridges” had support for VCL Grids and FMX Grids. With the release of FNC Bridge, we are extending the first-class Excel exporting and importing to FNC. Note that in FNC, we only support VCL and FMX at the moment (all platforms). We can’t support Lazarus or WebCore because FlexCel doesn’t support them yet. So to finish this small post, I’d like to show how it works. We’ll try adding export support for the FNC Grid in the “ClientDataset” demo. This is the grid: We dropped a TTMSFNCGridExcelExportComponent, and wrote the code: TMSFNCGridExcelExport1.Export(‘r:test.xlsx’); And we got this result: The checkboxes work in Excel, they are not images. But they will be exported as images to HTML and PDF. Next, we tried with HTML: TMSFNCGridExcelExport1.ExportHtml(‘r:test.html’, THtmlExportMode.SingleSheet); And we got: Finally we went for the PDF export. We could also have tried the one-liner, but in this case it would end up with 2 pages. The grid is too wide and the right part of it goes to the second page. But here is where the power of having full access to the FlexCel engine can help. We could export this file to xlsx, then set the print options in the xlsx file to fit to one page, and only then export to PDF: var xls := TXlsFile.Create(1, […]

It is with great pleasure that we announce today there is not only a new partner in our TMS FNC Partner program but also a new innovative productivity developer tool for Delphi developers to manage better the workflow with testers & end-users for VCL and FMX applications. New TMS FNC Partner We are glad to welcome Neil Laskowski from SwiftExpat in the TMS FNC Partner program. The TMS FNC Partner program is all about supporting Delphi developers offering valuable tools built upon our FNC framework. If you also develop tools or components based on the FNC framework, have a look at the our FNC Partner program! New productivity developer tool Runtime Toolkit from SwiftExpat helps developers to gather information & feedback from testers and end-users in a structured way and get and apply this feedback to the applications. When running the application, the users can enable a runtime inspector and modify any components property on forms and immediately see the effect of the update visually on the form. At the same time, the details of the update are stored in a file together with a form screenshot before and after the update and this can be sent back to the developer(s). As such, this is an ideal tool to let users send back corrections for possible language related issues, UI colors and UI control layout issues. And this is for Delphi developers building VCL applications as well as FMX applications. A closer look at the capabilities of Runtime Toolkit This is a comprehensive overview of the features of Runtime Toolkit: Inspect Feature-rich components are hard to get right (have you ever missed a setting?) RunTime ToolKit gives you access to component properties to diagnose defects. Apply property changes and see the effect realtime to eliminate guesswork. Marshal will capture the changes in a session for you to review offline. Fine Tune RunTime ToolKit addresses the challenges faced with user interface elements such as fine tuning color schemes, ensuring translated fields are displayed properly, and resizing controls. Engage Clients expect to see changes quickly. Modifying at runtime can get you valuable feedback when engaging with a client. Implement Marshal was designed around ease of implementation. With the drag of a button you place the Marshal control in your application and instrument your existing code. Marshal creates its own form without cluttering your application form. Diagnose Inspecting components at runtime allows you to diagnose configuration or data driven behavior. Inspect the items collection to ensure the data was loaded and determine if the item is hidden. Record Capture the details and integrate the fixes into your source code immediately or at your own pace. Marshal records each change to component properties in a session which can be reviewed offline in Caddie. Compare Before and After Marshal automatically captures screen shots before and after property modifications. Visually compare the details of the form before and after a change. Target Deployment Deploy instrumented code during testing or to beta users. Marshal can be controlled using build configurations to target specific builds. Vendor Agnostic Designed to work with controls from any vendor, Marshal is fully functional in an application that uses no other FNC controls. Partnering with FNC leverages technologies to deliver better tools. Visit SwiftExpat and get started You can visit the Runtime Toolkit […]

One of the things that intrigued me about the new Rad Studio 10.4.2 release was the improved compiler performance. Because Delphi is a fast compiler –we all know that– but hey, it can always be faster. And 10 seconds in every compile end up counting for a lot of time over the days. So I tried it compiling FlexCel and its test suite. Over a million lines of code, and actual code. This isn’t a synthetic benchmark with a single unit and a million lines of “WriteLn(‘Hello world’);”. We have lots of generics, a little more than 3000 units, multiple includes, cycles of units that use themselves recursively, and complex dependencies.  It turns out that spreadsheets require a lot of code. Below you can find a small video, with Rad Studio 10.4.2 on your left and 10.3 on your right. I normally wait a while before adopting a new Delphi version, but given all the time I spend compiling FlexCel, I migrated to 10.4.2 yesterday. This is the type of improvements I want from Embarcadero, and I hope they deliver more.

How much of our daily life here on planet Earth is impacted by running Delphi code is beyond imagination. Whether it is controlling trains on the French railway system, contact tracing in the COVID19 pandemic in Poland, salary calculation and reporting in Germany, tax invoice approvals in Brazil,… the list is endless. But Delphi’s impact already reached out beyond planet Earth with several projects of the NASA and this week we stumbled on the social media post from Dave Akerman mentioning it was Delphi based software where several TMS components were involved, that was used to produce the sophisticated coating for the Perseverance parachute that was instrumental in its highly critical but eventually successful and safe landing on Mars on Feb 18: As we chatted, I found out that David had a similar educational background as me in electronic engineering, also loves car racing, worked together with a very good friend of mine having a company Theys Industrial producing electronic PCB’s 2km away from here and I learned that the fabrics for the Perseverance parachute were produced by the company Picanol that is like 20km driving from where the TMS headquarters are. Talking about coincidences…Well, that was enough a reason to get in touch with David and have a chat about our passion we all share: software development with Delphi! Our colleague Holger Flick produced this video interview with David, where David tells exciting stories of how he got into software development, how he used Delphi for controlling machines precisely mixing chemicals, how he also uses Delphi for his hobby of tracking weather measurement balloons (where TMS WEB Core plays a role in), how he uses the FireMonkey framework for writing software for a Sony watch and so much more… I’m sure you will enjoy this video interview between two passionate Delphi software developers and be inspired to also do cool things with Delphi!