Top 10 How To’s: RAD Studio
RAD Studio 11 Alexandria comes with a wealth of new super features to boost your productivity and give you access to new services and advances capabilities. The best new features include support for High-DPI 4k screens, provisioning for Windows 11, design-time views of styles, and much more. Here are our 10 favorite picks for getting things done in RAD Studio.
1. How to Use New Platform Identifiers in RAD Studio, Delphi and C++Builder 11 Alexandria
I was looking through “What’s New in Version 11 Alexandria” and found a cool tidbit about small changes in the RTL for “Platform Identifiers“. Using these platform identifiers can help in your cross platform development projects. Ensuring that all of the platform related identifiers use a consistent naming pattern will also help in your programming efforts. You will find the new platform identifiers in the System.Classes.pas and System.Classes.hpp files. Note: a few of the platform identifiers are now marked with the deprecated attribute.
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2. How to Work With Delphi 11 Alexandria Defines
As part of my recent DelphiCon 2021 session, Multi-Platform Explorations using Delphi, FMX, Feeds, REST and More, my example code needed to use IFDEFs for some of the uses statements, variable definitions and code. This blog post contains an example of the use of defines when compiling for Windows (Win32/Win64), macOS, iOS and Android platforms. I also include screen shots of the sample output on each platform. You can download all of my talk’s sample projects using the session links above.
The simple Delphi FireMonkey application includes a TButton and a TMemo. In the Button’s OnClick event handler the code outputs information about the platform and the compiler defines for each platform.
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3. How to Work With The New VCL Support in Windows 11
With the official release of Windows 11 , Embarcadero has made available some specific VCL styles and I’m offering some coding helpers specific to the new version of the Microsoft desktop OS. More will come over time.
After the announcement earlier this year, Microsoft has now officially released Windows 11 last week. Despite some issues running the new operating system on older computers due to new hardware requirements, the new version of Windows offers a nicer user experience and working environment, while maintaining a very high degree of compatibility with existing applications, including those written with Delphi and C++Builder. We are expecting a lot of end users will move to Windows 11 in the coming months.
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4. How to Use Appercept’s New AWS SDK For RAD Studio Enterprise and Architect
Embarcadero has reached a two-year exclusive distribution agreement with Richard Hatherall, the UK-based owner of Appercept, on the company’s “AWS SDK for Delphi”. The deal includes an initial preview, with additional features to be released over time.
The AWS library and updates are available via GetIt, and limited to customers on Enterprise and Architect with active update subscription. Customers using the AWS library also get support by Appercept through Embarcadero’s own support team. The library does not currently support C++Builder, but there are plans to provide C++ support for the AWS SDK in the future.
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5. How to Deploy The New RAD Server Lite (RSLite) in RAD Studio 11
As part of the RAD Studio 11 Alexandria release we have announced the availability of a new option to deploy and license RAD Server, with the goal of simplifying the deployment for installations not requiring a large amount of REST requests.
What is RAD Server?
Before I get to the specifics, let me remind you what RAD Server is. It is a REST server engine that allows you to quickly develop REST endpoints, primarily serving JSON, by using Delphi or C++Builder code based on FireDAC (or other data access layers). In short, you create add-on packages (BPLs) each registering additional URL endpoints and providing an implementation. On top of it, RAD Server comes with a number of ready-to-use services.
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6. How to Work With High DPI IDE and Form Design in RAD Studio 11
There is a very exciting improvement in Delphi, C++Builder and RAD Studio 11.0 Alexandria: the IDE now fully supports high DPI scaling on high-resolution screens. This means that if you use Windows and have a 4K or similar high-res display, the IDE will render crisply and clearly on your screen. In fact, if you have two screens with different scales, you can have different IDE windows on those multiple displays and each will render perfectly, crisp and clear, on each monitor. This high DPI scaling support using the VCL’s own support for perMonitorv2 scaling, which we introduced a couple of releases ago, plus our own image collection and virtual image list components. In other words, we use the same tools we make available to you.
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7. How to Use The New VCL Features in RAD Studio 11
Among the new features in Delphi 11, C++ Builder 11 and RAD Studio 11 one area I’m very happy about is the work the team has done on core VCL components, addressing a number of requests that have been pending for some time. Let’s touch base on some of them.
The New RichEdit Control
The most visible new feature is TRichEdit migration to the most recent platform version, the RichEdit control 4.1 implemented by MSFTEDIT.dll. Beside a general improvement, the new controls offers features like spell checking, URL recognition, transparency, with new properties that include Transparent, EnableURLs, SpellChecking, and the new OnLinkClick event.
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8. How to Control Rounded Corners For Windows 11 in Your App
As I hope you’re aware by now – RAD Studio 11 Alexandria is now available! The Windows IDE contains a whole ton of features, and it’s launching just ahead of Microsoft’s official release of the beautifully redesigned Windows 11. We wrote about the many great things contained in Windows 11 here on the blog before, and how behind that gorgeously aesthetic user interface are a few traps and pitfalls which may be a problem for older legacy apps and hardware.
One of the most obvious user interface changes is the fact that almost all app windows and many user interface controls will get a rounded corner effect applied to them. The amount of rounding of the application’s forms and things like text boxes, panels, and group boxes will vary.
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9. How to Use C++Builder Compilers Available in Version 11 Alexandria
This blog post contains the version output for the C++ command line compilers that are included in C++Builder version 11 Alexandria. If you need to test for specific C++Builder versions you can use a range of defines in your code. Here are a few code fragment examples.
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10. How to Prepare For RAD Studio 11
The RAD Studio 11 release comes with support for high DPI screens, a vastly improved user experience and new features for rapid app development. It’s already changing the game for Delphi and C++ developers.
Are you and your team ready for RAD Studio 11? Do you need to prepare at all? What can you do to make the most of this important new release?
As Object Pascal and RAD Studio evolve, so should your business. To save you time we’ve put together the most useful suggestions for preparing for RAD Studio 11.