Intro

• TMS FMX UI Pack
• TMS FMX Chart
• TMS FMX Cloud Pack
• TMS FMX WebGMaps
• TMS FMX WebOSMaps
• TMS mCL
• TMS FNC Core
• TMS FNC Cloud Pack
• TMS FNC UI Pack
• TMS FNC Blox
• TMS FNC Chart
• TMS FNC Dashboard Pack

macOS 64 bit compile-ready support?

1. Install/Update one of the products in the above list
2. Update the macOS 64 bit library path with the path to the source files
3. Compile/Deploy your application for macOS 64 bit by changing the target

MapView TMS mCL

Feedback

Since we launched TMS Component Pack back in 1998, it has been our flagship product for user interface controls for VCL based Windows application development with Delphi & C++Builder. In the past 21 years, a lot happened. Unicode support was introduced, Win64 support added and more recently, VCL got support for (per monitor) high DPI and VCL Styles (including extra VCL styles from the DelphiStyles company). Embarcadero started offering in 2011 the FMX framework for cross platform development for which we meanwhile also developed a large number of cross platform user interface components and it became crucial to differentiate products by technology, like TMS FMX components, TMS FNC components, ... and more recently also TMS WEB components...

After 21 years, we thought it was time to better align the VCL user interface components with our other product ranges and naming convention and therefore proudly introduce its successor product TMS VCL UI Pack v10.0. But there is much more to it than a name change for aligning it with other product lines. Internally we also completely moved the TMS Component Pack to a new build process that was already in use for our cross-platform FMX & FNC products.

The benefits are:

• Moved to a new build & installer generation process allowing more frequent releases, faster rollout of improvements and fixes and also beta builds
• Builds of full trial versions for all supported Delphi & C++Builder versions
• In short term we will also submit a version for GetIt to facilitate download & install from the IDE itself
• Faster migration & support to upcoming new Delphi & C++Builder versions
• Better install/uninstall experience
• Consistent & clear product naming
• Focus on improvements for high DPI and VCL styles support across the entire TMS VCL UI Pack components
• New components: Kanban board UI VCL control and TableView UI VCL control
• Updated PDF generation library with new features
• Keep components backwards compatible with TMS Component Pack v9.x components

• TAdvKanbanBoard component, a highly configurable workflow visualization component
  
  
  
  
• TAdvTableView component, a versatile & modern supercharged list control
  
  
  
  
• PDF generation library improvements such as the capability to add rotated text
• Support for VCL Styles
  
  
  

• If you use runtime packages, you will need to change the package name dependencies
• If you use TAdvTreeView, we moved this component from using TCanvas to TAdvGraphics. When opening form files using TAdvTreeView, ignore possible property errors, save the form file and recompile.
• If you use C++Builder, you will need to change the linked library name references in your project

Intro

• Direct access to our FNC experts for deep technical insights & questions
• A free license to all our FNC products
• Access to FNC product betas
• Showcase your components on our FNC component partner directory page
• Our marketing team will happily promote your components

FNC?

Getting Started

Curious?

I'm glad to say that John Kouraklis has written yet another great book about Delphi: Introducing Delphi ORM: Object Relational Mapping Using TMS Aurelius.

It's good news that more and more learning material about TMS Aurelius is being made available to the community, and I have to add I was a proud technical reviewer of the book.

The book is available at Amazon in paperback format and Kindle format. It's also on Google Books where you can preview some pages.

After a long time coming, I am extremely happy to say that FlexCel 7 arrived. And when I say extremely happy I mean it: It has been a long road to travel, but we finally got there. So without losing more time, what is it about?

In a shallow level: It is all about rendering charts in xlsx files. Now you can export xlsx files with charts to PDF or HTML, and they will include the charts.

Going more in deep: It is all about the details. If you look at the what's new for FlexCel 7, you'll see that rendering charts is just the first entry, and after that there is a huge list of changes. Making the charts look perfect required everything else to be perfect too, and so we spent more than a year in a parallel FlexCel 7 branch polishing every little detail. No stone was left unturned. We also gave a lot of needed care to other platforms besides Windows: A lot of the FlexCel .NET code was developed using JetBrains' Rider on a mac using .NET core and Skia, instead of Visual Studio in Windows. On the Delphi side, we developed a lot in Linux and Windows 64 instead of doing everything in Win32.

And going even deeper: It is really about finishing the translation from xls to xlsx. When we released FlexCel 5, we had basic support for xlsx files, but a lot of stuff just worked better if you just kept using xls. Xlsx files were a completely new thing starting from zero, while we already had added great support developed over the years for xls files.

During the lifetime of 5.x and 6.x we kept adding features to our xlsx engine, so by 6.26 there was no reason to use xls files anymore if your customers didn't need them... and if you didn't need to export charts to PDF or HTML. Exporting charts to PDF/HTML was the only thing that required you to fall back to using xls files until now. But the xlsx chart support closes that chapter. From now on, we plan on keeping excellent support for xls (because it is not going away), but our focus will be in xlsx.

Tales from the trenches

The disappearing Arial Black

The operation that could destabilize the runtime.

The case of the rotated gradients

Dark gray is the new black

The FlexCel 7 logo

The axis that went below and under the data.

Wrapping it up

What's next?

Deployment Issues

[PAClient Error] Error: E0003 Connection to 'MacLarge' on port 64211 failed
[PAClient Error] Error: E0003 Please make sure that 'Platform Assistant Server' is running on the host machine and is configured to use port 64211

[DCC Error] E2597 dsymlink: Error: failed to set locale to ??2I?
[DCC Fatal Error] F2588 Linker error code: 1 ($00000001)

Solution

This year, the Delphi community connects again on September 21 for the Foren-Tage (formerly known as Delphi-Tage) and just as for many years already, Bruno Fierens will represent TMS software. This year, the Foren-Tage are organized in Mannheim


Have a look at the agenda packed with interesting sessions and where TMS software brings two sessions:

• Creating web client applications, PWA apps and Electron apps from Delphi
   
• The challenges of high DPI and VCL styled custom control development

Tentative agenda with already confirmed sessions

• "TMS VCL UI Pack modernized, high-DPI, VCL Styles, new components and new features" by Bruno Fierens
• "Introducing Flexcel 7.0: what's new & what's coming" by Adrian Gallero
• "Bringing your Delphi code to a higher level with TMS FixInsight" by Roman Yankovsky
• "Using TMS Cryptography Pack for secure PDF signing", by Marion Candeau
• "Taking the wraps of our upcoming groundbreaking product for Delphi developers" by José Léon Serna and Bruno Fierens
• "TMS WEB Core v1.3 for web, PWA and cross-platform Electron apps" by Bruno Fierens and Roman Kassebaum

Meet the experts

Confirmed speakers

• Bruno Fierens, CTO of tmssoftware.com + Embarcadero MVP
• Roman Kassebaum, architect TMS WEB Core IDE integration + Embarcadero MVP
• Holger Flick, QA engineer & evangelist + Embarcadero MVP
• Wagner Landgraf, product manager TMS Business Tools
• Adrian Gallero, architect TMS Flexcel product line
• Marion Candau, architect TMS Cryptography + Embarcadero MVP
• Roman Yankovsky, architect TMS FixInsight + Embarcadero MVP
• José León Serna, former Embarcadero IDE team lead

Location

Registrations

The main new feature of TMS Analytics & Physics 3.0 is symbolic integration. The version allows calculate symbolic expressions of indefinite and definite integrals and analytically evaluate definite integrals on the specified intervals.
Symbolic integration can be implemented with very simple code. Here is the example of typical code template to get symbolic expression of an indefinite integral:

var
  f, i: string;
begin
  f:= ...;

  try
    i:= translator.Integral(f, 'x');
  except
    on ex:Exception do ; // handle the exception ‘ex’
  end;

  // using symbolic expression ‘i’ of the integral
end;

f = ‘(A*x+1)^(1/3)+1/(2-x/B)^(2/3)’
i = ‘3/4*(A*x+1)^(4/3)/A-(2-x/B)^(1/3)*3*B’

f = ‘(e^x-e^-x)*x^2-A*B^(x/2-1)’
i = ‘x^2*e^x-2*(x*e^x-e^x)+x^2*e^-x-2*(-x*e^-x-e^-x)-A*B^(x/2-1)/ln(B)*2’

f = ‘2*sin(x)-B*cos(a-x/2)+tan(x/2)^2’
i = ‘-2*cos(x)+B*sin(a-x/2)*2+2*(tan(1/2*x)-1/2*x)’

var
  f, x1, x2, i: string;
begin
  f:= 'A*e^x-sin(x)/2';
  x1:= 'Pi';
  x2:= 'sin(y)';

  try
    i:= translator.Integral(f, 'x', x1, x2);
  except
    on ex:Exception do ; // handle the exception ‘ex’
  end;

  // using symbolic expression ‘i’ of the definite integral
end;

var
  f, x1, x2: string;
  iv: TValue;
  i: TFloat;
begin
  f:= '2*x^2';
  x1:= '3';
  x2:= '5';

  try
    iv:= translator.Integrate(f, 'x', x1, x2);
    i:= iv.AsType();
  except
    on ex:Exception do ; // handle the exception ‘ex’
  end;

  // using float value ‘i’ of the definite integral
end;

  translator.Add('A',-1);
  translator.Add('B', 2);
  translator.Add('n', 3);

The new released version 4.8 of TMS Aurelius, brings RAD with ORM to a new level!

New design-time components

There are now three new components available for design-time: TAureliusManager, TAureliusDBSchema and TAureliusModelEvents.

They are just wrappers around existing classes, but they make it even easier to getting started with Aurelius. Here is how you can start using Aurelius with SQLite for example.

Drop the components on the form

First step is simply to drop TAureliusConnection, TAureliusDBSchema and TAureliusManager components on the form. This will also automatically add extra needed units to the uses clause.

Configure the database connection

You can then double click AureliusConnection1 component to configure your database connection. It brings the dialog below (if you are going to use a 3rd-party component to access the database, like FireDAC for example, just drop a TFDConnection in the form before double-clicking the TAureliusConnection):

You can then properly configure the connection. In the example above, we will use native SQLite and simply inform the name of the database file, in this case test.db (if using 3rd party like FireDAC, just choose the Adapter Mode and associate with the TFDConnection component).

Associate other components with the connection

Both TAureliusManager and TAureliusDBSchema components provide functionality that deals with the database. We need to specify which database we are going to use.

Both components have a Connection property that you use to associate to a TAureliusConnection component. That is as simple as that, just open the object inspector and associate the AureliusConnection1 component to boht AureliusDBSchema1 and AureliusManager1 components.

Write your entities

This is the same as it ever was. We are working with an ORM which means we need entity classes, of course. Let's create in our project a new unit named Entities and add a very simple class entity to it.

Here is the unit full source code. Don't forget that if you have an existing database, you can always automaticaly generate the entities from the existing database structure.

unit Entities;

interface
uses Aurelius.Mapping.Attributes;

type
  [Entity, Automapping]
  TCustomer = class
  strict private
    FId: Integer;
    FName: string;
  public
    property Id: Integer read FId write FId;
    property Name: string read FName write FName;
  end;

implementation

initialization
  RegisterEntity(TCustomer);
end.

Update database structure

Our SQLite database doesn't exist and will be created automatically when we run our application. But there will be no tables in it. That is not a problem for Aurelius, which can create all the needed structure for us.

With the new TAureliusDBSchema component we dropped on the form, it gets even easier. All we have to do is call method UpdateDatabase. We can do it from the OnCreate event of the form so our database automatically gets all tables and fields it needs when the application is started:

procedure TForm4.FormCreate(Sender: TObject);
begin
  AureliusDBSchema1.UpdateDatabase;
end;

All set: Use the manager!

That is it. We have our database ready, we have the manager component in the form, we can simply start using Aurelius right away. For example, we can drop a TButton component and a TEdit component on the form and add the following code to create a new customer:

procedure TForm4.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
var
  Customer: TCustomer;
begin
  Customer := TCustomer.Create;
  Customer.Name := Edit1.Text;
  AureliusManager1.Save(Customer);
end;

Ready-to-use features

TMS Aurelius source code is very modular and each functionality is in a different unit. That means that usually you need to keep adding the specific unit you need to the uses clause. The nice thing about using Aurelius design-time components is that they add the needed units for you.

For example, you can start writing queries right away, without the need to manually add Aurelius.Criteria.Base or Aurelius.Criteria.Linq units to the uses clause.

Actually, even from code you don't need to do that anymore. You can now just use a single Aurelius.Linq unit which holds everything you need. But that is not even needed when using TAureliusManager component. Just write the queries you want:

procedure TForm4.Button2Click(Sender: TObject);
begin
  ShowMessage(
    'First customer starting with "W" is: ' +
    AureliusManager1.Find<TCustomer>
      .Where(Linq['Name'].StartsWith('W'))
      .OrderBy('Name')
      .Take(1)
      .UniqueResult
      .Name);
end;

Using events with TAureliusModelEvents

Handling events in TMS Aurelius is now easier than ever thanks to the TAureliusModelEvents component.

For example, if you want to intercept and log all SQL statements executed, just drop the component in the form:

Then create an event handler for the OnSqlExecuting event.

Then simply add the following event handler code, drop a TMemo in the form, and you have a logger of the executed SQL statements in a few seconds!

procedure TForm4.AureliusModelEvents1SQLExecuting(Sender: TObject;
  Args: TSQLExecutingArgs);
begin
  Memo1.Lines.Add(Args.SQL);
end;

New Where Attribute

Design-time components are not the only new feature in latest TMS Aurelius. A nice addition is the Where attribute. You can now use it to add additional filtering to your entities or many-valued associations (lists).

This is very handy to implement soft deletes for example (flag entities that have been deleted without actually deleting them).

Here is how you would use it:

  [Entity, Automapping]
  [Where('{Deleted} <> ''T''')]
  TCustomer = class
  private
    FId: integer;
    FName: string;

Whenever you try to retrieve customers, those which Deleted field in database contains T will not be retrieved. You can also use the clause in many-valued associations:

private
  [ManyValuedAssociation([], CascadeTypeAll)]
  [Where('{Status} = ''New''')]
  FNewCustomers: TList<TCustomer>;

It's interesting to note that the Where clause above of the TCustomer entity will still apply, meaning the NewCustomers list will only bring customers which Status field are equal to New and Deleted field different than T.

Expanding blobs in TMS XData

There are updates in other products of TMS Business product line as well. TMS XData got a nice addition: the $expand query option now also expands blobs inlined the returned JSON.

Usually if you request a resource from the server that contains a blob property, it will come as a proxy reference to minimize traffic. For example, a request to a customer that contains a Photo property:

http://myserver/tms/xdata/Customer/6/

Might bring something like this (extra info removed):

{
  "Id": 1,
  "Name": "Wilbur",
  "Photo@xdata.proxy": "Customer(6)/Photo"
}

But with the $expand clause you can now ask the Photo property to come inline in JSON as base64 string:

http://myserver/tms/xdata/Customer/6/?$expand=Photo

The request above will bring a response like this (base64 string value is not a real photo of course):

{
  "Id": 1,
  "Name": "Wilbur",
  "Photo": "T0RhdGE"
}

This is also valid for retriving entity lists as well.

TMS RemoteDB performance improvements

Last but not least in this great TMS Business update, TMS RemoteDB got its performence improved, especially in the situations where queries have lots of parameters, or return a significant amount of data.

Get in touch

Don't forget to subscribe to our channels to receive updated information as soon as it's released! Subscribe to our Youtube channel, and also subscribe to our newsletter to receive news via e-mail.

Have you enjoyed this update as much as I did? Leave your comment below and let us know!

Company history:

Technologies used:

• Tools: Delphi – Free Pascal – Angular – FireMonkey – Swift
• Platforms: Windows – Linux – macOS (and of course all mobile platforms)
• Databases: Firebird – PostgreSQL – MS SQL Server – Pervasive DBMS – SQLite
• Components: TMS VCL Components – TMS FNC Components – TMS WEB Core – TMS Aurelius
• Lots of custom development: e.g. Belgoprocess (nuclear waste management) – General Lease (biggest Belgian lease company)

TMS Partnership:

Did you know…

Finally:

The main new capability of TMS Analytics & Physics 3.0 library is symbolic integration. As the integration realized, the library now allows using ‘implicit’ integral operator in math expressions. Implicit operators allow writing math expressions in short form and manipulate with them without using explicit formula. For example, the expression ‘sin(n*x)+(A*x+B)^2x’ contains implicit indefinite integral and the library allows making operations with the expression without using explicit formula of the integral. Implicit integral operator syntax is the following:

• translator.Add('A',-1);
• translator.Add('B', 2);
• translator.Add('n', 3);
• translator.Add('x', 0.5);

Our upcoming two TMS Training Days on November 14 and November 15 in Düsseldorf promise to be the most valuable days ever we have organized for Delphi developers using or interested in using Delphi and components from TMS software.



The first day is TMS Business Masterclass and focuses on the TMS Business Subscription line of tools with TMS Aurelius ORM and TMS XData REST server technology as headlines. The second day is TMS Dev Intensive and brings the latest on TMS VCL UI controls, TMS Flexcel, TMS FixInsight, TMS Cryptography, TMS WEB Core v1.3. On the TMS Dev Intensive day we will also reveil for the first time in public a groundbreaking and brand new product for Delphi developers.

We spared no effort and have organized to fly in 9 speakers for you out of 9 different countries. 8 out of the 9 speakers are working actively on TMS products, 1 wrote a book on a TMS product and 5 out of 9 speakers have the prestigious Embarcadero MVP title.

We are proud to present our speaker list:

Adrian Gallero, Uruguay
Bruno Fierens, Belgium
Holger Flick, USA
John Kouraklis, United Kingdom
José Leon Serna, Spain
Marion Candeau, France
Roman Kassebaum, Germany
Roman Yankovsky, Russia
Wagner R. Landgraf, Brazil




In the coming days, we will present here in this blog details about the speakers and the sessions. Stay tuned. Don't wait to register for your seat on either the TMS Business Masterclass, TMS Dev Intensive day or both as seats are limited and are going fast!

Recently we received via our support a remark that the following Object Pascal code failed in a TMS WEB Core application

procedure TWebForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);

  function TestFunction: TStringList;
  begin
    Result.Clear;
    Result.Add('ABC');
    Result.Add('DEF');
    Result.Add('GHI');
  end;
var
  StringList: TStringList;
begin
  StringList := TStringList.Create;
  try
    WebMemo1.Lines.Text := TestFunction.Text;
  finally
    StringList.Free;
  end;
end;

procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);

  function TestFunction: TStringList;
  begin
    Result.Clear;
    Result.Add('ABC');
    Result.Add('DEF');
    Result.Add('GHI');
  end;
var
  StringList: TStringList;
begin
  StringList := TStringList.Create;
  try
    Memo1.Lines.Text := TestFunction.Text;
  finally
    StringList.Free;
  end;
end;

function TestFunction: TStringList;
begin
  Result.Clear;
  Result.Add('ABC');
  Result.Add('DEF');
  Result.Add('GHI');
end;

procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
var
  StringList: TStringList;
begin
  StringList := TStringList.Create;
  try
    Memo1.Lines.Text := TestFunction.Text;
  finally
    StringList.Free;
  end;
end;

procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);

  function TestFunction: TStringList;
  begin
    Result.Clear;
    Result.Add('ABC');
    Result.Add('DEF');
    Result.Add('GHI');
  end;
var
  StringList: TStringList;
  s: string;
begin
  StringList := TStringList.Create;
  s := 'Hello world';
  try
    Memo1.Lines.Text := TestFunction.Text;
    Memo1.Lines.Add(s);
  finally
    StringList.Free;
  end;
end;

procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);

  function TestFunction: TStringList;
  begin
    Result.Clear;
    Result.Add('ABC');
    Result.Add('DEF');
    Result.Add('GHI');
  end;
var
  StringList: TStringList;
  s: string;
begin
  s := 'Hello world';
  StringList := TStringList.Create;
  try
    Memo1.Lines.Text := TestFunction.Text;
    Memo1.Lines.Add(s);
  finally
    StringList.Free;
  end;
end;

Marion Candau

• PhD in cryptography
• Developer at Cyberens, a French cybersecurity company located in Bordeaux.
• TMS Cryptography Pack architect
• MVP Embarcadero
• She mainly develops cybersecurity-related applications and advises clients to use cryptographic tools and libraries in their own applications.

Session at TMS Dev Intensive:

Holger Flick

Session at TMS Business Masterclass:

Bruno Fierens

• Studied civil electronic engineering at university of Ghent, Belgium (1987-1992).
• Started a career as R&D digital hardware engineer at Barco Graphics Belgium designing with FPGA, VHDL, graphic processors, PCI, Silicon Graphics add-on boards, high-end printer controllers,...
• Began writing software in Turbo Pascal 3.0 since 1987 and used all Borland Pascal and all Delphi versions since then.
• Founded TMS software in 1996, developing VCL components starting with Delphi 1.
• TMS software became Borland Technology Partner in 1998 and developed Delphi Informant award-winning grid & scheduling components.
• From 2011 FireMonkey cross platform components,targetting Windows, macOS, Android, iOS.
• In 2016, TMS software launched FNC, a framework neutral component architecture enabling to use UI controls in VCL,FMX & LCL apps
• In 2018, TMS software launched TMS WEB Core, a framework for creating rich web clients using ObjectPascal
• Currently doing and managing VCL, FMX, Web, .NET, IoT, LCL, REST, node.js development.
• Is a regular speaker at conferences (Be-Delphi, DelphiTage, ITDevCon, CodeWay Tour, EKON, DevTracks, SDN, ..).
• Available for consulting & custom project development.
• Bruno Fierens was titled Embarcadero MVP since 2012.
• Special area of interest are user interfaces design, UX, RAD software development, hardware/electronics.

Sessions at TMS Dev Intensive:

Wagner Landgraf

• Graduated in Electronic Engineering and M.Sc in Industrial IT at Federal Technological University of Parana-Brazil.
• More than 24 years experience (since 1995) in Delphi development - since Delphi 1.
• Architect and main developer of Delphi libraries like TMS Aurelius, TMS XData, TMS RemoteDB, TMS Scripter, among others.
• Founder of landgraf.dev online school.

Sessions at TMS Business Masterclass

• Session 1: The TMS Business World
  A journey into the world of TMS Business bundle. We will learn about the solutions provided by TMS Business: the components included, the libraries, the use cases, all in the historical context and the motivations behind it. Products covered: TMS Scripter, TMS Diagram Studio, TMS Workflow Studio, TMS Data Modeler, TMS Aurelius, TMS Sparkle, TMS RemoteDB, TMS XData, TMS Echo, TMS Logging.
  *BIZ level: Beginner
• Session 2: The Joy of Databases
  A talk about new ways to deal with databases. What is an ORM (Object-Relational Mapping) framework, and are the most recent news and features about it. What you can use to help you out in modeling your databases, easily use existing databases with the new paradigm, and advanced techniques on ORM and database modeling. Products covered: TMS Aurelius, TMS Data Modeler
  *BIZ level: Intermediate
• Session 3: Your App Everywhere: REST API
  Multitier, cloud, REST, HTTP, SSL: What, Why, When, and mainly, How? Learn what a REST API server means, why you will benefit from moving your app to the cloud, and learn how to do it in a very RAD way. The latest features will be covered, even for the experienced users. Products covered: TMS XData, TMS Sparkle
  *BIZ level: Intermediate
• Session 4: The Unsung Heroes
  A deeper look into three awesome TMS Business libraries that bring you solutions for problems you never thought you had. User-customized application, modifying business rules at runtime, offline data synchronization, and moving your app to the cloud in a couple of days. Products covered: TMS Scripter, TMS Echo, TMS RemoteDB
  *BIZ level: Beginner
• Session 5: Getting serious in the Cloud
  Advanced techniques and concepts when building REST API servers: Security, background processing and deep analysis of real-world source code. Products covered: TMS XData, TMS Sparkle
  *BIZ level: Advanced
• Session 6: All Together Now
  A very interactive session where all the current ideas from the TMS team for the future of TMS Business will be presented. We will discuss the existing roadmap, brainstorming about all the possibilities, have all questions answered and summarize the whole day.

José León Serna

Session at TMS Dev Intensive

Roman Kassebaum

Session at TMS Dev Intensive