The past couple of months and especially weeks have been a nerve-racking ride! Nerve-racking because the scope of introducing the new pas2js v2.0 compiler in TMS WEB Core is huge. Our code library that works with TMS WEB Core and the pas2js compiler meanwhile got huge, so there is a lot of testing and polishing involved to ensure everything continues to work smoothly with the new compiler. But also nerve-racking because the new compiler offers so many exciting features we are eager to take advantage of.
But well, we think we have reached the level of stability where we can offer a beta release for our TMS WEB Core users that should work smooth out of the box and ready to take advantage of the new amazing features!

The new pas2js v2.0 compiler is nothing short of amazing and a quantum leap forward for Object Pascal developers to tackle the most challenging rich web client application developments! And it is not just the compiler itself, it is of course also the supporting RTL for features such as generics. What an honor and experience to work so closely together with the two masterminds of the project Mattias Gaertner and Michael Van Canneyt to bring TMS WEB Core with pas2js v2.0 to life. The list of new features in the pas2js v2.0 compiler is long and can be consulted in detail here but let me highlight the major new capabilities:

• Generics
• Attributes
• Class constructors
• Resource strings
• Async procedure decorator
• Await support
• JavaScript promises support

Yesterday we announced the beta release for TMS WEB Core v1.6 Pesaro.
Before moving to a final release of TMS WEB Core v1.6.0.0, we want to give our registered TMS ALL-ACCESS and TMS WEB Core users sufficient time to test the new version. Registered users can find the beta download now on the "My Products" page on our website. This beta version can be used from Delphi XE7 to Delphi 10.4 Sydney as well as Lazarus 2.0.10.

At the same time our team is also working on bringing the pas2js v2.0 compiler to TMS WEB Core for Visual Studio Code.

The stunning new pas2js v2.0 features are not only coming in Delphi but also in Visual Studio Code. Watch our colleague Holger Flick show the use of generics in a TMS WEB Core application in an internal beta of TMS WEB Core for Visual Studio Code that will soon also be coming to you.



Dali’s words: “Have no fear of perfection, you will never reach it” are the motivating force and inspiration behind everything we do. So, here we literally follow up the video about generics in TMS WEB Core with code improvement suggestions that bring it one step closer to perfection: enumerators.



Stay tuned for more updates!

We are proud to announce a new collaboration with the team from Abatic in Spain to assist users of Delphi in combination with TMS products. From today, Abatic is our consulting partner for Spanish speaking software developers and software development companies in Spain and Colombia. With our partners we aim to have experts nearby, in the same timezone and speaking the native language of our customers to help with consulting services. This can range from assisting with:

• designing software architectures
• choosing the best components for a task
• developing projects or parts of projects or
• adding resources to help with developing projects
• offering training in specific TMS products

Emilio Pérez	Jhonny Suárez

• Delphi Developer Certified
• 2 Embarcadero MVP consultants in team
• WEB Core web applications
• VCL Windows applications
• FMX cross-platform applications
• Multi-tier database development
• XData REST server + Aurelius ORM
• On-site training / WEB Core training course
• MySQL developer Certified
• PostgreSQL DBA Certified
• RAD Server

Intro

Tile Layers

procedure TForm1.AddLayer;
begin
  TMSFNCOpenLayers1.AddTileLayer('https://{a-c}.tile.thunderforest.com/cycle/{z}/{x}/{y}.png?apikey=[INSERT API KEY]');
end;

Save coordinate data to GPX

procedure SaveToGPXStream(ACoordinates: TTMSFNCMapsCoordinateRecArray; AStream: TStream);
procedure SaveToGPXStream(ACoordinates: TTMSFNCMapsCoordinateRecArray; AStream: TStream; AMetaData: TTMSFNCMapsGPXMetaData);
procedure SaveToGPXFile(ACoordinates: TTMSFNCMapsCoordinateRecArray; AFileName: string);
procedure SaveToGPXFile(ACoordinates: TTMSFNCMapsCoordinateRecArray; AFileName: string; AMetaData: TTMSFNCMapsGPXMetaData);
function SaveToGPXText(ACoordinates: TTMSFNCMapsCoordinateRecArray): string;
function SaveToGPXText(ACoordinates: TTMSFNCMapsCoordinateRecArray; AMetaData: TTMSFNCMapsGPXMetaData): string;;

• AuthorName
• AuthorLink
• TrackName
• TrackType

Plus Codes

Plus Codes are like street addresses for people or places that don’t have one. Instead of addresses with street names and numbers, Plus Codes are based on latitude and longitude, and displayed as numbers and letters. With a Plus Code, people can receive deliveries, access emergency and social services, or just help other people find them.

procedure TForm1.EncodeCoordinate;
var
  p: string;
begin
  p := TTMSFNCMapsPlusCode.Encode(CreateCoordinate(40.689188, -74.044562));
  //p = '87G7MXQ4+M5'
end;

procedure TForm1.DecodePlusCode;
var
  c: TTMSFNCMapsCoordinateRec;
begin
  c := TTMSFNCMapsPlusCode.Decode(87G7MXQ4+M5);
  //c = 40.689188, -74.044562;
end;

Update Now!

Even in this challenging times we want to make our contribution to the Delphi community and most importantly to the aspiring future Delphi developer and hereby encouraging next generations of enthusiast Delphi developers.
In 2020 we have launched our TMS Academic Program and added so far 3 products. Today, we extend the TMS Academic Program with a 4th product : TMS FlexCel for VCL & FMX.
With the Delphi Academic edition, students already have an extremely powerful tool in their hands and we want to enrich this with offering our most popular products also free to students with the TMS Academic Program.

FlexCel for VCL / FireMonkey is a suite of Delphi components allowing to manipulate Excel files or generate Excel template based reports. It includes an extensive API allowing to natively read/write Excel files. If you need to read or create complex spreadsheets, on Windows or macOS on machines without Excel installed, Flexcel can do the job.
This academic license can be used with Delphi 10.4, just like our other 3 academic licenses!

Supported frameworks:

1. Register for a free TMS FlexCel Academic license with a school or university email address
   
   
2. Receive your credentials to login on our website via your student email address
   
   
3. Login and download your free TMS FlexCel Academic installer
   
   
4. Install the product for the Delphi Community Edition
   
   
5. Enjoy being part of the TMS family with full access to our website, TMS support center, product updates for 1 year and develop great Delphi VCL applications

A bit more than a week ago, we made the first beta available of TMS WEB Core for Delphi v1.6beta Pesaro that introduces the new v2.0 pas2js compiler and extended RTL.

For those who missed it, the new version v2.0 of the compiler is a quantum leap forward and its main new features are:

• Generics
• Attributes
• Class constructors
• Resource strings
• Async procedure decorator
• Await support
• JavaScript promises support

• Use the free IDE loved by web developers on Windows, macOS or Linux
• Use your favorite fully object-oriented, type-safe Object Pascal language
• Take advantage of a large eco-system of web developer friendly tools in the IDE
• Use a fast RAD component based development approach
• See your app in the IDE using live WYSIWYG web technology based form designer
• Create classic web client applications
• Develop installable PWA's on mobile devices as well as desktop Chromium based browser
• Build cross platform desktop applications with modern looking web based UIs on Windows, macOS & Linux via Electron

TMS is celebrating XMAS together with DelphiStyles! With great pleasure we announce a great collaboration with DelphiStyles!. Delphistyles provide high quality FireMonkey multiplatform style templates and VCL styles.

DelphiStyles team is a compact development studio. They have an expertise in app development with Delphi since version #1 through all generations to the last release. Their mission is to let Delphi developers build Windows/macOS/iOS/Android applications with great and modern UI.

Special offer for YOU!

Intro

The multi-device, true native app platform The FireMonkey® framework is the app development and runtime platform behind RAD Studio, Delphi and C++Builder. FireMonkey is designed for teams building multi-device, true native apps for Windows, OS X, Android and iOS, and getting them to app stores and enterprises fast.

• Grid
• Planner
• Treeview
• Chart
• Kanban Board
• Pickers & Selectors
• Rich Editor
• ...

To the point

Get started!

There is a lot to say about this year 2020 and for sure, we at TMS had our challenges as well. But to end the year and look back at it, we prefer to stick to the positive things that happened this year.

New products

Product updates

• New UI components: TWebImageSlider, TWebContinuousScroll, TWebShare, TWebToast
• New UI logic capabilities: TWebElementActionList, automatic theme adaption, Sentry based cloud exception logging
• New support for DB backends: RAD server, FaunaDB, Dream Factory: TWebRadServerClientDataset, TWebDreamFactoryClientDataSet, TWebFaunaDBClientDataSet
• New IDE integration: live preview, HTML template import
• New direct local database access in Electron apps: mySQL and PostgreSQL

Web site enhancements

Academic program launch

Books

Celebrations

Consulting partners

Videos

2021 ...

This is a frequently asked question from TMS WEB Core users how a PDF file, typically a generated report, can be shown from a TMS WEB Core app. The good news is that it is simple as browser technology has us covered. There are basically two options:

1. Show the PDF file in a new browser window (tab)
2. Show the PDF embedded in the application window

procedure TForm2.WebButton1Click(Sender: TObject);
const
  URL = 'https://download.tmssoftware.com/download/manuals/TMS%20Async.pdf';
begin
  if WebRadioButton1.Checked then
    WebBrowserControl1.URL := URL
  else
    Application.Navigate(URL, TNavigationTarget.ntBlank);
end;

We're thrilled to bring the quantum leap the pas2js v2.0 compiler brings to TMS WEB Core with the release of TMS WEB Core v1.6 Pesaro today. The new compiler has been in development for quite some time and brings the experience for Object Pascal developers to create web client applications from the Delphi or Lazarus IDE to a new level. Among the major new capabilities of the pas2js compiler are:

• Generics
• Attributes
• Class constructors
• Resource strings
• Async procedure decorator
• Await support
• JavaScript promises support
• Resource file support

TMS FNC Products ready for the new TMS WEB Core

Coming soon to Visual Studio Code

It doesn't end here, it just continues

Get started now

Intro

The multi-device, true native app platform The FireMonkey® framework is the app development and runtime platform behind RAD Studio, Delphi and C++Builder. FireMonkey is designed for teams building multi-device, true native apps for Windows, OS X, Android and iOS, and getting them to app stores and enterprises fast.

Features

• Formatted text with bullets, hyperlinks, images, indenting and aligned paragraphs
• Functions for merging, highlighting text, undo/redo and clipboard operations
• Horizontal ruler support
• Stores its text natively in the .RTE file format
• Possibilities to load from .TXT, .RTF, .HTML and .RTE
• Export to .PDF, .TXT, .RTF, .HTML and .RTE
• Separate rich editing/formatting toolbars
• Emoticons support
• Support for BitmapContainer images
• Autocorrect: custom auto-correct actions
• Interface to TMS Spell Check engine

Learn More!

Download & Explore!

Coming up

The New Year 2021 is still fresh and there is already a major update for TMS VCL UI Pack. As always, our updates focus on bringing the latest improvements and adding features to make your VCL Windows desktop applications built with Delphi & C++Builder shine.

In this new version v10.5 we bring several new UI features:

Emoji support in HTML engine

<p style="font-size:100px">&#128540;</p>
<p>I will display &#128540;</p>

😜

I will display 😜

New TAdvEmoticonPickerDropDown

New web-style form input control validation

Input control balloon hints

Get started

We are pleased to share two more tips for using TMS WEB Core v1.6 Pesaro. The first tip is for how you could implement on the fly filtering on a TWebResponsiveGrid. The second tips concerns the dynamic creation and use of a TFrame.
Let's dive into the first tip right-away with showing filtering for the TWebResponsiveGrid.

Filtering in a responsive grid

{
    "Brand": "BMW",
    "Model": "Z8",
    "Hp": 400,
    "Max speed": 250,
    "City": "Munchen",
    "Country": "Germany",
    "Type": "cabrio",
    "Picture": "bmw1.jpg",
    "Year": 2000,
    "Price": 95000,
    "Cylinders": 8
}

'<b>(%Brand%) (%Model%)</b><br><i>(%Country%)</i>
<br><img src="https://download.tmssoftware.com/tmsweb/demos/tmsweb_responsivegrid/img/(%Picture%)">
<br>Year:<b>(%Year%)</b><br>Price:<b>(%Price%)€</b>';

var
  i: integer;
  f,s,a: string;
begin
  if edFilter.Text = '' then
  begin
    for I := 0 to carlist.Items.Count - 1 do
      carlist.Items[i].Visible := true;
  end
  else
  begin
    f := Uppercase(edFilter.Text);

    for i := 0 to carlist.Items.Count - 1 do
    begin
      s := carlist.Items[i].JSONElementValue['Brand'];
      a := carlist.Items[i].JSONElementValue['Model'];

      s := Uppercase(s);
      a := Uppercase(a);

      carlist.Items[i].Visible := (pos(f, s) > 0) or (pos(f, a) > 0);
    end;
  end;
end;

Dynamically creating, using and destroying a frame

procedure TForm1.btnFrameClick(Sender: TObject);
begin
  if Assigned(ListFrame) then
  begin
    ListFrame.Free;
    ListFrame := nil;
    btnFrame.Caption := 'Show frame';
  end
  else
  begin
    ListFrame := TListFrame.Create(Self);
    ListFrame.LoadFromForm;
    ListFrame.Parent := Self;
    ListFrame.LeftList.Items.Add('BMW');
    ListFrame.LeftList.Items.Add('Mercedes');
    ListFrame.LeftList.Items.Add('Porsche');
    ListFrame.LeftList.Items.Add('Audi');
    btnFrame.Caption := 'Hide frame';
  end;
end;

Intro

New services

• Box: cloud storage service
• Google Analytics: analyze web site statistics
• SumUp: payment service
• Sentry: cloud logging service
• Exceptionless: cloud logging service
• Rollbar: cloud logging service
• Cloudinary: file upload service

Service wrappers

• TTMSFNCCloudLogger: wrapper around cloud logging services: Sentry, Exceptionless and Rollbar
• TTMSFNCCloudStorageServices: wrapper around all cloud storage services
• TTMSFNCCloudTranslation: wrapper around translation services: Microsoft Translator, Google Translate and IBM Watson Translator

Improvements

• Response headers accessible in TTMSFNCCloudBaseRequestResult
• Download attachments in Microsoft Outlook Mail & Google GMail
• Dropbox upgraded to version v2
• Google Drive upgraded to version v3
• MoveFile and MoveFileToRoot for all cloud storage services

Designtime helper

Demos

Learn more

• TMS Software Hands-on with Delphi: Cross-platform Multi-tiered Database Applications: Web and Desktop Clients, REST/JSON Server, and Reporting
• TMS WEB Core: Web Application Development with Delphi

New year, new ideas. So, I'm happy to kick off with one of the many new ideas we have, which is the Freebie Friday!

Freebie Friday is simple. We share a useful code snippet that might be handy in your projects. We present it, you copy and paste it and you use it in your applications where you see use for it. Freebie Friday free source code snippets are the result of our daily work, writing components, offering support & consulting for customers ... Over time, a huge collection of useful code builds up and instead of letting this collect dust, we cheer up your Friday, just before the weekend and present it here.

This first freebie is two routines that enable you to capture a control as image. The first that might come up is, why write a routine for this, a control offers control.PaintTo() and we can just use that to have the control paint to a canvas and save that to a file.

In theory yes, in practice, sadly this doesn't work well with many controls. So, therefore these two routines that do work with any VCL control and as a bonus, it works with a VCL form as well, so you can capture entire forms to a bitmap or image.

Here we go, here is the code:

interface

uses
  Classes, Windows, Messages, Graphics, JPEG, Controls, Types, Forms;

procedure CaptureControl(AControl: TControl; ABitmap: TBitmap);
procedure CaptureControlToJpeg(AControl: TControl; AFileName: string; AQuality: integer = 70);

implementation

uses
  Winapi.DwmApi, SysUtils;

procedure CaptureControl(AControl: TControl; ABitmap: TBitmap);
var
  LDesktopDC: HDC;
  LRect: TRect;
  LDWMRect: TRect;
  LPt: TPoint;
begin
  LPt := AControl.ClientToScreen(Point(0,0));

  LRect := Rect(LPt.X, LPt.Y, LPt.X + AControl.Width, LPt.Y + AControl.Height);

  if (AControl is TWinControl) and (AControl as TWinControl).HandleAllocated then
  begin
    GetWindowRect((AControl as TWinControl).Handle, LRect);
  end;

  if (AControl is TCustomForm) and (AControl as TCustomForm).HandleAllocated then
  begin
    GetWindowRect((AControl as TCustomForm).Handle, LRect);

    if (Win32MajorVersion >= 6) and DwmCompositionEnabled then
    begin
      if (DwmGetWindowAttribute((AControl as TCustomForm).Handle, DWMWA_EXTENDED_FRAME_BOUNDS, @LDWMRect, SizeOf(LDWMRect)) = S_OK) then
      begin
        LRect := LDWMRect;
      end;
    end;
  end;

  LDesktopDC := GetWindowDC(GetDesktopWindow);
  try
    ABitmap.PixelFormat := pf24bit;
    ABitmap.Height := LRect.Bottom - LRect.Top;
    ABitmap.Width := LRect.Right - LRect.Left;

    BitBlt(ABitmap.Canvas.Handle, 0, 0, ABitmap.Width, ABitmap.Height, LDesktopDC, LRect.Left, LRect.Top, SRCCOPY);
  finally
    ReleaseDC(GetDesktopWindow, LDesktopDC);
  end;
end;

procedure CaptureControlToJpeg(AControl: TControl; AFileName: string; AQuality: integer = 70);
var
  LJpeg: TJpegImage;
  LBmp: TBitmap;
begin
  LBmp := TBitmap.Create;
  try
    CaptureControl(AControl, LBmp);
    LJpeg := TJpegImage.Create;
    try
      LJpeg.Assign(LBmp);
      LJpeg.CompressionQuality := AQuality;
      LJpeg.SaveToFile(AFileName);
    finally
      LJpeg.Free;
    end;
  finally
    LBmp.Free;
  end;
end;

begin
  // capture a control to JPEG file setting JPEG quality to 90
  CaptureControlToJpeg(mycontrol, 'mycontrol.jpg', 90);
  // capture a form (Self) to JPEG file setting JPEG quality to 50
  CaptureControlToJpeg(Self, 'myform.jpg', 50);
end;

var
  LBmp: TBitmap;
begin
  LBmp := TBitmap.Create;
  try
      CaptureControl(mycontrol, LBmp); 
      // do what you want with the bitmap here 
  finally
    LBmp.Free;
  end;
end;

Our VCL component TAdvStringGrid is one of our components with the longest history. It served thousand and thousands of software developers on planet Earth and we are incredibly thankful for an not oversee-able amount of ideas from users that went into the grid during all these years.
There is so much power packed into TAdvStringGrid that it becomes a challenge to know and unlock all its power. Hence this new series "Grid Goodies". And that is not all, our colleague & chief evangelist Holger Flick has some more things up in his sleeves to help you getting the most out of our VCL grids. But I don't want to reveal more about this upcoming surprise at this time. Let's bring two extremely easy to use yet powerful features of TAdvStringGrid.

Smart clipboard

grid.SpreadSheet := true;

Easy highlighting

grid.Hilight(FixedCells, CaseSensitive, YourText);

procedure TForm1.Edit1Change(Sender: TObject);
begin
  AdvStringGrid1.HilightInGrid(false,false,Edit1.Text);
end;

  AdvStringGrid1.HighlightColor := clYellow;
  AdvStringGrid1.HighlightTextColor := clRed;

After we released TMS WEB Core v1.6 Pesaro for Delphi & Lazarus on earlier in January this year, we are pleased to inform that the release of TMS WEB Core for Visual Studio Code is now here as well. This brings the framework and language support on par with the versions for Delphi or Lazarus.

Focus on new language features

• Generics
• Attributes
• Class constructors
• Resource strings
• Async procedure decorator
• Await support
• JavaScript promises support
• Resource file support

Updating is easy

What's next?

Get started now

procedure MyProc();
var
  lResponse : string;
begin
  lResponse := ExecuteServerRequest;
  lResponse := 'Response: ' + lResponse;
  Writeln(lResponse);
end;

...
let lPromise = new Promise(
  function(ASuccess, AFailed){
    setTimeout (
      function(){
        ASuccess("Waited 2 seconds") ;
      }, 2000);
    });
...

...
async function MyAsyncFunction(){
  return "Hello World!" ;
}
...

...
async function MyAsyncFunction(){
  return new Promise(
    function(ASuccess, AFailed){
	  ASuccess("Hello World!");
	});
}
...

console.log("Before calling");

  let lPromise = new ...

console.log(await lPromise);

function TMyObject.ThisMethodIsAsync: Integer; async;
begin
  ...
end;

TMyObject = class(TObject)
  [async]
  function ThisMethodIsAsync: Integer;
end;

...

function TMyObject.ThisMethodIsAsync: Integer;
begin
  ...
end;

function TMyObject.ThisMethodIsAsync: TJSPromise;
begin
  Result := TJSPromise.new(
    procedure(ASuccess, AFailed: TJSPromiseResolver)
    begin
      ASuccess(7);
    end);
end;

procedure TMyObject.CallAsyncFunction;
var
  lBuffer: Integer;
begin
  lBuffer := await(ThisMethodIsAsync);
  ...
end;

function Await(const AValue: string): string; overload;
begin
  Result := AValue;
end;

TAwait = record
  public
    class function Exec<T>(const AValue: T): T; static;
    ...
end;

...
var
  lValue: TMySpecialType;
begin
  lValue := TAwait.Exec<TMySpecialType>(AsyncFunctionReturningThisType);
...

...
var
  lValue: TMySpecialType;
begin
  lValue := await(AsyncFunctionReturningThisType);
...