Three Dimensional FireMonkey Component Design

FireMonkey provides access to three dimensional object creation and manipulation. While it is fun to build complex objects by connecting together the supplied primitives  (Rectangle, Cone, Sphere, etc.) this could get very tedious so I want to explore creating more complex objects directly in code.

A TBitButton equivalent for FireMonkey

While porting my VCL applications to FireMonkey I needed to find a replacement for the TBitButton from “Additional” palette and so decided to try building my own custom TButton with a graphic on it.

Extending the FireMonkey TStringGrid

While porting my VCL applications to FireMonkey I needed to find a replacement for the TAdvStringGrid from TMS software and so decided to try building my own custom TStringGrid.

A VCL to FireMonkey Convertor

I have been convinced that FireMonkey provides opportunities to use Delphi in new and exciting ways. I am interested in exploring the possibilities but I also want to maintain as much as possible  of the IP that I have built up in Delphi applications to date.  To help preserve my current code I embarked on converting the basic functions I currently use to compile under FireMonkey projects and when this required form conversion (Utility Dialogs) I fashioned a DFM to FMX converter

Changing the Color of a FireMonkey Edit box

The new FireMonkey components have extensive design time functionality through the style engine so the presentation of components can be easily varied by the style editor. Some of the style parameters are also included in the object properties such as Font and FontFill (the new way to change the font color) but if the object code does not expose the parameter you need how do you change the style information dynamically at runtime?

LiveBindings Part 2 – Displaying database data in a VCL (or FireMonkey) application

A perhaps not so well known fact about LiveBindings is that they can be used in VCL as well as FireMonkey applications. The traditional VCL data-aware controls are still available though and for reasons that will quickly become apparent, I wouldn’t advise ripping out your VCL TDBEdits just yet.

We’re going to build the same application as we did in part 1 but for VCL. You might be tempted to skip over this tutorial but I’d advise against it. Due to a lack of features in the LiveBindings design-time support for VCL there are a lot more manual steps we have to do and these steps are also very applicable for FireMonkey. Also what you’ll learn in this tutorial will help you when we move onto more complex and interesting LiveBinding uses.

Creating 3D scenes dynamically in FireMonkey

In my last post I created a wind turbine (or propeller if you like 🙂 ). When I demonstrated this wind turbine at a recent ADUG meeting here in Melbourne, Brian Watson asked whether it was possible to create objects in code and add them to a scene at run time.  I said it was – never having tried it (!) – so this is a post to show that it is possible and which will allow the user to “paint” simple 3D objects onto a landscape by holding the left mouse button down and moving the mouse around.

LiveBindings Part 1 – Displaying database data in a FireMonkey application

This is the start of an in-depth series on the new LiveBindings technology found in Delphi XE2. At its most basic level LiveBindings is the mechanism provided for FireMonkey applications to display and edit data from a database on screen, a job that in the VCL is traditionally done with data-aware controls. FireMonkey however has no data-aware controls,

How to Create Your Own FireMonkey Image Effect

Before I start, I would like to mention that my knowledge on pixel shaders is pretty limited, but I’ll share what I have done in last few days after some research on the internet and after playing around with the FireMonkey GPU powered image effects.

The idea of this post is to explain the steps to add a new shader effect to FireMonkey

A code-free wind turbine in Firemonkey 3D

How would you go about building a wind turbine in Firemonkey 3D with revolving blades? You can stop reading right now if you want and go away and think about this; possibly even fire up XE2 and try building something; but do come back!