FireMonkey does a lot of work to allow you to write one set of code that compiles and runs on different platforms.
Not only that, it also does a lot of work to make many of the coding patterns that some of you are used to from the VCL on Windows, work unchanged on other platforms.
That’s great, but in some cases, re-using old patterns is not desirable. ShowModal is a case in point. Read On…
In Perth last week I was showing the new FieldOptions property on datasets. As part of the demo, I had to create a calculated field, and when I brought up the New Field dialog an audience member suggested I create an InternalCalc field instead.
I’d never heard of an InternalCalc field at the time, so later I did some research into what they are. In FireDAC they do everything a normal Calculated Field does, but in addition, you can define the value using the DefaultExpression property of the field, rather than having to write an OnCalcFields event handler.
I was in Perth on Tuesday night, showing RAD Studio XE6 to a bunch of developers. Afterwards, one of them came up to me and said (edited for profanity):
“I’m on XE5 and I don’t think it’s fair that I pay the same to upgrade to XE6 as someone on XE4 or XE3. I’ve given you money more recently than they have, so I should pay less!”
I’ll be in Perth and Adelaide next week showing off RAD Studio XE6.
I’ll be covering VCL and FireMonkey, BAAS, App Tethering, In App Payments and Ads, and probably a bunch of other things related to Windows, OSX, iOS and OSX.
You can get more details and register here.
I had a question recently from someone, and it seemed a common enough requirement that I thought the solution might be worth sharing.
Let’s say you’ve got a database that has an Integer column which is really used as a Boolean. Zero for False, One for True. Further, for whatever reason, you can’t change the DB structure. How do you display this column to the end user as a boolean, so that they can use a Checkbox column in a grid, a TSwitch control, or similar to edit it? Read On…