[DUG] XE7 and Android Development

Thu Jan 22 19:33:57 NZDT 2015

Many thanks to all contributors for the feedback.

I just need to develop a Bluetooth App for Android devices only (with some WiFi network transfer also).

I did try Eclipse with ADT some years ago and was very disappointed with the UI designer so gave up.  I understand that Android Studio has a completely new UI designer so I will give that a try.

--- Original Message ---

From: "Jolyon Smith" <jsmith at deltics.co.nz>
Sent: January 22, 2015 7:17 PM
To: "NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List" <delphi at listserver.123.net.nz>
Subject: Re: [DUG] XE7 and Android Development

@David Brennan - I don't see how you reach the conclusion that XE7 +
FireMonkey makes sense "if you have an existing code base", given that if
you aren't already developing in FMX then that existing codebase is almost
certainly VCL and given all the observations you made about how utterly
UN-re-usable your existing VCL code base was in your case.

The pre-amble seems to point to the exact opposite conclusion.  No ?

For Eric, I would ask why you are interested in using Delphi for this ?

If it is to exploit existing VCL code, then you have little chance of
realising any benefit without an awful lot of work (perhaps even more than
starting from scratch with an alternative tool/tech).

If you seek to leverage familiarity with Delphi to fully exploit any and
all Android devices, I suspect you will be similarly disappointed both
because the Android support is simply not complete as well as because
"Delphi for Android" is a quite different animal than the Delphi you are
used to.  You might as well learn Java or apply any knowledge you may have
of C# with Xamarin.

Or, if you simply wish to continue using Pascal, you could look at
RemObjects Oxygene (also previously known as Delphi Prism, in it's .NET
garb as re-branded by Embarcadero for a time).

I developed a very simple app in Oxygene for Android, iOS and WinPhone.  In
all three cases the app was developed using Oxygene (ObjectPascal with
knobs on) but compiles to genuine, platform native binaries (i.e
indistinguishable from those produced by Android Studio, Xcode or Visual
Studio).

The Android version is here if you are curious:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=itchbox.txt2park&hl=en

The downside of the Oxygene approach (as some see it) is that you have to
learn how to develop for each platform since there is no comprehensive
cross platform abstraction library (although there is a library - Sugar -
which makes a certain amount of re-use possible at the RTL layer - sharing
common string manipulation routines etc etc).

But imho this platform specific aspect of the approach is absolutely NOT a
downside for any serious mobile developer as you will quickly realise when
you come to appreciate the differences between the platforms and learn how
to write apps properly that look and behave properly on each platform,
instead of taking a "one size fits all" approach.

It also means that you are learning those platforms and if necessary can
apply that knowledge directly to development using the platform native tool
chains.

i.e. With my simple app I have learned how to program a (simple, VERY
simple) SMS sender app for Android, iOS and Windows Phone.  I happened to
use Pascal, but what I learned about the platforms is just as directly
applicable in Java, Objective-C or C# (respectively).  It also means that
you can *learn* from people with expertise in the framework even if they
are using other languages.

It is worth mentioning that all 3 versions of the app were developed in
just one weekend even though there was zero code re-use between them.  The
app is essentially 100% UI, and each platform works completely differently
when it comes to the SMS APi's so there was no real chance for useful code
re-use in such an app anyway.

Actually, there were 6 apps in total since I also learned the advertising
API's and controls appropriate for each platform (again, different in each
case) and created two separate versions of the app for each platform, one
free/ad supported, the other paid for with no ads.

Creating the 3 ad supported apps was another weekend.  :)

But Oxygene also is not hosted on Linux, being a Visual Studio plug-in (it
is also supported by the free VS Community Edition, so there's no extra
cost for using VS "Pro" any more).

However RemObjects are also working on "Fire", an OS X hosted IDE (still
not Linux but at least also Unix based) for all their languages, since they
also provide their own C# compiler as well as 'Silver' - a.k.a Apple
Swift.  All three languages support all platforms:  Java/Android, iOS/OS X,
.NET/WPhone.

Just my $2 (it was going to be 2c but thought I'd better protect it against
future inflation).  :)

On 22 January 2015 at 16:29, David Brennan <dugdavid at dbsolutions.co.nz>
wrote:

> We created an Android app in XE6 using a moderate amount of code from one
> of our big Delphi projects. It went OK and we successfully demonstrated the
> app on phones at a trade show recently, people liked the app. During
> development we had a few annoyances with how Firemonkey behaved but in
> general it wasn’t too bad.
>
>
>
> However getting our existing code (even units with no forms/frames) to
> work was a bigger issue than expected. We did it in a development branch
> were we hacked things a moderate amount to get uses clauses and everything
> to compile with ifdefs, commenting stuff out, etc. A surprising amount of
> basic classes such as TPoint, TRect, etc (I think if I am remembering
> correctly) are not available in Firemonkey so we had to do quite a bit of
> hacking. As a result the ‘hacked’ development branch can’t be used to
> compile VCL apps and will be thrown out (effectively it was a prototype).
> The next step is for us to refactor our code properly to allow us to cross
> compile between VCL and Firemonkey with a minimum of ifdefs. This will be a
> reasonable sized project so it is waiting while other more valuable
> projects are being worked on.
>
>
>
> Based on that fairly limited experience we believe Firemonkey to be viable
> for serious apps and we think it makes good sense if you have an existing
> code base which you want to cross compile between Windows and Android/iOS.
> Whether Firemonkey is the best choice for someone who doesn’t need to cross
> compile is a different matter, you get some benefits from prior Delphi
> experience but the controls, designer and some RTL portions are different
> so you still have a bit of a learning curve.
>
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> David.
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* delphi-bounces at listserver.123.net.nz [mailto:
> delphi-bounces at listserver.123.net.nz] *On Behalf Of *Eric A
> *Sent:* Thursday, 22 January 2015 3:15 p.m.
> *To:* delphi at listserver.123.net.nz
> *Subject:* [DUG] XE7 and Android Development
>
>
>
> Has anyone in the DUG :
>
>
>
> a) done serious Android device development using XE?
>
>
>
> b) installed and used XE7, particularly for Android apps?
>
>
>
> If not XE, what are people using/recommending as the best development
> platform for Android app development? (would be nice if it could be hosted
> on Linux, but not essential).
>
>
>
> Eric
>
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