Installing Help and Samples for RAD Studio

The Help and Samples (for both Delphi and C++) are very useful when Programming as they provide quick reference and examples of how to use different language and component features.

If you are using the RAD Studio IDE and find that F1 is not opening up the help files, then the most likely answer is that the Help installation was skipped during the initial install.

To check (and install if missing) go to Tools > Manage Platforms

This dialog allows you to install additional platforms, but also (under Additional Options) manage the installation of Help and Samples.

Simply, tick the box for Samples and Help and then Apply, and you should then be ready to use F1 help in the IDE.

3 Libraries for improving Existing Applications built with Delphi

One topic I get increasingly asked about Delphi Programming when developers are migrating to the latest version of RAD Studio is “quick ways to improve their applications”. So in this post, I am going to summarise 3 favorites by focusing on the libraries in RAD Studio. If you are new to RAD Studio, then I would also recommend reading these, as they are very easy to implement and provide quick wins to new code too.

As with any actively developing and improving language and IDE, RAD Studio / Delphi is improving all the time. This summary is based on the questions I receive weekly focusing on what is in the box so to speak. While I barely scratch the surface here, I also want to point out that there is a great 3rd party community of developer tools offering even more options that you can explore.

Continue reading 3 Libraries for improving Existing Applications built with Delphi

Setting up the IDE for your First Android App

I have had a growing number of customers asking recently about getting started with Android programming with Delphi, so I thought it was a good time to refresh how to check your IDE is set up, how to enable developer mode on an Android phone, and show how you can rapidly get Android applications run and debugged from RAD Studio.

If you are new to Android development, then the first thing to note is that you need to ensure the IDE has Android support enabled. Under Tools > Manage Platforms, ensure Android is enabled.

You will also need to check Java is setup on your machine. This is because RAD Studio uses the Android SDK and NDK as part of the process for packaging and deploying android applications. One such part is the ADB program which tells the IDE what Android devices are attached to the computer.

If you already have Java installed, you can set the paths to the required elements required by the IDE under Tools > Options > Deployment > SDK Manager

With Java setup and Android tools enabled, you should be able to put your phone into developer mode and connect it to the Windows host to see it in the IDE.

If you have any issues with Android phone setup – check this post out.

The rest of the video shows running your first Android application directly from the IDE. If you want to debug the application, ensure you use DEBUG mode rather that RELEASE build. from the build configurations.

If you are using Debug mode, you still need to choose Target platform (for 32bit or 64bit), a target device, and then a configuration. – e.g. Development.

These options are used to setup and manage the development, release and files deployed. Something I will cover another time.

For more on Android development, check out the Embarcadero docwiki on Android app development