One great feature of RAD Studio is the ability to load component packages into the IDE rapidly via GetIt. This service feature works by collecting a list of available packages from the Online Servers, and then allowing you to select what you want and seconds later, the components and add-ons are available inside the IDE!

While GetIt is a lot faster and simpler for setting up the IDE, compared to using the traditional manual package install and setup route, it does was limited to online working only…. That is until now and the release of RAD Studio 11.2

11.2 adds the ability to load packages via GetIt when the PC is offline. This greatly improves access to packages for machines that are blocked from the Internet.

It’s pretty simple! You just need an active subscription, a downloaded package, and the file on the local machine.

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.

How to create Auto Incremental Fields in RAD Server with InterBase, FireDAC and TEMSDataSetResource

One key feature when asking a remote server to add a record is to get the new record ID value returned. Thankfully this is easily achieved with InterBase and FireDAC via RAD Server with TEMSDataSetResource

InterBase has a concept of Generators. These provide a unique sequential integer value that can be used to provide a primary key field value. You can create up to 32,767 Generators in an InterBase database, but typically you would create one for the database or create and name one for use per table.

• InterBase Labs Video on Generators
• DocWiki documentation for Generators

FireDAC Query UpdateOptions AutoInc

Part of the FireDAC framework is the ability to treat database fields as Auto-Incremental Fields. For Databases that do not have an AutoIncremental field data type, you can set the UpdateOptions properties to define the Generator and key fields.

Continue reading Auto Inc Fields in RAD Server with InterBase →

InterBase ToGo Update for Android

Following an update to OpenSSL to address some identified vulnerabilities, Google has stopped allowing submission of applications that contain certain versions of OpenSSL libraries.

While InterBase ToGo and IBLite are not affected by the vulnerabilities identified, the current build that is shipped with RAD Studio for Android is being stopped from deploying to the Play Store. To get around this issue, please download the latest build for InterBase ToGo and replace the .a file in your local deployment files.

While tested on 10.1 Berlin, this download should work for any RAD Studio customer who’s product shipped contained InterBase XE7 (XE7, XE8, 10.0 Seattle and 10.1 Berlin).

Download the latest Android InterBase ToGo from Code Central

http://cc.embarcadero.com/item/30630

Where to put the file?

The InterBase ToGo library for IBLite and InterBase ToGo is the same file. This is typically found at

• C:\Users\Public\Documents\Embarcadero\Interbase\redist\InterBaseXE7\android

You may also need to check for

• C:\Program Files (x86)\Embarcadero\Studio\18.0\lib\android\Debug\
• C:\Program Files (x86)\Embarcadero\Studio\18.0\lib\android\Release\

DocWiki notes

A few more notes about the reported case on this are available on DocWiki

http://docwiki.embarcadero.com/PlatformStatus/en/Main_Page#Hotfix_for_InterBase_on_Android