Home Blogs Brian AlexakisDeveloper Skill Sprints - Week 8 - Extending Your VCL Apps to Mobile, Gadgets and Wearables.

Developer Skill Sprints - Week 8 - Extending Your VCL Apps to Mobile, Gadgets and Wearables.

Posted by Brian Alexakis on Tuesday, 23 December 2014 in Programming

This blog post contains the notes for week 8 of the developer skill sprint focusing on Extending Your VCL Apps to Mobile, Gadgets and Wearables.

Modernizing Your VCL Apps

Live sessions every Tuesday
November 4 - December 23, 2014
6AM San Francisco / 9AM New York / 2PM London / 3PM Milan
11AM San Francisco / 2PM New York / 7PM London / 8PM Milan
5PM San Francisco / Wed 10AM Tokyo / Wed 12PM Sydney

The next round of Developer Skill Sprints are here! Join us for this 8-part series on modernizing your VCL apps from start to finish. We'll explore how to update your app's look and feel, utilize multiple processor cores in your app, scale your solution, and extend your apps to wearables and gadgets.

Notes

Project Files

VCL Hue OP

VCL Hue Lux Starter Kit CPP

Links

Using App Tethering

http://docwiki.embarcadero.com/RADStudio/XE7/en/Using_App_Tethering

The RTL provides app tethering components, giving your applications the ability to interact with other applications running either on the same machine or on a remote machine.

Using app tethering, your applications can easily:

Discover other applications that are using app tethering, running either on the same device as your application or on other connected devices.
Run actions remotely. An application can publish actions using app tethering. Then other applications can remotely invoke any of these actions on the former application.
Share data between applications. App tethering allows sharing of standard data types and streams.

The app tethering feature does not depend on a specific transport or protocol, and new transports and protocols can be implemented using the app tethering API. The RTL provides built-in support for IP and Classic Bluetooth connections. IP support includes connecting applications running on the same device.

Using Classic Bluetooth

http://docwiki.embarcadero.com/RADStudio/XE7/en/Using_Classic_Bluetooth

Because the Bluetooth Core Specification defines since version 4.0 different types of "Bluetooth" protocols, such as Bluetooth Low Energy, the original Bluetooth protocol is now known as "Classic Bluetooth". Classic Bluetooth provides a much higher transfer rate than Bluetooth Low Energy, at the cost of a higher energy consumption.

To implement Classic Bluetooth support in your applications:

System.Sensors.Components

http://docwiki.embarcadero.com/Libraries/XE7/en/System.Sensors.Components

A sensor measures a physical quantity and converts it into a signal that can be read by an application. System.Sensors.Components provides your applications with components that let you obtain information from many different types of hardware sensors.

REST Client Library

http://docwiki.embarcadero.com/RADStudio/XE7/en/REST_Client_Library

The Embarcadero REST Library is a framework for accessing REST-based web services (REST stands for Representational State Transfer). The library is available for all platforms that are supported by Delphi.

The framework focuses on JSON as the representation format. XML is not explicitly supported.

REST Debugger

http://docwiki.embarcadero.com/RADStudio/XE7/en/REST_Debugger

REST Debugger is a tool that you can use to manage different REST APIs. With its user interface, you can test and debug REST queries before applying them to your own REST applications.

Video

AppTethering For Object Pascal VCL and FMX Using Wifi and Bluetooth

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVb_fQLZF7o

This session shows how to easily extend your existing Object Pascal Windows VCL and Multi-Device FireMonkey apps to connected devices using Application Tethering.

App Tethering for VCL/FMX using WiFi and Bluetooth with C++

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_P96fpta_Y

This session shows how to easily extend your existing Windows VCL and FireMonkey apps to connected devices using Application Tethering.

RAD Studio XE7 Tour Live Online December 18 Replay

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=qqNAyoqF9O4#t=2600

00:43:18 - Extend your Applications to Gadgets, Wearables and the Internet of Things
00:49:04 - Demonstrations - using the ExploreDevicesLE sample with TI's SensorTag, TBluetoothLE component, Heart Rate Monitor samples (VCL and FMX), FireUI and Smart Watches
00:58:18 - Extend your Desktop Applications with App Tethering

RAD in Action: Modernize and Extend your VCL Applications - Use Cases Part 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=dvAQFvAM0GQ#t=2959

Join David I. and John “JT” Thomas for this informative technical session where specific VCL modernization and extension case studies will be explored. Part 1 focuses on common use cases, while Part 2 explores customer submitted case studies.

Part 1 - Wednesday, November 19, 2014

In part 1, you'll learn how to:

a) Modernize your VCL applications for Windows 7 and 8.1
b) Turbo-charge your apps with the Parallel Programming Library
c) Migrate BDE applications to FireDAC and IBLite on the desktop
d) Extend your desktop applications to mobile with App Tethering
e) Extend your applications to Devices, Gadgets, Wearables & the Internet of Things
f) Deliver new backend services with Enterprise Mobility Services

RAD in Action: Modernize and Extend your VCL Applications - Use Cases Part 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsMWzZKDdeU

explore your submitted VCL application modernization and extension use cases

a) Loading Styles from a File
b) Overriding a Custom Style for a control
c) Using the VCL TTrayIcon component
d) VCL use of Sensors
e) Cloud Explorer – Cloud API for Amazon and Azure
f) Using Google Cloud – Calendar via the TMS Software Cloud Pack
g) Converting your VCL apps to FireMonkey using the MidaConverter
h) Castalia for Delphi - demonstration by Jacob Thurman (Two Desk Software)
i) TurboPower Software "Turbo Pack" - demonstration by Marco Cantu

Q/A

Is there a way to in integrate this function into the IDE?

The REST Debugger is built ontop of the REST Client Library. Everything you can do with the REST Debugger can be done with code and the IDE using the REST Client Library.

What is the minimum version (level) of XE7 that has the REST debugger?

Professional and above

About Brian Alexakis

Gold User, Rank: 8, Points: 399

Brian Alexakis is a Product Marketing Manager at Embarcadero Technologies. He is focused on leveraging the connected world of technology to build new experiences for the Internet of Things.

http://embarcadero.com