I’ve got two session this year, both related to Delphi mobile development, and both concerning how to reach out from the island that is the FM Application Framework (aka FMX aka FireMonkey) and gain access to the underlying mobile OS platform APIs.
The first session is Accessing the iOS API and looks at how Delphi-written iOS apps can talk to the CocoaTouch APIs and access additional iOS frameworks. We look at the Objective-C bridge and see how it is used to import iOS APIs, namely classes and protocols (Apple’s term for what we call interfaces), and how you can implement iOS interfaces and inherit from iOS classes. We also briefly look at how to pull in APIs that are not already imported by Delphi’s RTL. As a proof of concept we briefly see a Delphi iOS app that has no FMX code or units in it whatsoever, operating purely through the iOS APIs using the standard CocoaTouch model.
Files from the Accessing the iOS API session can be downloaded from here.
The second session is Accessing the Android API and looks at how Delphi-written Android apps can talk to the Android SDK classes. We look at the Java bridge and see how it is used to import Android APIs. We’ll also look at how to pull in APIs that are not already imported by Delphi’s RTL. We also look at how to add a splash screen to an Android app to cover up the startup time on anything other than the fastest devices, how to add Android menus to an app and how to launch external activities and get results back from them.
Files from the Accessing the Android API session can be downloaded from here. Take note that since several of the samples involve various required preliminary steps in order to function, as they step outside the comfort zone of Delphi XE5 RTM’s Android support, you should check the ReadMe.txt files supplied in the project directories of those projects.
[Update]
I plan to write up some of the subjects covered by these demos in further posts or articles as time and work schedules permit. However in the mean time I’ll respond to comments by expanding this post as necessary.
It appears that when the small Java source files get compiled, the Android dx tool expects them to be compiled by the JDK 1.6.x compiler as opposed to the JDK 1.7.x compiler. If you have JDK 1.7.x installed, you hit a problem with dx reporting:
bad class file magic (cafebabe) or version (0033.0000)
However, to avoid forcing a reinstall of JDK 1.6 you might like to modify my build.bat batch files and add in extra command line switches to the javac.exe command-lines. You need to insert this after the javac.exe command to force Java 1.6 byte code output, which is digestible by the Android dx command:
-source 1.6 -target 1.6[Update 2]
Current write-ups:
- Splash screens are written up here for Delphi XE5 and Delphi XE6.
- Launching activities and getting results back is written up here for Delphi XE5 and Delphi XE6.