Wizard Software – All things Delphi (and some PHP)

Barely have I installed Delphi 2009 and Embarcadero are now touting Delphi 2010.  Not only but also they are asking me to shell out an additional 2,229.00 Euros for an upgrade. Yes, you read that right, 2,229.00 Euros for an UPGRADE.  I am astonished. I would very much like to give it a go but at those prices, how many developers out there can afford it?

I recently downloaded MS Visual C++ 2008 Express Edition which Microsoft offer for FREE. Yep, free. And what else? Well, let me tell you, it ain’t that bad. It’s a few years since I touched C++ but a month of work with it should bring me up to speed. Come on Embarcadero, please don’t do a Borland on us and kill off Delphi by pricing it out of the reach of the people who really will use it.  It is really starting to feel like the new owners of Delphi are, like their predecessors, taking Delphi down a very narrow road to increased revenue.  Manipulations? Well, yes, maybe there are some related to the price, but also, reading Chris Bensen’s blog, I see Delphi 2010 has lots of new units, including

“Manipulations.pas
The inertia manipulators. Great for spinning and throwing things around your screen.”

Sounds great, but a google is not returning much, and I don’t see anything about them on the Embarcadero site. I’ll keep you posted when I find more details.

Delphi Delphi 2010

I wanted to share some information on creating Firefox addons/extensions (or however you care to refer to them). Not any old Firefox addons but XPCOM addons. It’s taken a couple of weeks of evening work to turn my Graabr Delphi application (www.graabr.com) into a Firefox Addon. Why bother?  Audience, I guess.

Anyhow, creating a non-XPCOM addon using javascript is relatively straightforward. But, an XPCOM is a different story. You need some Delphi-friendly Firefox header files which do not appear up-to-date. You also need a whole lot of patience. I found lots of snippets of info on Delphi XPCOM, but most ‘answers’ only raised further issues. Eventually, I rebuilt Graabr as a Delphi dll with three exposed interfaces. That is not enough for Firefox though. You cannot simply call a Delphi dll from Firefox, not without all the Firefox libs. So, what next? A download of the now free Visual C++ 2008 Express Edition (http://www.microsoft.com/Express/VC/). Incidentally, and one for another post, why is Delphi 2010 so expensive? After download and install, a lot of googling to get a XLRunner sample working in C++. Then, build a C++ dll wrapper, compatible with Firefox around the Delphi DLL. And voila, problem solved. Here is a link to the finished Graabr add-on:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/52178/

So, how does everything hang together? Well, after creating the extension framework, or environment, with all the required folders, files, etc (see here: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Building_an_Extension), I created a small javascript app. which interfaces between Firefox and the C++ DLL. You can examine the source of this file by looking in the FF extension folder.  The javascript calls the C++ DLL which in turn calls the good old Delphi DLL where all the screen grabbing, uploading, etc work is done.  After creating the environment, files, structure, etc, you zip it all up into a .xpi file (zippy as they call it) and upload it to FireFox addons.

Oh, it’s oh so simple

Delphi, graabr addons, C++, Delphi, firefox, XPCOM, XUL

First: How to generate a GUID in the Delphi IDE: Ctrl+Shift+G

Ahhh. That out of the way.  There is so little info around on how to create Firefox extensions using Delphi. I’m working on it now for Graabr (www.graabr.com). Update soon.

Delphi

It’s been busy times for the Wizard Soft team lately. We’ve just completed work on a new Wordpress plugin and Desktop application for Pixavid.

Here is a link to the Desktop application, written in Delphi (of course) and calling Pixavid’s API routines via XML:

http://www.pixavid.com/download.php

and here is a link to the Wordpress plugin, using CURL to call the same Pixavid APIs:

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/pixavid-random-pics/

pixavid pixavid