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.

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

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.

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/

www.cpuspeedpro.com

{------------------------------------------------------------------------------}

procedure TfmMain.Grab(bm: TBitMap; gt : GrabType);
var
 DestRect, SourceRect: TRect;
 h: THandle;
 hdcSrc : THandle;
 pt : TPoint;
begin
hdcSrc := 0 ;
 case(gt) of
 GTWINDOW, GTCLIENT : h := GetForeGroundWindow;
 GTSCREEN : h := GetDesktopWindow;
 else h := 0;
 end;
 if h <> 0 then
 begin
 try
 if gt = GTCLIENT then
 begin
 hdcSrc := GetDC(h); // use this for ClientRect
 Windows.GetClientRect(h,SourceRect);
 end
 else
 begin
 hdcSrc := GetWindowDC(h);
 GetWindowRect(h, SourceRect);
 end;
 bm.Width  := SourceRect.Right - SourceRect.Left;
 bm.Height := SourceRect.Bottom - SourceRect.Top;
 DestRect := Rect(0, 0, SourceRect.Right - SourceRect.Left, SourceRect.Bottom - SourceRect.Top);
 StretchBlt(bm.Canvas.Handle, 0, 0, bm.Width,
 bm.Height, hdcSrc,
 0,0,SourceRect.Right - SourceRect.Left,
 SourceRect.Bottom - SourceRect.Top,
 SRCCOPY);
 if gt = GTCLIENT then
 begin
 pt.X :=SourceRect.Left;
 pt.Y :=SourceRect.Top;
 // call Windows.ClientToScreen() to translate X and Y
 Windows.ClientToScreen(h, pt);
 // DrawCursor(bm,pt.X, pt.Y);
 end
 //
 else
 begin
 // DrawCursor(bm,SourceRect.Left, SourceRect.Top);
 end;
 finally
 ReleaseDC(0, hdcSrc);
 end;
 end;
end;

A shameless plug for our newest flagship application: Net Meter Pro!

Monitor your computer’s internet bandwidth using Net Meter Pro, the powerful new all-in-one network tool. SEE the information flowing to and from your computer with dynamic real-time data graphs.

Read more at:

www.netmeterpro.com

Good Quality Applications written in Delphi

The second is Embarcadero’s official Delphi Application Showcase, at http://www.embarcadero.com/application-showcase.

You will need to complete a short survey and then wait…  Tim Del Chiaro appears to have some responsibility for submissions, or at least he is the contact for screenshot submissions related to the showcase.

Evidently Delphi 2009 is available in three editions. The Professional edition is designed for building desktop and workstation applications, whilst the Enterprise edition includes everything in the Professional edition, and adds support for building client/server and multi-tier database and web applications. The Architect edition includes everything in the Enterprise edition, plus logical and physical database modeling and optimizations from the Embarcadero ER/Studio Developer Edition.