Stack Overflow However, Stack Overflow has a very tough community. It can be quite challenging to post a question there AND get a decent answer and you could easily feel bullied there. The Stack Overflow lords know about it, and they tried to fix it with stricter rules about how people SHOULD behave, but they […]
This post is not about databases but against data bases. If you are a big fan of DB, don’t be sad. Maybe you will get a new insight into a different mindset and you will migrate some of your programs that are slowed down by databases to objects and binary files. I will not discuss
While trying to communicate with my HTTPS server, I encountered a problem when CDN (Cloudflare) was active. Exception class EIdOSSLUnderlyingCryptoError with message ‘Error connecting with SSL. error:14094438:SSL routines:ssl3_read_bytes:tlsv1 alert internal error’. error:14077438:SSL routines:SSL23_GET_SERVER_HELLO:tlsv1 alert internal error’. I switched to TNetHTTPClient and it worked. Here is the code: // TNetHTTPClient. function GetToken(CONST URL: string; StatusInfo: TCallbackEvent
Serialization is a critical technique in programming, enabling objects to be saved to disk or transmitted over a network. While there’s no universal, automatic way to serialize complex objects in Delphi (due to challenges like private fields), manual serialization is straightforward—and binary serialization, in particular, stands out as the fastest and most efficient method. In
Stuck With Legacy Delphi Code? I Can Modernize It! Are you still working with old Delphi codebases using AnsiStrings, raw pointers in arrays, TStringList misusage, hardcoded typecasts, goto, blocking timers, Application.ProcessMessages, or excessive global variables? Would you like to upgrade it to modern coding standards, ensuring compatibility with Delphi 11.3 and 64-bit environments? I will
After a conversation about the low popularity of the Delphi language—further worsened by the lack of libraries for Delphi—I decided to share my odyssey in the world of bioinformatics, using Delphi as my primary development tool. My toy tool that turned into a commercial product Back in 2007, I wrote a small tool for a
My odyssey in the world of bioinformatics, with Delphi Read More »
Even though there are a few tools for porting a project from the VCL (Visual Component Library) to FMX (FireMonkey) the process is not easy especially because not all VCL components have direct FMX equivalents. Some components require substitution, and some functionality must be reimplemented. The problem deepens with 3rd party VCL components. Tools for
After installing FMX and using it for a while I started getting a weird “ld.exe cannot find shlwapi.dll” message. There was nothing like this to be found on the internet! I posted a question of StackOverflow but people started to point in (as later turned out to be) totally wrong directions. The complete error msg
Delphi Firemonkey – ld.exe cannot find shlwapi.dll: No such file or directory Read More »
You can publish your application on your website. But Microsoft SmartScreen will not like it at all if the binary is not signed. This is how the same application looks signed and unsigned: Last reviewed: September 2026 — and this time I bought the certificate myself. Two industry-wide changes reshaped this market since I first
Obtaining cheap EV/OV certificates & signing your application Read More »
This is a chapter from “Delphi in all its glory” book. Preparing for cross-platform An SDK is required for the following platforms: Multi-device applications for the iOS Device – 64-bit platform. Multi-device applications for the Android platform. Multi-device applications for the Linux platform. If you haven’t chouse to install them during Delphi setup, you need
Cross-platform development with Firemonkey – Tool-chain setup Read More »
Rule #1: Always separate your business-logic code from the GUI code. Without this rule, all your code will be a hot mess, where libraries cannot exist. Rule #2: There should be no floating units. A unit should always belong to a project (Dpr or Dpk). Without this, you will fail to properly generate some DCU
When trying to load an RTF file using RichEdit.Lines.LoadFromFile(FileName) and RichEdit.ReadOnly = True the RichEdit removes all images from the RTF file showing an empty placeholder. Solution: The solution is to call these methods in this specific order with these specific parameters: procedure TForm2.FormCreate(Sender: TObject); begin // Must be False RichEdit.ReadOnly:= FALSE; // This is
TRichEdit removes images when TRichEdit.ReadOnly = True Read More »
So, because I built a program that has to resize/scale images up and down, I built this tool to test 13 resizing algorithms for Delphi. Tested algorithms JanFX SmoothResize JanFX Stretch Transform (from Graphics32) HB (Private) madGraphics (from madShi) VCL.ScaleImage (from Embarcadero) VCL.Stretch (from Embarcadero) SmoothResize (assembler) Windows Thumbnail (Windows API) Windows StretchBlt (Windows API)
Say no to crappy images in your Delphi programs. Finding the best resizing algorithm. Read More »
After so many years, there still is no solution to this problem online. So, I had to try to fix it on my own. Update: This also fixes the 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 error! Update, August 2026: error BLZBNTBTS00000028 is a different problem – and here is its real cause If your installer does not hang at 45%
Environment variables are strings defined by the IDE. Each environment variable serves a specific purpose. Some of them are fixed, others are changed dynamically depending on what/how you are compiling your project. For example, they provide dynamic paths that influence where files are stored, define default locations for binaries, define how projects are built, and
For any debugging issue, make sure that the program is compiled under the “Debug” configuration, and that the “Debug” configuration is properly set, as explained in the “Debugger” chapter in my books. Don’t forget to build (instead of compile) after changing any project settings! Also, don’t put yourself in a dreadful situation by using 3rd
Breakpoints A breakpoint tells the debugger to pause the program’s execution at the location (line of code) where the breakpoint is. We can set source breakpoints in the Code Editor before we run the program, but also while the program is already running. The places where we can place breakpoints are marked by a blue
I am still amazed to see how many (even seasoned) Delphi programmer don’t understand exceptions. This post starts from a nice video posted by the Silver Coder. He states that exceptions are not the best idea and the reason mentioned in the short video is that try/except makes the code slow and difficult to read.
Too many programmers don’t understand exceptions. Do you? Read More »
Note: This article is tightly connected to the “Never create a new Delphi project” article. These are my settings for each new project I start and the explanation why they are set like this. Also, I will try to convince you to use Assertions. They are a gemstone ignored by (way too) many
Note: This article is tightly connected to the “How to correctly set the compiler options” article. Somebody asked how to set the default project options for a new Delphi project. I stopped years ago wasting time with this. Instead I have a folder where I store a “template” project. You can find this Delphi
Never create a new Delphi project – Use templates instead! Read More »
I needed to open PDF files in Delphi. There seems to be a lot of libraries out there, but when my restrictions (read PDF, native Delphi code, cross-platform, acceptable price) started to kick in I realized that there are not so many options. I created therefore this Delphi PDF library comparison table to help me
Note: This page is an excerpt from my “Delphi in all its glory – Libraries” book. $(Auto) is a new environment variable, introduced in Delphi 10.4. Embarcadero didn’t make a big show around it so it went unnoticed by most programmers. But don’t ignore it! It is extremely useful for packages, where it can
12 years ago I built a PC that worked for… 12 years. The mainboard died recently so I have to build a new one. So, I started to document myself. CPU I am interested in single-core high-frequency CPU because I will use the PC mostly to compile Delphi code. I have found some charts that
Today I ran a test to see which is the best way to compress Delphi projects for backup/archive purposes. The contestants are Zip, WinRAR (v7.01) and 7Zip (v24.08). I expected WinRar to be the winner in all cases (as usual) but for plain text files (PAS), the results were surprising. 7Zip won! TEXT COMPRESSION Original
I am happy to announce that all books in the “Delphi in all its glory” series will be available in electronic format. They will be delivered not a PDF but under my own reader (exe file) called Orinoco eReader. Advantages You can read the book from you computer. Smaller price Fair price – With the
My Experience with Cursor: The Promise and the Reality 2025.01 This week, I had the opportunity (or perhaps the misfortune?) to try out Cursor, a new tool that promises to enhance productivity for programmers. As someone who primarily works in Delphi, I was curious to see how it would stack up. Cursor is an AI-powered
The Delphi in all its glory book shows that at design time the IDE is the host of all visual components on our forms. If a single control misbehaves at design time it might take down the whole IDE. In most cases this happens while we drag and drop such components from Components Palette on
“Delphi in all its glory – Delphi for more than mere programmers” (ISBN:9798387412141) was released on time (March 2023) as promised. This is the first book in the series. You can find the printed book on your local Amazon (Amazon.com, Amazon.de, etc) or in electronic format. The source code for the example used in the
News: The “Delphi in all its glory [Part 1]” book Read More »
SetFocus is broken in Delphi. Has been since v1 and there are no signs that it will be fixed soon. What does it mean, broken? Do I really have to explain it? We all know. Try to set focus on a visual control that is disabled or is invisible or simply is not focusable, and
Two weeks ago, a buggy project landed in my hands, to repair. The bug report was really unclear – it was just stated a piece of code that was supposed to upload some Json files to the Azure cloud was not working on some PCs. The code was something like this – well actually was
When company does not want to spend money for training… they spend more on bug fixing Read More »
