Yaron

But how do you apply it to use with Delphi which in the docs says that the PAserver needs to be in a local network?

Is there some help/docs on Delphi integration with such services for iOS development?

I want to port my app to iOS, but the up-front financial requirements seem to be quite high.

After doing some research on the web, it seems it may there may be alternatives to purchasing an iMac computer (like running in a virtual machine instead of actual hardware).

Does anyone have any experience with this?

Can anyone recommend the cheapest iOS development route using Delphi 10.3?

I tried it on Galaxy S2 (Android 4.0.4) and Galaxy S4 (Android 5.0), both had UI lockup issues, no issue with Galaxy S5 or Galaxy Note 4 (Android 6).

It may be possible that the problem is with Android 5.0 and older, I don't have a 5.1 device to test.

The reason I wrote that AdMob was the issue was that the game is running just fine up until the point an Ad shows (either a banner at the bottom or a fullscreen Interstitial ad) at which point UI updates stop functioning.

However,

My app design doesn't use a TButton or TMemo (it's only using TRectangle, TImage & TLabel), so it's possible that the issue is also triggered by other components.

I used a slightly modified version of this sample code to show the JInterstitialAd (the only changes I made was to update the depreciated functions) :

https://github.com/sadettinpolat/delphi/tree/master/interstitialAds

In RGBquick the Interstitial ad is triggered when you open one of the leaderboard (the crown icons on the main screen).

The TBannerAd component is always visible at the bottom.

And remember, the issue is not particular to Interstitial ads, Delphi's (v10.3) bundled TBannerAd component freezes the entire UI. This only seems to affect Android versions earlier than v6 (no issues with v6).

Are you experiencing this issue?

Android apps compiled with Delphi 10.3 running on older Android versions(v5, v4.4), stop updating the UI when an AdMob banner appears (using standard TBannerAd component).

The game I wrote is not frozen, I can hear menu action audio when I click known button positions and using the back button exits the game cleanly.

If an interstitial ad is shown (using JInterstitialAd), after the ad is closed the game returns to a black screen (again, only the UI updates being frozen).

I installed the game on several of these older devices through the google play store.

If you would like to test it on your own devices, the name of the game is "RGBquick" (still in beta).

@Dalija Prasnikar Thank you for the detailed information.

I'm not sure you're correct.

From this:

https://developer.android.com/distribute/best-practices/develop/target-sdk

Quote

Configuring your app to target a recent API level ensures that users can benefit from these improvements, while still allowing it to run on older Android versions.

I think by that they mean that the app is aware of API 26 and may have to specifically support API 26 functionality (like the new method to request user permissions), but that doesn't mean it can't support earlier versions of Android... am I missing something?

After previously uploading a Delphi 10.2.3 to the google play store, I uploaded an APK compiled in Delphi 10.3.

This triggered a warning message by the play store that some devices will no longer be supported by this build.

My code hasn't changed... Does anyone know if this can be worked around so I can keep supporting these older devices?

That's not the issue, my problem is that I'm unable to disable this Delphi feature...

Has anyone else encountered this?

Delphi 10.3:

I have a project with specified splash images.

I simply uncheck "include splash image" in the project's options and try to run the app under Android and I get an error about missing files/entries.

If I check "include splash image" it all works fine, but I have no way of getting rid of the splash image.

For me one of the biggest problems in the new UI/UX issue with the tabs being wider (leaving less room for tabs) AND the "X" to close a tab is only visible on the active tab, so I'm occasionally closing tabs when trying to switch to them.

Sure, I can get used to it, but this is an esthetic choice over a utilitarian chose when working in an environment to develops utilities... does that feel right to you?

It's not so much about native control as it's about RTL support...

Yes, but what's the point of all of this if you can't display the text properly...

I'm have two issues with v10.3 and TEdit.ControlType set to TControlType.Platform:
 

1. Under windows (android is fine) using FMX, changing the Height property results in a corrupted dialog (the background isn't filled, showing a 'window' to the form and underlying visual components), here's the code I use to create the TEdit:

  textInputEdit                                    := TEdit.Create(MainForm);
  textInputEdit.Parent                             := MainForm;
  textInputEdit.Width                              := Trunc(clientWidth*idMaxWidth);
  textInputEdit.Height                             := Trunc(textInputLabelOK.Font.Size*2);
  textInputEdit.StyledSettings                     := [TStyledSetting.Family];
  textInputEdit.Font.Size                          := textInputLabelOK.Font.Size;
  textInputEdit.ControlType                        := TControlType.Platform;
  {$IFDEF MSWINDOWS}
  textInputEdit.TextSettings.FontColor             := TAlphaColorRec.Black;
  {$ELSE}
  textInputEdit.TextSettings.FontColor             := TAlphaColorRec.White;
  {$ENDIF}
  textInputEdit.KillFocusByReturn                  := True;
  textInputEdit.KeyboardType                       := TVirtualKeyboardType.Alphabet; // is this good?
  textInputEdit.TextPrompt                         := strEnterYourName;
  textInputEdit.SetBounds(Trunc((clientWidth-textInputEdit.Width)/2),Trunc(clientHeight*textInputEditMargin),textInputEdit.Width,textInputEdit.Height);

2. When I enter RTL text into the dialog, the resulting text STILL appears in reverse order when assigned to a TLabel for display.

1. I was testing against Android 6.0.1 so I don't think that's an issue.

2. For me restarting delphi and reconnecting the device doesn't help, restarting the device worked once, but even that's not reliable (or timely) and I tried using multiple devices and they all had this issue (they were Android 4 and Android 5).

I ordered a cheap Android 8.1 tablet, so we'll see how newer versions of Android work.

Debugging worked fine for me in v10.2.2 and stopped working in v10.2.3.

I'm sad to report that even after doing a fresh install of the recently released Delphi v10.3, I am still getting the 'port in use' error when trying to debug.

Perhaps this may be related to the Android libraries updates introduced in v10.2.3?

And yes, I'm testing devices running Android v4-v6, which may also be related.

@Markus Kinzler The project your linked to is my first try at writing a REST server, since the data-set it uses is so small, for simplicity I just used a flat DB file.

My upcoming project is more of a small scale social network, so there will be:

1. Accounts

2. Content upload (text/images) linked to the accounts.

3. Content interaction (likes, shares) linked to content, etc.

For this purpose I want a more solid and reliable DB back-end.

Like suggested earlier in the thread, the client isn't connecting directly to the DB, it's connecting through a REST server, so the only DB user is the REST server.

I don't think SQL syntax is that hard to learn and I have friends to consult with.

Based on this should I go the firebird route or mORMot+SQLite3 ?

@Arnaud Bouchez I've been looking at the mORMot samples for SQLite3:

https://synopse.info/fossil/dir?ci=deb75010c0736e31&name=SQLite3/Samples

Do you think I should investigate the first two samples?

I'm not sure I understand your answer, the project I intend on writing is not open-source.

After reading a bit about both, I'm leaning toward FireBird.

Other than the FireBird site itself, is there any related resources you would recommend I review?

To begin with, which database software should I install that would be the easiest (to install on windows) and connect to with Delphi.

I previously installed MySQL for an unrelated project and didn't write any code for it, but I'm not sure if MySQL is overkill for my needs.

I created the repository here:
https://github.com/bLightZP/marsGameServices

I wrote a small server backend using mars that manages a leaderboard (highscore) list for a game I wrote.

If there's any interest, I will publish the source.

In the same spirit and to gain some insight, I would be interested in seeing other real-world projects written using mars.

I am a total novice to databases, I would appreciate any pointers you could give.

I am developing a back-end server for an app/game that requires storing user accounts with a few details about each user:

1. Name

2. Reputation

3. Score

4. Connection to a list of content (images+metadata) submitted by the user

And since the users are submitting content (images), I need to store this content (or path to the content) with some metadata:
1. Likes

2. Effect flags

The database will be hosted on a windows server 2008 machine I'm administrating using remote desktop.

It will run on the same hardware as the REST server I'm currently writing.

What is the quickest/cheapest route to learn how bring up a database so I can quickly and reliably store and manipulate the data from within Delphi (v10.2 Tokyo)?

Works great!