New section for native apps

[Alberto Miola 10]

I have been talking with Yaroslav Brovin recently (the creator of FGX native) and this project is going to be in public beta at the beginning of 2020. Would it be a good idea to make a section for it? If not now at least when the beta starts.

FGX native will be an add on for the Delphi IDE

 

 

This is a webinar unfortunately only in Russian; btw this will work for Android only at the beginning, iOS will come later. I attach some pictures of the documentation.

 

More info on FGX are here: http://fire-monkey.ru/forum/370-native-fgx/ (use https://translate.yandex.com/ which is a good russian-english translator)

 

 

 

[Guest]

Defiantly yes 🙂 

 

FGX native is something I wished to have years ago, this is because FMX is unable to produce mobile app with decent performance out of the box, so you either use Alcinoe (use native drawing) or ditch FMX completly (lack of cached views, jittery animations, just crappy performance). FGX is a promise of solid performance mobile app with Delphi code... and well... ditching FMX anyway 🙂  I'm waiting for the final product for both iOS and Android, price does not matter.

 

PS: as for translations... I find using Chrome with built-in Google translation way more convenient and fast, just open link, agree to translate to choosen language and off you go :)

Edited December 13, 2019 by Guest

[Alberto Miola 10]

I used to work with FMX but I have dropped it in favor of Flutter. They are not comparable in terms of productivity and performance; it's like if you compare a Ferrari (Flutter) with a bibycle with deflated tyres (FMX). I really hope that FGX will give more visibility to Delphi in the mobile world!

[Rollo62 536]

Probably this is true for simple apps, but howto compare more complex apps.
Do you have a good source for larger examples, which includes all possible aspects, like DB, networking, styling, using native sensors, location, etc. ?

I often find even native programmers struggling with these (same) stuff in XCode and Android Studio, as we do in FMX.

Edited December 22, 2019 by Rollo62

[Fr0sT.Brutal 900]

On 12/20/2019 at 10:41 PM, Alberto Miola said:

I used to work with FMX but I have dropped it in favor of Flutter. They are not comparable in terms of productivity and performance; it's like if you compare a Ferrari (Flutter) with a bibycle with deflated tyres (FMX). I really hope that FGX will give more visibility to Delphi in the mobile world!

Flutter is working on Dart, right? A language with unclear perspectives. Anyway, what about binary sizes?

[Ugochukwu Mmaduekwe 42]

26 minutes ago, Fr0sT.Brutal said:

Flutter is working on Dart, right? A language with unclear perspectives. Anyway, what about binary sizes?

@Fr0sT.Brutal can you please explain what you mean by "unclear perspectives" in relation to dart?

[Fr0sT.Brutal 900]

3 hours ago, Ugochukwu Mmaduekwe said:

@Fr0sT.Brutal can you please explain what you mean by "unclear perspectives" in relation to dart?

Well, that's only my POV. Language of just 8 years old, developed by Google only, with initial intention to be a front-end JS killer, now it seems to be Java/Swift killer... I wish it luck though especially if they manage to produce multiplatform apps lighter and faster than Electron does and sweep that monster out from the market.

[Guest]

On 12/22/2019 at 7:50 AM, Rollo62 said:

Probably this is true for simple apps, but howto compare more complex apps.
Do you have a good source for larger examples, which includes all possible aspects, like DB, networking, styling, using native sensors, location, etc. ?

I often find even native programmers struggling with these (same) stuff in XCode and Android Studio, as we do in FMX.

If simple FMX app cannot smoothly draw not so complex content in scroll box, then will fail with any more complex app. Try to imagine layout like LinkedIn - it is possible to recreate it in FMX, but performance will be none, while just using buffered Alcinoe components changes everything and allow to achieve what bare FMX simply cannot. That being said, FMX for mobile is utter crap, sad but true and the only rescue for now is in fact Alcinoe components. I know because I have build both simple and complex (commercial) app in FMX. I also write in Swift/XCode - nope, I cannot agree, less buggy, good performance out-of-the box (unless you mess something up), less issues and easier utilisation. Native programmers do not struggle with the same stuff like we do in FMX, that is simply not true in my view, from my experience and from few friends immersed in Kotlin 😄 

 

 

FMX biggest issue is architecture flaw and drawing capabilities - lack of quality drawing and crap performance. I do not use styling, so no opinion there, as for the rest mentioned: "DB/networking, using native sensors, location", have not found big issues so far, so it is OK, but they are not a part of FMX anyway.

 

 

 

 

[Dave Nottage 557]

5 hours ago, TomDevOps said:

using native sensors, location", have not found big issues so far

If you're not doing anything beyond using them while the app is in the foreground, then you probably won't have any issues. Try using them (on iOS or Android) when the app is in the background, or not running.

 

5 hours ago, TomDevOps said:

they are not a part of FMX anyway

Rollo may have been referring to them as being supported in the RTL, rather than users having to write more code to use them, such as Xcode and Android Studio developers do.

[Guest]

@Dave Nottage, agree!

[Yaroslav Brovin 30]

Flutter is interesting. Instant run, interesting language. BUT, we love Delphi for good and convenient working with DB, incredibly fast creating UI mock. And I'm sure the biggest part of developers in this forum has a lot of existing Delphi code, which is very interesting to run in mobile platforms. So I believe Flutter is not a magic bullet. I'll say the obvious thing, but each technologies has advantages and disadvantages for each project. So everybody select solution based on his own preferences.

Edited December 25, 2019 by Yaroslav Brovin

[Jose Morango 2]

On 12/25/2019 at 12:04 AM, Yaroslav Brovin said:

Flutter is interesting. Instant run, interesting language. BUT, we love Delphi for good and convenient working with DB, incredibly fast creating UI mock. And I'm sure the biggest part of developers in this forum has a lot of existing Delphi code, which is very interesting to run in mobile platforms. So I believe Flutter is not a magic bullet. I'll say the obvious thing, but each technologies has advantages and disadvantages for each project. So everybody select solution based on his own preferences.

Hi Yaroslav,  Any date for iOS FGX-Native , I'm still counting on You My friend 🙂

Edited July 19, 2020 by Jose Morango

[Yaroslav Brovin 30]