Marco Tech Blog

April 10, 2015

What's New in Delphi XE8 for VCL developers

With many new features introduced in Delphi (and C++Builder) XE8, some developers have the impression there is little in it for Windows VCL developers, not interested in mobile. In fact, there is a plethora of new features in XE8, even if you don't care about mobile and FireMonkey.

posted by marcocantu @ 10:40AM | 10 Comments [0 Pending]

XE8 fixed 

"VCL and RTL Fixes and Quality Improvements" - see
http://edn.embarcadero.com/article/44358

I have a beef with Embarcadero's policy of not fixing
bugs in the current release - why are bugs not fixed
in the current release, rather than forcing an upgrade?

Are XE8 bugs going to be fixed or do I need to
purchase XE9?  Typically it is half and half - one or
two updates are made and then you need to repeat the
cycle with the next major release, and hope it fixes
more bugs than introduces.

I got burnt with XE3 64 bit C++, where there were
major bugs which made it unusable, and these bugs were
not fixed in XE3, only XE4.

With my business I'm still putting out bugs fixes for
products some 12 years ago, which are many generations
out of date. I wish Embarcadero would do the same.

Comment by dstevens [] on April 10, 11:58

DataSnap XE8 

it seems in the DataSnap XE 8 transfer of TList <T> 
class crashed, the problem seems to be the new 
property "FListHelper: TListHelper" 

error is "tkpointer is not currently supported"

Comment by Luiz Fernando Trevisan on April 10, 17:41

Whats New in Delphi XE8 for VCL developers 

Oddly nobody else mentions TSocket from 
System.Net.Socket. That sounds like a huge 
improvement to me. 

Comment by Gad D Lord [] on April 11, 00:11

Whats New in Delphi XE8 for VCL developers 

I rather would see High DPI awareness / 4k support in
VCL and IDE and new libraries like PDF writers, Region
and scene support in TCanvas etc.

Comment by Peter on April 12, 03:25

Bugfixes in previous versions 

 @DStevens: it depends on the bugs. There is actually a 
Hotfix for XE7 that was just released Friday, which is after 
the XE8 release:

http://cc.embarcadero.com/item/30190

The new Update Subscription includes updates for older 
versions after the new version comes out.

https://www.embarcadero.com/products/rad-studio/update-
subscription

I've worked at a lot of software shops, and I know it is a 
complex issue deciding in what versions to fix issues. I've 
had to maintain multiple release versions which means fixing 
bugs in multiple branches, and fixing a bug in 2 versions is 
often twice as much work.

Comment by Jim McKeeth [http://delphi.org] on April 13, 18:28

Whats New in Delphi XE8 for VCL developers 

 Happy about the WinAPI.WinHTTP.pas. I failed to 
find it in the CHM help though. 

Now we wait for WinAPI.WinINet.pas enhancements to 
include the missing:

const
  // HttpOpenRequest prettifers for optional 
parameters
  WININET_DEFAULT_VERSION = nil;
  WININET_NO_REFERER = nil;
  WININET_DEFAULT_ACCEPT_TYPES = nil;

type
  INTERNET_ASYNC_RESULT = record
    { Result. This parameter can be an HINTERNET 
handle, unsigned long integer, or Boolean return 
code from an asynchronous function. }
    dwResult: ^DWORD;
    { Error code, if dwResult indicates that the 
function failed. If the operation succeeded, this 
member usually contains ERROR_SUCCESS. }
    dwError: DWORD;
  end;

  LPINTERNET_ASYNC_RESULT = ^INTERNET_ASYNC_RESULT;

{$REGION 'Internet Status Codes'}
const
  // These new INTERNET_STATUS codes were defined 
for Internet Explorer 6
  // They are not documented in MSDN.
  // 
https://searchcode.com/codesearch/view/5161759/
  INTERNET_STATUS_USER_INPUT_REQUIRED      = 64;
  INTERNET_STATUS_DETECTING_PROXY          = 80;
  INTERNET_STATUS_COOKIE_SENT              = 320;
  INTERNET_STATUS_COOKIE_RECEIVED          = 321;
  INTERNET_STATUS_COOKIE_STATE             = 322;
  INTERNET_STATUS_COOKIE_SUPPRESSED        = 323;
  INTERNET_STATUS_PRIVACY_IMPACTED         = 324;
  INTERNET_STATUS_P3P_HEADER               = 325;
  INTERNET_STATUS_P3P_POLICYREF            = 326;
  INTERNET_STATUS_COOKIE_HISTORY           = 327;
  INTERNET_STATUS_SSL_NEGOTIATION_COMPLETE = 401;

  HTTP_STATUS_RETRY_WITH              = 449;
{$ENDREGION}

{$REGION 'Error Codes'}
const
  ERROR_INTERNET_NEED_UI = 12034;
  ERROR_INTERNET_FORTEZZA_LOGIN_NEEDED = 12054;
  ERROR_INTERNET_SEC_CERT_ERRORS = 12055;
  ERROR_INTERNET_SEC_CERT_NO_REV = 12056;
{$ENDREGION}

Comment by Gad D Lord [http://www.mtgstudio.com] on April 14, 21:12

Whats New in Delphi XE8 for VCL developers 

Any date concerning the delivery of clang version of 
bcc32? Always 3.1? 

Comment by Alvaro Surtees on April 23, 09:16

Whats New in Delphi XE8 for VCL developers 

Marco,
Can you provide an example of using Datasnap client 
connection with HTTPS without OpenSSL library?

Thanks.

Comment by Misha Oumantsev [http://www.3log.com] on April 24, 17:15

Whats New in Delphi XE8 for VCL developers 

First i congratulate all the team members for these 
new release and the new tools. All improvements 
sound very good. I want to focus on the Getit tool, 
since i've been proposing a "delphi a la carte" 
with this tool is now posible i think. There is a 
lot of components incluided that perhaps aren't 
use, for instance the i prefer unidac over firedac. 
there are third party components that i prefer over 
delphi includedd ones, so maybe Marco you can do 
something for the next version. One last thing, 
I've been trying to teach Delphi in my town but the 
lack of a Delphi "express" or Srtarter for free, 
make them prefer visual studio community edition, 
they also argue that with new microsoft's strategy, 
they will be multiplatform. What's Embarcadero 
strategy in this issue?. Regards and the best for 
you and your team.

Comment by Felipe Piña on May 6, 16:36

Whats New in Delphi XE8 for VCL developers 

The new TNetHttpClient is great, but... for what is 
any internet component good when you cant set a 
timeout and have to wait until windows decide its 
time to timeout?

Comment by Softtouch [http://ssdnet.biz] on September 21, 01:18