Last month Embarcadero made available RAD Studio, C++Builder and Delphi 10.4 Sydney Release 2 (https://blogs.embarcadero.com/announcing-the-availability-of-rad-studio-10-4-2-sydney-release-2/). This update of the 10.product 4 adds several new features, improves quality, and has been very well received by our customers.
In this blog post I want to touch on some of the features and the feedback we received, mostly referring to internal and external blog posts.
Microsoft WebView2 Support (aka Edge Chromium)
We now support the release version, which works against the official control and doesn’t require you to install Edge (Canary or regular) but only the “control” version. Jim has a very nice blog post on the improvements on the TEdgeBrowser component, including the steps on how to configure your application to use the released version of WebView2 in 10.4.2:
https://blogs.embarcadero.com/execute-scripts-and-view-source-with-tedgebrowser/
Delphi Compiler Performance
Improvements in Delphi compiler performance are very significant in 10.4.2 (although the real effects depend heavily on each application size and structure). A few blog posts:
https://www.kassebaum.eu/2021/03/03/delphi-10-4-2/
https://www.tmssoftware.com/site/blog.asp?post=759
https://blogs.embarcadero.com/delphi-10-4-2-compiler-speed-improvements/
https://www.ideasawakened.com/post/rad-studio-10-4-2-speed-test-against-10-4-1
Demos from the Launch Webinar and Other Sessions
Jim has collected a few demos used to demonstrate 10.4.2, including the new TControlList VCL component, in a GitHub repository at
https://github.com/Embarcadero/RADStudio-DemoKit
By the way, the launch webinar replay is available at https://youtu.be/AZ4ba9Tf3qE (notice that with all Q&A recordings for 3 sessions the total length is over 4 hours, but the main presentation is less than one hour long).
VCL Control List and Remote Desktop Support
This is a nice video on the new component: https://learndelphi.tv/272-tcontrollist
Improvements in Remote Desktop support for VCL applications (and additional code you can write): https://flixengineering.com/archives/1506 and https://blogs.embarcadero.com/how-to-speed-up-remote-desktop-applications/
Silent Installer
Silent installation is quite handy, here is a recap with the parameters you can use: https://blogs.embarcadero.com/rad-studio-10-4-2-silent-installer-makes-it-easy-automate-the-installation-process/
More to Come
Keep an eye to the Embarcadero blogs (https://blogs.embarcadero.com) and to DelphiFeeds (https://www.delphifeeds.com/, now managed by Embarcadero) for more information about the 10.4.2 release.