Andreano Lanusse | Technology and Software Development: Whats new in Delphi XE4?

This time you didn’t have to way a full year to see a new Delphi release, 8 months after XE3 release Delphi XE4 is out.

iOS development is the major topic of course and bring the second version of FireMonkey to iOS, a lot of expectation on this topic specially after XE2.

Also there is a bunch of new stuffs to talk about, like:

• New Delphi compiler for mobile platform, which brings several changes in the language and set a future path to the Delphi language, obvious these changes will affect desktop development in the future and you need to start learning about that now.
• The SQLite and InterBase support for iOS
• ClientDataSet available on iOS
• Several FireMonkey changes for iOS, componentes, new classes
• Etc..

RAD Studio XE4 now includes only Delphi, C++Builder and HTML5Builder. Delphi Prism is no longer part of RAD Studio, the name is dead and from now you have to refer to Oxygene from RemObjects. You can check the official communication from RemObjects here, where Marc Hoffman provide more details about the future related to .NET development with Oxygene (old Prism) and their support to iOS and Android development.

Trial is already available here or if you prefer download the full Delphi and C++Builder ISO here.

The Delphi XE4 documentation has a extensive list of What’s new in Delphi and C++Builder XE4, below the table of content:

• 1 Getting Started with iOS Application Development (iOS Tutorials)
  • 1.1 Setting Up Your iOS Development Environment
  • 1.2 Using Basic iOS User Interface Elements
  • 1.3 Using iOS Device Functionality
  • 1.4 Accessing a Database
• 2 FireMonkey Changes for XE4
  • 2.1 Components for iOS
    • 2.1.1 Camera for iOS
    • 2.1.2 Magnifier Glass
    • 2.1.3 Phone Dialer for iOS
    • 2.1.4 Pickers for iOS
    • 2.1.5 Text Editing in iOS
    • 2.1.6 Virtual Keyboard for iOS
    • 2.1.7 WebBrowser for iOS
  • 2.2 FireMonkey Frames
  • 2.3 Touch and Gestures for iOS
  • 2.4 New TListView Component, Compared to Existing TListBox Component
  • 2.5 Media Actions for iOS
  • 2.6 Native Styles for iOS
  • 2.7 Using Styles in XE4
  • 2.8 Mac OS X Fullscreen Mode
  • 2.9 Sensors
  • 2.10 Text Layout and Text Service Enhancements
    • 2.10.1 Text Layout
    • 2.10.2 Text Service
  • 2.11 FireMonkey Services
    • 2.11.1 Platform Services
    • 2.11.2 Notification Center for iOS
  • 2.12 Margins and Padding for FireMonkey Controls
  • 2.13 New FireMonkey Units
  • 2.14 Refactored FireMonkey Classes
    • 2.14.1 Caret Property Now Published
    • 2.14.2 HScrollBar and VScrollBar Now Protected
  • 2.15 Improvements in Action List editor
  • 2.16 FireMonkey Advanced Platform-Independent Scrolling Engine
• 3 Platform Assistant (PAServer) Changes for XE4
  • 3.1 Installer and Name Changes on the Mac
  • 3.2 Help Reorganized for PAServer
• 4 Delphi Compiler Changes for XE4
  • 4.1 Two New Delphi Mobile Compilers for iOS
    • 4.1.1 Differences between Delphi Desktop Compilers and Delphi Mobile Compilers
  • 4.2 New Delphi Compiler Conditionals
  • 4.3 New Delphi Compiler Directives
  • 4.4 New Delphi Compiler Attributes
• 5 IDE Changes for XE4
  • 5.1 New FireMonkey Mobile Wizard
  • 5.2 iOS Target Platforms Supported
  • 5.3 New Mobile Form Designer
  • 5.4 Connection Profiles and SDKs (Replacing Remote Profiles)
    • 5.4.1 API Implementation of Connection Profiles and SDKs
  • 5.5 IDE and Project Options Changes
    • 5.5.1 Form Designer
    • 5.5.2 Application Options
    • 5.5.3 Version Info
    • 5.5.4 Provisioning
    • 5.5.5 Delphi Compiler Project Options
• 6 C++ Compiler Changes for XE4
• 7 Database Changes for XE4
• 8 DataSnap Changes for XE4
• 9 LiveBindings Changes for XE4
• 10 Run-Time Library (RTL) Changes for XE4
• 11 Debugger Changes for XE4
• 12 Application Samples Changes for XE4
  • 12.1 New FireMonkey iOS Samples
  • 12.2 New FireMonkey iOS Code Snippets
• 13 Online Help Changes for XE4
  • 13.1 Checkbox to Display or Hide Inherited Members
  • 13.2 PAServer Help Reorganized
  • 13.3 Some Notable New Help Topics
  • 13.4 Some Notable New Code Examples
• 14 See Also

That’s it for now.

Andreano Lanusse | Technology and Software Development
Follow me on Twitter: @andreanolanusse