Smart Mobile Studio
  • News
  • Forums
  • Download
  • Store
  • Showcases
    • Featured demos
    • The Smart Contest 2013, Round 1 – Graphics
  • Documentation
    • Get the book
    • System requirements
    • Prerequisites
    • Getting started
      • Introduction
      • Application architecture
      • The application object
      • Forms and navigation
      • Message dialogs
      • Themes and styles
    • Project types
      • Visual project
      • Game project
      • Console project
    • Layout manager
    • Networking
      • TW3HttpRequest
      • TW3JSONP
      • Loading files
  • About

Tag Archives: OP4JS

SPNG: Be informed when values change

Posted on 08.04.2017 by Jon Lennart Posted in Developers log, News, News and articles 2 Comments

There are many new and powerful features in the upcoming release of Smart Mobile Studio (also refered to as Smart Pascal, Next Generation: SPNG in short): One of the most powerful is the ability to be notified when a value or object changes with a single line of code.

So far TVariant has just been a helper class for dealing with typical tasks. Well, perhaps not just typical because under Smart Pascal, variants can map directly to a javascript object (of any type) and allows you direct access to its prototype. The Handle property that all visual controls have is an example of this. The type TControlHandle is actually a reference to the visual element inside the DOM (document object mode). So by accessing that directly in your code, you can change styles, attributes and properties of that element. You are not bounds to only use our pre-fabricated solutions.

In the next update TVariant have a lot of new members. Two that stands out as important: watch() and unwatch().

As their name imply they will warch something for you. In this case you wil be notified whenever a single property, a whole object or indeed – a property deep within an object is altered. It may sound trivial but it’s actually one of those features that lays the foundation for responsive, data-aware controls.

But you can use it for many other things as well. For example you can now attach an event directly to a string. And whenever that string changes (either by your code, the user, or some other script) you can act on it directly. That is pretty cool and very helpful!

  // create an empty javascript object
  var MyValue: Variant := TVariant.CreateObject();

  // Set a default value
  MyValue.NewProperty := 12; // add a property and set a value

  // We want to know when the object changes
  TVariant.Watch(MyValue, "NewProperty", procedure ()
    begin
      showmessage("You changed the value!");
    end);

In this snippet we setup a javascript object and place a named-property inside that object. We then listen for changes to that property (by name even). So if you change that value further down in the code, or by calling some procedure elsewhere – the event will fire and show the message dialog.

This is of-cource just a tiny fragment of the new code that has been added, not to mention the changes and fixes. Some of these features are presently in alpha stage and is being tested. We will post more and more news in the days and weeks ahead – and we are sure you will be pleased with some the fantastic new things you can now code!

Here is an example of the new desktop and windowing applications you can write (picture below): The smart desktop!

The Smart desktop

We decided to update the uartex Media Desktop, an example initially made for touch based embedded environments – and turned it into a fully functional desktop environment!

Both the desktop itself, the filesystem, the IO drivers and windowing toolkit is written in Smart Pascal. You can create kiosk software designed to run on embedded devices, advanced applications designed to run on your intranet – or full cloud systems. So it can run a Smart application inside each Window if you like. But you have full control over windows, file access, directly listings, menu items and can sculpt both the desktop and applications to suit your needs.

The desktop can be coupled with a node.js backend that handles multi-user login and file access. It gives your users access to designated home-folders (again under your control). So each user can have their own work files just like a thin client, and each user can run different applications from a fully working desktop environment.

Below you are seeing Quake II compiled from C/C++ to LLVM bitcode. This is in turn compiled to JavaScript via asm.js. This means the browser will compile the javascript into machine code after loading. So Quake II runs at native speed, all JavaScript, inside our desktop window.

Create windowed applications with Smart Desktop

Create windowed applications with Smart Desktop

You will also be happy to head that x86 Linux and ARM kiosk distros have been created. So once happy with your desktop you can in fact boot straight into it in fullscreen. No Linux desktop or shell — just your desktop running. Both Firefox and Chrome can be used as presenter.

Have a great easter!

announcement code demo HTML5 javascript Object Pascal OP4JS release Smart Mobile Studio Upcoming features

That installer thing

Posted on 23.09.2016 by Jon Lennart Posted in Developers log

Smart Mobile Studio can be downloaded as a traditional installer-file for Microsoft Windows. This works quite well, especially when doing a clean install, and it would be very odd not to provide an installer in 2016.

However, we do get feedback from people that experience problems with this. Not the installer itself, but rather when they update their system by just installing on-top of an older installation, things become problematic. In short: depending on just how old that installation is, it can be plain sailing or a frustrating experience.

In newer versions of SMS you dont need to download a new installer

In newer versions of SMS you dont need to download a new installer

A while back we introduced the concept of “live updates”. In short Smart Mobile Studio ships with an automatic update application that makes sure you have the latest executables, the latest RTL and that your libraries are always fresh off the mint. Each version of Smart has its own channel inside the update program. The value of such a system is naturally that you dont have to keep on downloading installers, punch in the serial number – or that we accidentally overwrite or delete your own library files. The updater will only deal with the files known to it’s RTL, and leave your work in peace.

File IO is not just write and forget

Windows abound

Windows abound

Windows is not what it used to be. I personally think Windows has embraced the concept of users, access rights and credentials quite well (although Windows Vista made me leave the platform for Ubuntu Linux for a while). But all in all, Windows 7, 8 and 10 are a joy to use.

However, writing an installer that should be compatible with the majority of Windows systems (as many as possible) is not actually straight forward.  There are still things like credentials, roaming and non-roaming profiles, read/write rights, elevated users and functionality requiring admin notification (not to mention access bits on the filesystem itself); So a Windows box in Indonesia is not nessacarily identical to a Windows box in north America.

Microsoft have clear cut rules established for what paths to use when installing software. Smart Mobile Studio follows those rules always, but just because you follow the rules, doesnt mean that the user’s credentials (which propagate into everything he/she does) allows you to write all the files. This is where elevation comes in; Something that is finally easier to deal with in Delphi, the compiler we use to make Smart Mobile Studio.

We have seen people try to install Smart Mobile on thin clients and chrome-books, on roaming profiles in a corporate environment to their old Windows 98 machine. To make a long story short: modern Windows can be configured to be just about anything, and when installing a development platform you really need a normal PC without those restrictions. A developer machine.

Older installations

One of the biggest problems we have had and something that is topping our “how to” question chart, is when they have an ancient version of Smart Mobile Studio on their harddisk (anything from the first beta through version 2.0). This was before we added the automatic update program, and more importantly — the preferences files and dll files have since been utterly re-designed.

So they install the new version thinking it will replace some 3-4 year old install. But fact is, the installer will not overwrite the preferences file, and in many cases its not allowed to delete/replace the dll files. The old software prior to the update program must be manually un-installed through Windows before you install a more modern version (!)

What typically happens is that the old preferences file is left lingering on the system, the new executable tries to read it but finds none of the values it expects. This causes conflicts inside SMS, the server in particular is sensitive to this (which will be made more robust). This is not critical stuff, but annoying.

Using an old preferences file on a new exe will cause problems

Using an old preferences file on a new exe will cause problems, this is a typical stacktrace

The secondly, more critical, is when the older DLL files for the webkit rendering engine is left to linger. That means the header-files we use to talk with the DLL files wont match, causing a serious and show-stopping exception.

Again, manually uninstall the older version first. Then go into your “program files” folder and make sure to delete it completely. Same goes for “program data” (or appdata local or roaming). And last but not least, “user data” where library units, the RTL and various other tidbits are stored.

Using the update program

If you have a newer version you really dont need to download and use the installer. Simply start the update program and it will download the latest files. But its vital to remember that if you have made manual changes to the RTL files (which technically you shouldnt, but we dont mind as long as you stick to the license agreement for copying) – the update program will overwrite those files.

The point of the update program is to make sure the RTL, libraries, shims and IDE executable is the latest. It wont touch files that doesnt belong to SMS.

HTML5 Installer Object Pascal OP4JS Smart Mobile Studio

Events as objects

Posted on 18.01.2016 by Jon Lennart Posted in Developers log 5 Comments

Events are fun right? Well, only in part to be honest. For example, what do you do if you want to catch the same event but at different places?

This is where JavaScript’s addEventListener() comes into play. In short it allows you to add as many event-handlers to the same event as your heart desires. But raw unadulterated JavaScript is a bit of a mess, so I decided to wrap this up in clear cut objects. Oh, and I added a “fixed” event for when you want to have objects for standard events as well.

So now whenever you want to hook an event without ruining your published event-handlers (for instance in TW3CustomControl) you can just use one of these 🙂

Enjoy!

unit eventobjs;

interface

uses 
  w3c.dom,
  SmartCL.Components,
  SmartCL.System;

type


  TEventObjTriggeredEvent = procedure (sender:TObject;EventObj:JEvent);

  TEventObj = class(TObject)
  private
    FOwner:     TW3TagObj;
    FAttached:  Boolean;
    FEventName: String;
  protected
    procedure   HandleEvent(eobj:variant);virtual;
  public
    Property    Attached:Boolean read FAttached;
    procedure   Attach(EventName:String);
    procedure   Detach;
    constructor Create(AOwner:TW3TagObj);virtual;
    destructor  Destroy;Override;
  public
    Property    EventName:String read FEventName;
    Property    Owner:TW3TagObj read FOwner;
    Property    OnEvent: TEventObjTriggeredEvent;
  end;

  TFixedEventObj = class(TObject)
  protected
    FAttached:  Boolean;
    FOwner:     TW3TagObj;
    procedure   HandleEvent(eobj:variant);virtual;
  protected
    function    DoGetEventName:String;virtual;abstract;
  public
    Property    Attached:Boolean read FAttached;
    procedure   Attach;
    procedure   Detach;
    constructor Create(AOwner:TW3TagObj);virtual;
    destructor  Destroy;override;
  public
    Property    Owner:TW3TagObj read FOwner;
    Property    OnEvent: TEventObjTriggeredEvent;
  end;

  TElementRemovedEvent = class(TFixedEventObj)
  protected
    function  DoGetEventName:String;override;
  end;

  TElementAddedEvent = class(TFixedEventObj)
  protected
    function  DoGetEventName:String;override;
  end;

implementation


//#############################################################################
// TElementAddedEvent
//#############################################################################

function TElementAddedEvent.DoGetEventName:String;
begin
  result := "DOMNodeInserted";
end;

//#############################################################################
// TElementRemovedEvent
//#############################################################################

function TElementRemovedEvent.DoGetEventName:String;
begin
  result := "DOMNodeRemoved";
end;

//#############################################################################
// TFixedEventObj
//#############################################################################

constructor TFixedEventObj.Create(AOwner:TW3TagObj);
begin
  inherited Create;
  FOwner:=AOwner;
  Attach;
end;

destructor TFixedEventObj.Destroy;
begin
  Detach;
  inherited;
end;

procedure TFixedEventObj.Attach;
begin
  if FAttached then
  Detach;
  FOwner.Handle.addEventListener(DoGetEventName,@HandleEvent,true);
  FAttached := true;
end;

procedure TFixedEventObj.Detach;
begin
  if FAttached then
  begin
    FOwner.Handle.removeEventListener(DoGetEventName,@HandleEvent,true);
    FAttached := false;
  end;
end;

procedure TFixedEventObj.HandleEvent(eObj:variant);
begin
  if assigned(OnEvent) then
  OnEvent(self, JEvent(eObj));
end;

//#############################################################################
// TEventObj
//#############################################################################

constructor TEventObj.Create(AOwner:TW3TagObj);
begin
  inherited Create;
  FOwner := AOwner;
end;

destructor TEventObj.Destroy;
begin
  if FAttached then
  Detach;
  inherited;
end;

procedure TEventObj.HandleEvent(eobj:variant);
begin
  if assigned(OnEvent) then
  OnEvent(self,JEvent(eObj));
end;

procedure TEventObj.Attach(EventName:String);
begin
  if FAttached then
  Detach;

  FEventName := EventName;
  try
    FOwner.handle.addEventListener(FEventName,@HandleEvent,true);
  except
    FEventname:= '';
    FAttached:=false;
    exit;
  end;
  FAttached:=true;
end;

procedure TEventObj.Detach;
begin
  if FAttached then
  begin
    try
      FOwner.handle.removeEventListener(FEventName,@HandleEvent,true);
    finally
      FEventName := '';
      FAttached := false;
    end;
  end;
end;

end.
code events HTML5 javascript Object Pascal OP4JS Pascal Smart Mobile Studio w3C

Smart Mobile Studio 1.1 RC (build 1.1.0.400)

Posted on 15.02.2013 by Smart Mobile Studio Team Posted in News

We are very proud to present the release candidate for Smart Mobile Studio version 1.1  (build number v1.1.0.400). If you would like to give this groundbreaking product a test drive before we officially release it, then you can download the installer directly from SmartMobileStudio.com/download/setup_v1_1_0_400_rc.exe


(The context menu is replaced with Ctrl+Shift+R (start/stop recording) and Ctrl+Shift+P (replay the recorded macro).

We have done a lot of improvements in the IDE, the editor, the RTL and the Smart Pascal language. Below is a list of some of the improvements that have been done since version 1.0 (see full manifest of changes for beta 1 here).

IDE changes

  • Added: Support for external form files
  • Added: Navigate to ancestor from class-browser
  • Added: Components are now organized in more tabs
  • Added: RTL source proxy, speeds up compilation and dependency chain
  • Added: Syntax hints and improved code insight
  • Added: The IDE now uses threading to handle background compilation
  • Added: Dependencies for controls are automatically added to the uses clause
  • Fixed: Resizer bugs for nested controls
  • Fixed: Scrolling issue fixed ([CTRL] + [Up]/[Down])
  • Fixed: Disabled unit structure flickering
  • Fixed: LineCount issue
  • Fixed: Case fix for strict hints
  • Fixed: A label “mistake” in the baseframe (it was renamed further up the chain).
  • Fixed: modified [CTRL]+/ to work the same as in Delphi:
    • if a single line is changed, caret is moved to the next line (current column is preserved)
    • if multiple lines are selected, comment is toggled for the whole block and caret is move to the line following the block (current column is set to 1)
    • modification is placed into the undo buffer so that it can be undone
  • Altered: [CTRL]+[/] is replaced by [CTRL]+[#] for systems where [/] is only accessible via [SHIFT]
  • Altered: Minor changes on compiler output (bulk output of errors, warnings and hints).
  • Altered: Search and replace dialog remembers the last states
  • Altered: improved code proposal (insert item highlight)
  • Altered: dialogs are centered
  • Altered: Recent file on welcome tab now supports to show unlimited entries if desired (by default limited to 10 items)
  • Added: Pascal “Gabelou” StyleCop (see prefrences->misc. to enable it).
  • Added: Rename refactoring (including closed files)
  • Added ‘Format Keywords’ action (see popup menu), which translates all keywords to lowercase.
  • Added: Simplified BrowserAPI
  • Added: possibility to filter log messages from the console output (filtered ‘event.layerX and event.layerY are broken and deprecated …’ by default). Select a certain text to filter and right click -> Ignore Message to filter out all messages containing this particular string. The filter will be resetted on restart.

RTL

  • Updated: Remobjects headers
  • Updated: WebGL headers
  • Updated: Sprite3d
  • Added: DrawTo, DrawPart and misc CODEF functions added to TW3Canvas
  • Added: TW3Progressbar control
  • Added: TW3ListBox control
  • Added: Unit for complex numbers (w3complex.pas)
  • Minor formating and added overload function for CreateImageData
  • Added fast sequential read text file loaders
  • Applied the new ‘Format Keywords’ to the remaining RTL files
  • Removed duplicate & tweaked hash function
  • Improved hashing function
  • dialogs need custom initialization
    • modal dialog support integrated into TW3CustomApplication (ShowModal, HideModal)
    • modal dialog is re-centered if application is resized (for example when orientation of a mobile device changes)
    • added  TW3CustomApplication.CreateOpaqueMask
    • TW3CustomControl.getMaxZIndex is now public
    • modal dialogs triggered from modal dialogs are now supported
  • Fixed: zIndex issues with modal dialogs
  • Fixed: opaque layer has high z-index to cover all controls on the form
  • Fixed: SendToBack
  • Altered: dialogs are centered on the form
  • Altered: event handlers are only called when assigned
  • Altered: W3ModalDialog made external for easier reuse
  • Altered: updated Remobjects interface
  • Altered: Changed default Mouse event X,Y coordinates
  • Added: W3ModalDialog uses opaque div to block owner form (tnx to Eric)
  • Added: PixelRatio info
  • Added TVariant.Properties + OwnProperties
  • Added HorzLine/VertLine
  • Added: New FillRectF/StrokeRectF overloads
  • Added: TW3CustomApplication.FormByName, TW3Component.ChildByName, TW3Component.EnumChildrenAltered: SetSize now virtual
  • Added: PhoneGapAPI is now complete

COMPILER

  • Added: Support for RTTI (!)
  • Added: Support for property expressions
  • Added: Support for interface expressions
  • Fixed: Case fixes for strict mode
  • Fixed: an issue where compiler would accept method implementations in a different unit the class was declared
  • Fixed: Lambdas don’t have a “var”/”const”/etc. section
  • Fixed: issue with invalid symbol table in suggestions in case of fatal error in a lambda
  • Fixed: SymbolDictionary bug for forwarded overloaded methods
  • Fixed: calling overloaded inherited constructors
  • Fixed: codegen for assignments of a function’s result to a var param
  • Fixed: timestamp is now up to date
  • Updated: now uses latest compiler core
  • Updated: tokenizer updated to latest revision
  • Altered: Compile speed optimizations
  • Added: Missing semi-colon no longer a stopping error
  • Added: JSON to reserved names
  • Added: JSON static class
  • Added: Preparation for source maps

DEMOS

  • Fixed: style bug in smartflow
  • Fixed: bug in spartacus
  • Fixed: bug in box2d wrapper
  • Altered: Tested all demos (with exception of gyro). All demos now compile.
  • Altered: formatting of Archimedes Spiral
  • Added: frames demo
  • Added: modal dialog example

Sincerely,
Jon Lennart Aasenden
—
The Smart Mobile Studio Team

Android announcement Apple candidate compiler CSS HTML5 javascript Object Pascal OP4JS Pascal release Smart Mobile Studio w3C webkit

Smart Contest 2013 – Round #1

Posted on 01.02.2013 by Smart Mobile Studio Team Posted in Developers log, News

February is upon us and so is our announced graphics competition! This is the first competition out of four this year. So this is your chance to win some exciting prices by showing off your Object Pascal skills!

The topic of this round is: graphics programming (eg. demo-scene, fractal art, visualizations etc).

The rules are as follows:

  • Registration before the 10th of February (registration at contest@smartmobilestudio.com)
  • Deliver your contribution before 1st of March
  • Games are not accepted this round (that’s scheduled for a later date)
  • User interaction is allowed (but not mandatory)
  • Porting of retro demos is allowed (providing it is a clean rewrite)
  • JavaScript snippets are allowed (within limits)

Fractal art

Fractal art

Demos

Demoscene

Prizes

First prize is a tablet device of your own choice (up to USD 750). So have your pick between

  • iPhone
  • iPad
  • iPad mini
  • Windows Tablet
  • Windows phone
  • Android tablet or phone

Judges

Primož Gabrijelčič

Developer of the popular omnithread library, author of the Smart Mobile Studio Bible, contributor to the Smart Mobile Studio IDE and RTL, and dedicated object pascal speaker and innovator

Christian Budde

Developer of various open source projects. Among these, the popular Delphi ASIO & VST Project for professional audio related development. Another focus of his work is Graphics, which is reflected in projects such as the modernized AggPas implementation, an independent object pascal png library and a native object pascal interface to TrueType fonts (called PascalType). He is also contributor and maintainer of  Graphics32.

Currently he is working on the Smart Mobile Studio IDE and RTL.

Delivery

All contributions must be delivered in full source and binary with no missing pieces. The project must compile on the current version of Smart Mobile Studio (1.1 branch).

Happy coding!

Android announcement Apple competition delphi demo graphics iPad javascript Object Pascal OP4JS Prices Smart Contest 2013 Smart Mobile Studio Windows Tablet

Only days left

Posted on 11.05.2012 by Jon Lennart Posted in News 17 Comments
Only days to go

Only days to go

It is now only a matter of days before Smart Mobile Studio 1.0 goes on sale. It marks the end of a one year journey for us to create something completely new for the object pascal community, written in nothing but Delphi itself. But while the journey from idea to realization is over, the next stage of Smart technology is about to begin – and it’s going to be big. Really big.

In this our first release, focus has been on providing you with a solid foundation. A visual javascript component library (VJL) with identical parent/child relationship to what you are already familiar with. An integrated development environment with essential functionality including a component palette. And last but not least, a mock form designer with live rendering of the actual HTML5.

As we move ahead each aspect of the formula will be expanded, strengthened and refined. And while we cant blow the whistle just yet, we have something very exciting in our labs that is going to change everything. Forever.

This is quite possibly the most significant Pascal
development to be watching right now, and brings
the wonderful Pascal language to the world of
Internet development! -Simon Stuart, Delphi developer via Google+

FireFox HTML5 javascript Mozilla OP4JS Safari Safari Mobile Smart Mobile Studio webkit

What is new in community beta 2?

Posted on 25.04.2012 by Jon Lennart Posted in News 4 Comments

Below are some of the new features that has been added to Smart Mobile Studio community beta II. We hope you find our efforts in creating this product,a product that is both unique, innovative and extremely powerful, useful and interesting. Our customers can look forward to gestures, databases, even better browser support, Phone-Gap support and (last but not least) WebGL. We also aim for tight integration with classical Delphi server technology, like the Remobjects remoting framework and the C# websocket hub.
Continue reading→

C# fpc Free Pascal HTML5 javascript JS mono Object Pascal OP4JS Remobjects Smart Mobile Studio WebSocket

Pascal game developer’s compo!

Posted on 31.03.2012 by Jon Lennart Posted in Developers log
Waste of time? Think again!

Waste of time? Think again!

Many programmers don’t get the demo scene. What could be the point of spending hours, days and weeks on creating effects? Well for me the demo scene has been one of the best things in my life. I grew up with Commodore 64, MSX, Atari and Amiga machines. And while we all loved to play games only the few asked the magical question “how”. Some were happy to just play the games, but the rest of us, those that became programmers as adults, were always the people who just had to ask the question “how the hell did they do that”?

I have been extremely privileged growing up in Norway during the 1980’s and 90’s, nowhere in the world (with exception of Germany, Sweden and Finland) was the demo scene stronger than in Norway. Even to this day we fill the viking ship annually with thousands of young programmers full of creativity (check out this site for tickets to The Gathering). So there can be little doubt that the “demo scene” is primarily a European phenomenon.

PS: if you are looking for talent then The Gathering should be the proverbial shangri-la !

But why? What is it good for?

Demo coding is one of the best ways of growing as a programmer and as a thinking individual. The problems you face (like tweening objects, calculating sprite paths, how one object stands in context to another, proportion, animation cycles – the works!) will help you in every avenue of life, including your personal life since it involved organization and thinking in terms of context. It will benefit you in the most unlikely of scenarios: Take an example from my life, I always wanted to code games, but I spent many years coding invoice systems, win32 services and all the “boring stuff”. But one day my employers wanted a 3d look and feel to their report, so i ended up using the skills i learned as a demo coder to complete tasks. Without it those reports would have been very dry, very dull and not very productive. So it turned out to be my creative side that made the difference, not my education (!) You dont learn stuff like this at the university.

No matter what your interests might be, from games programming to spreadsheets – you are bound to face the same mathematics and the same train of thought. But those that really succeed in these things are the programmers who took the time to really experiment with demo and games coding. Anyone can code a spreadsheet, but it’s the hacker that makes the numbers bounce 😉

The Pascal Game Developer’s compo

Smart Mobile @ 98% complete

Smart Mobile @ 98% complete

When you think “pascal”, you think database driven business applications right? Well that’s just wrong. Delphi (which is the universal name for object pascal) earned that label because it made database programming simple in the early 90’s. But object pascal as a language is capable of so much more. So much so that databases become almost trivial in comparison. Remember all those high-speed dos games? (if you don’t, then get an emulator) A lot of those games were coded in turbo pascal. This was before we had full OOP and the might of the VCL at our fingertips.

It thus stands to reason that with all the power of the Delphi XE2 and the latest free-pascal compiler, that object pascal could knock out some serious games right? I mean — when compared to a commodore 64, Atari ST or Amiga?

Remember that the commodore 64 contained the same cpu-chip that powers most modern dishwasher’s today. Yet that little machine running at 1Mz with an 8bit bandwidth knocked out some pretty cool games! Now imagine what you could do with a computer 10.000 times faster, with 32 bit graphics, 24 bit sound and an IDE unlike anything we had back in the 80’s!

Well, unless you are reading this on a Pentium PC, that computer is what you have right now.

The gathering, Vikingship, Norway

The gathering, Vikingship, Norway

So… If they can do this on a 1mhz dishwasher, then surely we can do better right? With our dual-core processors, fifth generation 3d graphics chip-sets and latest operative systems?

Here are a couple of examples of what people can do with a commodore 64 (second video is from a modern PC, coded in machine code):

Instinct & Horizon C-64 Demo, 2008

And just how much brilliance can you pack into 64k of machine code?

Razor 1911 – my #1 demo group

And just to make it retro – here is the first Amiga demo i ever saw. This demo made me forget all about commodore 64 gaming, and ask the question “how”. This demo changed me from a gamer for a coder:

Doc – Demons are forever

Our mission is to follow javascript at every step. From it’s birth as HTML5 and onto it’s full evolution as a fully fledged multimedia system. We want to push the limits of what can be done under javascript to the full extent of it’s capabilities. And last but not least – to provide the infrastructure required for modern object pascal programmers to continue their hard earned experience and knowledge under a new platform. Javascript is quite alien to the average Delphi or FPC programmer, but with Smart you will be able to knock out apps with little effort.

Getting inspired

Today, the Pascal Game Developer competition started. And Smart was included in the list of allowed pascal compilers (jeey!). If you would like to use our product to push some limits then send us an email and we will return a preview version of smart (32bit) that you can use. You can use Smart as much as you want for the duration of the competition for free. While we are still in beta (with all the bells and whistles that pertains) there really is no compiler and IDE out there like Smart for webkit development!

Let’s push that border a couple of more inches, like pascal has always done 🙂

Click here for the pascal game developer’s website

About the author


Jon Lennart Aasenden is a software architect at Optimale Systemer AS. He is currently the lead developer of Smart Mobile Studio and have been a strong supporter of Delphi and object pascal since the beginning. He is also involved in the evangelizing of object pascal in Norway and is by many called “a Delphi fundamentalist” due to his somewhat radical teaching methods. The views of the author is his own and does not reflect the policy of Optimale Systemer AS.

delphi demo fpc freepascal game gamedev games javascript Object Pascal OP4JS Pascal scene

OP4JS: Happy new year

Posted on 01.01.2012 by Jon Lennart Posted in Developers log

I want to thank everyone that has taken the time to check out the alpha release, and wish everyone a happy new year! Thanks to your help we have a list of roughly 50 reports on things that needs to be fixed or changed – and they will all be addressed asap. Tomorrow the holidays is officially over in Norway and it’s back to work for all of us.

I am also amazed at how many demo’s we have seen already, considering that an Alpha is very much work in progress. Eric Grange knocked out a clone of the retro game missile command (low frame-rate video). On my iPad it runs at 230 frames per second. This is actually to fast to play 🙂 Primoz Gabrijelcic also made a nice fractal explorer as well which can be seen here.

Have a happy new year!

delphi graphics javascript OP4JS

OP4JS: Project file format

Posted on 29.11.2011 by Jon Lennart Posted in Developers log 3 Comments
Embed or reference, now you chose

Embed or reference, now you chose

In the olden days of 16 bit computing, most programming languages saved their projects in a single binary format. In short: all the files pertaining to your project was housed in a single file. The benefits were of-course that making backups was easier, and it was also easier to keep track of a project.

This is something that I have really missed in the age of modern computing. I have had some experiences with Delphi where i misplaced packages and source files and actually lost quite a bit of work. I don’t blame Delphi for this of-course, it has been completely my own fault and it all has to do with keeping 5 Mac’s and 3 PC’s in sync 😛

But still, i do miss being able to save an entire project – and I mean everything – in a single file. It was so easy when sending a project to a friend to just ship one single file (today we use SVN naturally but still), and also so much easier when making backups. You have a projects folder that contain X number of project-files, rather than a folder containing thousands of files, including the SVN revisions.

You can clearly see what file is on disk and which is resident

You can clearly see what file is on disk and which is resident by it's glyph

With OP4JS I’m bringing this old trend back. So you can finally mix and match between the “normal” way of organizing your project (one file per unit + project file + dependencies) or the old school “packaged” way (all files stored inside the project file). You can also keep some files resident and others external. Good if you want to share a unit with someone or just downloaded something from the net.

Import versus reference

Under vanilla Delphi you don’t import files, you reference them (explicit or implicit). I made a small twist to this concept so that if your project contains a file with the same name as an RTL file – it will always use that instead. If you chose to open an RTL file you are always given the option to create a duplicate – inside the project file. That way you can create your very own version of the RTL file without screwing up the system. It’s also invaluable during the development of new RTL files and bug-fixing the system.

Or good fun if you want to “mod” the RTL 🙂

delphi OP4JS

Console and gaming applications under OP4JS

Posted on 10.11.2011 by Jon Lennart Posted in Developers log 5 Comments
A simple console app

A simple console app

OP4JS is getting near to completion for each day that passes. We are currently implementing the final project types which are: console and gaming. Yes you read right – console.

Console

A console application under OP4JS is basically a visual project, but where an instance of TW3Console occupies the majority of the screen. It is meant for testing purposes (for now) where you want a quick and easy project type just to test out theories and play around with routines that doesn’t require forms.

We do have more plans for the console in future versions of OP4JS:

  • Command registration (think TActions but with params)
  • Built in REST command for testing http services
  • Pipe output to email

At present the console application supports WriteLn() which outputs both to the screen and to the actual console javascript object. This is handy because it means you can use XCode to see the output “live” if you want to (or any other remote debugger).

Gaming

The generic gaming project type is very simple, basically it puts safari mobile into full-screen, plasters a canvas in the view-port and uses a high-speed timer to force maximum redraw-rate. It is up to you to load in pictures and draw them using the methods in the canvas object.

Since i have coded a lot of 2d platform games earlier, you can expect to see a game library coming out as soon as the product has shipped. In fact it’s one of the things i’m eagerly looking forward to working on.

 

Console HTTP Log OP4JS REST

Hardware accelerated webkit animations

Posted on 30.10.2011 by Jon Lennart Posted in Developers log

Working with hardware accelerated webkit animations under vanilla Javascript can be daunting. First of all it takes a while to understand the interrupt driven nature of the webkit engine (or “trigger” based is perhaps a more familiar word to us Delphians) and secondly because there are actually two types of animations (transitions), explicit and non-explicit (animations), which adds to the complexities.

Under OP4JS we have started out by supporting animations only, which basically means that you can trigger a pre-defined animation using either TNamedAnimation or any of our ready-made animation classes. If you wish you can trigger non-explicit animations (or transitions) as much as you like, but you will have to set the tag properties and css values yourself. The heart of our animation system resides in the W3Effects.pas file that is going to ship with the RTL – and you can expect it to grow once we start to issue updates and service packs.

Let me show you how easy it is to setup a hardware acellerated animation and play it:

[sourcecode language=”delphi”]
Procedure TForm1.HandleEffectDone(Sender:TObject);
Begin
TW3NamedAnimation(sender).free;
end;

Procedure TForm1.MoveHeader;
Begin
FEffect:=TW3NamedAnimation.Create;
FEffect.AnimationName:=’HEADER-MOVE’;
FEffect.Duration:=0.80;
FEffect.ExecuteEx(FHeader,NIL,HandleEffectDone);
end;
[/sourcecode]

And in our CSS file we define our animation (this will be automated in a future version of OP4JS):

[sourcecode language=”CSS”]
@-webkit-keyframes HEADER-MOVE {
from {
left: 100%;
top: 0px;
} to {
left: 0px;
top: 0px;
}
}
[/sourcecode]

Voila. That’s all it takes to make a control references by FHeader (or any control you want) to fly across the top of the screen using hardware acceleration (when available, not all platforms supports it directly and resort to software).

Keep it simple

It’s easy to go overboard with effects like this so try to keep in mind that every phone model is unique and have different performance levels. I am currently using 2 hardware accelerated “movers” to navigate between forms, and the difference between the iPhone 3GS and 4G is quite dramatic. It seems 3GS does not support hardware unless your control is placed directly on the document. So while it’s easy to spin things around – we must be prudent in when we use these things. Nothing is worse than an app where the effects get in the way of the actual substance.

 

Animations CSS3 hardware OP4JS webkit

Pages

  • About
  • Feature Matrix
  • Forums
  • News
  • Release History
  • Download
  • Showcases
    • The Smart Contest 2013, Round 1 – Graphics
  • Store
  • Documentation
    • Creating your own controls
    • Debugging, exceptions and error handling
    • Differences between Delphi and Smart
    • Get the book
    • Getting started
      • Introduction
      • Local storage, session storage and global storage
      • Application architecture
      • The application object
      • Forms and navigation
      • Message dialogs
      • pmSmart Box Model
      • Themes and styles
    • Layout manager
    • Networking
      • Loading files
      • TW3HttpRequest
      • TW3JSONP
    • Prerequisites
    • Real data, talking to sqLite
    • System requirements
    • Project types
      • Visual project
      • Game project
      • Console project

Archives

  • December 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • February 2018
  • September 2017
  • April 2017
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • January 2016
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • July 2015
  • April 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011

Categories

  • Announcements (25)
  • Developers log (119)
  • Documentation (26)
  • News (104)
  • News and articles (16)

WordPress

  • Register
  • Log in
  • WordPress

Subscribe

  • Entries (RSS)
  • Comments (RSS)
© Optimale Systemer AS