This UK BUG Masterclass was held on 7th August, 2001 in Hammersmith, England.

Click here for the files that accompany this seminar.

Contents

Introduction

• e-Business with the ability to write and access Web Services and Web applications.
• Enterprise development with support for XML, SOAP and enhanced CORBA support.
• Cross-platform development at the source level with CLX and dbExpress.

We will look into these areas as well as all the other improvements made since Delphi 5 (released August 1999).

Below is a bullet point agenda of what we will try and cover.

Note that this agenda is based on a pre-release version of the product and so is subject to change.

BizSnap

"Full Business-to-Business Web Services Integration"

• Ability to create Web Services in Delphi
• Invokable interfaces are interfaces with RTTI generated on them for remotable invocation.
• Remote interfaced objects (RIOs) implement invokable interfaces in Web Services.
• THTTPSoapDispatcher picks up SOAP messages and dispatches them accordingly.
• THTTPSoapPascalInvoker turns SOAP messages into direct calls to the invokable interface's methods.
• TWSDLHTMLPublish publishes a WSDL document describing the service to non-Delphi clients.
• Ability to connect to Web Services from Delphi client applications
• Non-Delphi Web Services are accessed by importing their WSDL documents to generate interface definitions.
• THTTPRIO acts as a stand-in for the Web Service RIO.
• You call the RIO's interface methods through the THTTPRIO.
• XML Document Manipulation
• TXMLDocument represents an XML document.
• It allows you to read an XML document, edit it save the changes back again.
• XML Data Binding Wizard can read in schema files and generate code that represents the document with a natural and intuitive property-based programming model.
• XML data bindings replace the complex coding required to use the XML Document Object Model (DOM) interfaces.
• Supports the W3C DOM Level 2 specification with platform-independent and vendor-independent interfaces.
• Makes use of any compliant XML parsers installed one the machine.
• XML Transform components are provided to allow XML documents to be used in place of database servers.
• The components transform between client dataset data packets and XML.
• An XML Mapper utility is provided which can read in schema files and allows you to set up the transformations.

WebSnap

"Brings Power and Speed to Web Application Development"

• WebBroker still present and now supports Apache Web Server.
• Impetus is now on WebSnap, which allows component-based Web server development.
• Allows multiple Web modules in an application.
• Web Page Surface Designers help you build your application surfaces in HTML with instant browser previews.
• XML Tree and XSL Tree displays to present any XML/XSL documents with indentations and syntax highlighting.
• Pre-built scriptable components - datasets, login forms, end-user sessions and so on.
• Page producers and dispatchers for servicing standard XSL-transformed XML pages, logical pages and your own custom adapters and services.
• XSL page producers for combining XML data with XSL transforms.
• Server-side scriptable Web Page components to easily interface with Web site development teams and script writers.
• Server-side scripting with JavaScript, VBScript and any ActiveScript language.
• Active script debugging support
• WebSnap debug server aids debugging Web applications. Allows you to monitor HTTP requests, responses, and response time and to develop WebBroker and WebSnap applications without installing a commercial Web server. Also works with WebBroker applications. (Available in Professional and Enterprise Editions).

DataSnap

"Lets You Build High-performance Web Service-enabled Middleware"

• DataSnap is the new name for the next version of MIDAS.
• DataSnap does the same job as MIDAS, but now allows you to connect between a client program and an application server through XML/SOAP.
• Application servers can therefore now be Web Services.
• A new SOAP Server Data Module is provided for building application servers with.
• Support for connection brokers has been added, to make it easier to switch the connection used by many components.
• Client datasets now make it easy to get at their data in XML format.

IDE

• Window menu
• Internet toolbar for WebSnap applications
• Object TreeView (like hierarchy pane in Delphi 5 Data Module Designer)
• Code editor
• Surface designers (not in Personal Edition)
• Diagram page (from Delphi 5 Data Module Designer, but applicable to all designers) (not in Personal Edition)
• WebSnap pages (only in Enterprise Edition)
• Drag and drop tabs
• Code Completion
• Visual Basic emulation keybinding
• Emacs demo custom keybinding
• Data Module Designer reverts to Delphi 4 functionality.
• Object Inspector
• Properties dialog
• Instance list
• Expandable inline component references
• Form designer
• Context menu
• Tooltips
• Designer page on environment options dialog
• Component Palette
• Page names
• Context menu page items
• Automatic docking can be disabled

Compiler

• Enumerated types with explicitly assigned ordinality
• New language directives
• platform, library and deprecated
• varargs
• New compiler directives
• $WARN SYMBOL_LIBRARY OFF, etc.
• $SetPEFlags and $SetPEOptFlags
• MSWINDOWS, LINUX and VER140
• $IF and ConditionalExpressions and Defined()
• $ALIGN
• $MESSAGE HINT, $MESSAGE WARN, $MESSAGE ERROR and $MESSAGE FATAL
• $LIBVERSION, $LIBSUFFIX and $LIBPREFIX
• Writeable constants are disabled by default and removed from RTL/VCL source
• CHASM (vs BASM) with new directives and instruction support for MMX, SIMD, Enhanced MMX and Intel SSE for the Pentium Pro, Pentium III, and Pentium 4 CPUs; and AMD Enhanced 3D for the AMD K7 CPUs

COM

• New COM objects can implement any existing, registered interface.
• Neutral threading model support.
• COM objects can be given COM+ attributes
• New wizard for COM+ event objects
• Transactional objects support MTS and COM+. MTS support was exclusive to Delphi 5 Enterprise but transactional objects are supported in Delphi 6 Professional Edition.
• TCOMAdminCatalog allows an application to act as an Automation controller for the COM+ administration tool.

Database

• dbExpress
• Lightweight database drivers that provide fast access to SQL database servers.
• Deploying a dbExpress application involves deploying one DLL (the server-specific driver) with optional connection information in a text config file.
• Alternatively, everything can be compiled into the executable by using some supplied DCUs.
• dbExpress uses unidirectional datasets for efficiency (no memory buffering, but quite limiting).
• Connect to a client dataset for bi-directional movement (TSQLClientDataSet is a compound component).
• Supports multiple transactions across a single connection
• TUpdateSQL can service multiple update objects.
• dbGo is the new name for ADOExpress
• New compound client dataset components that include built-in provider and source dataset: TBDEClientDataSet, TSQLClientDataSet and TIBClientDataSet
• MyBase is new term for briefcase application using client dataset and XML data

CORBA

• IDL2PAS for clients and servers, with associated wizards.
• VisiBroker 3.3 or 4.0x can be specified.
• Support for event and naming services.
• Support for Borland AppServer 4.5.1 SIDL (Simplified IDL) to connect to EJBs.

Actions

• Action main menu and action toolbar components which support actions being dragged on
• Supports setting colours, patterns, bitmaps or banners
• Less frequently used actions can be hidden, as in Windows 2000
• Action manager allows organisation of actions against UI elements
• Action customisation dialog is an end-user version of an action manager
• Many new standard actions have been added
• Rich edit actions for aligning text, bold, italic, etc.
• Help context action
• File menu actions (open, save as, run, exit, etc.)
• Search actions
• Page control and tab actions
• List actions
• Dialog actions
• Internet actions (browse URL, download URL, send mail)
• An action for customising action bars
• Actions now have additional properties, such as secondary shortcut and group index

VCL Enhancements

• TLabeledEdit
• TValueListEditor
• TColorBox
• TComboBoxEx
• Shell sample controls
• Miscellaneous enhancements
• TCheckListBox header colour and background colour
• TListBox auto-completion and virtual listbox support
• New bevel properties
• TDataModule is now in Forms unit to allow smaller UI-less applications to be written
• TThread FatalException property
• TTreeView allows easy custom node creation and enhances sorting ability
• TListView allows easy custom node creation
• TDateTimePicker Format property
• THeaderControl supports column dragging
• TToolBar Menu property
• TStringList case sensitivity
• THashedStringList
• Container enhancements including TBucketList and TObjectBucketList, which are simple hash tables
• TApplication.OnSettingChange reacts to changes in system-wide settings
• TForm supports layered forms with AlphaBlend, AlphaBlendValue, TransparentColor, and TransparentColorValue properties
• INI files and registry objects support binary data via a stream
• Menu items support autochecking
• Publishable interface properties
• Streamable subcomponents

RTL Enhancements

• ConvUtils.pas contains routines for converting between various measures, and comes with a demo
• StdConvs.pas contains variables used by ConvUtils.pas
• DateUtils.pas has many date and time functions in
• StrUtils.pas has additional string manipulation routines, including Soundex support
• Math.pas has new routines and some efficiency improvements
• IInterface is the new base interface. Both IUnknown and IInvokable are based on IInterface

Custom Variants

• New Variants unit containing all the Variant-manipulation routines
• Custom data types for Variants are supported
• Platform-independent Variant support now in place
• VarCmplx.pas unit implements a custom Variant for complex numbers
• VarConv.pas unit implements a custom Variant for measurements, such as those in ConvUtils.pas

Cross-Platform Development

• CLX with 160 components
• BaseCLX
• VisualCLX
• DataCLX
• NetCLX
• dbExpress
• Kylix required to compile for Linux

Translation Tools

• New name for ITE
• External Translation Manager can be deployed to translators without requiring full Delphi license