RAD Studio 11.1 is the next release of all our favorite development tools. Join Marco Cantu, David Millington, Kyle Wheeler, and Jim McKeeth for this webinar to take a look at what is new in RAD Studio Alexandria 11.1. A must see webinar for all fans of Delphi, C++Builder, and RAD Studio.
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Table of Contents
Watch the Replay on YouTube
RAD Studio 11.1 Slides
The Landscape
- Microsoft released Windows 11
- Fully focused on it, key reason for picking “11”
- New dev platform Windows App SDK (aka Project Reunion)
- Transition to ARM on desktop
- Led by Apple with MacOS
- Plus, ARM reigns on mobile platforms
- Developers on 4K
- High resolution and multiscreen are common for developers
- Growing also for end-users
What’s Great in RAD Studio
Developer Productivity – Shipping is a feature. Get to market 5x faster with Delphi and C++ Builder
Fast Native Apps – With native compilers, RAD Studio gives your apps the speed they need (no bloat)
Database Access – Key to Delphi’s initial design, database access is integral to RAD Studio
Powerful C++ Libraries – Hundreds of C++ libraries can be used in C++Builder or Delphi in RAD Studio
Platform API Access – Gives you access to the entire platform APIs on all platforms
Visual Designers – Forget prototyping in another tool, just design it and finish it in the RAD Studio IDE
Strong Community – Full of Technology Partners, MVPs, trainers, authors and developers
Backward Compatibility – You have an investment in your code, RAD Studio keeps that relevant
RAD Studio 11.0 Summary
- Large Focus on IDE
- IDE High DPI and High DPI enabled form designer
- VCL styles in VCL designer; improvements to FMX designer and Multi-window design/code for a unit
- LSP quality and new C++ code formatter
- New Welcome page
- Visual Studio Code LSP support
- Minimal installer improvements
- Delphi and C++ compilers and toolchains
- C++ Quality: RTTI (components); exception handling
- Delphi MacOS 64 ARM (M1) compiler and toolchain
- Minor Delphi language improvements RAD Studio 11.0 Summary
- Libraries Improvements
- Delphi RTL quality: TZipFile, 64-bit data structures, Bluetooth LE
- VCL Modernization work
- Better FMX High DPI on Windows and desktop integration, including WebView 2
- Android API 30 support and related work
- Additional Delphi Platforms
- Support for WSL 2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux)
- Including WSLg (Linux GUI) on Windows 11
RAD Studio 11.1 Overview
- Focus on Quality and Improvements
- Usability, performance, stability
- Some new small IDE features
- Better Code Insight and LSP
- For both languages, Delphi and C++
- Platforms and Tooling
- Official support for Windows 11, MacOS 12 Monterey, iOS 15, and Android 12
- Libraries
- Performance and quality improvements and small additions to Delphi RTL, database libraries, VCL, FireMonkey
RAD Studio IDE
11.0: IDE and Designers
- High DPI IDE
- Crisp fonts in all windows and the editor
- High DPI enabled form designer
- Active Styles in VCL Designer
11.1: IDE Quality
- Extensive High DPI IDE quality
- Better use of the IDE with Remote Desktop Improvements in Toolbar, font sizing
- Better scaling when dragging windows between different resolution monitors
- Additional IDE Fix Pack integration
- Improved High DPI designers for VCL and FireMonkey and the styled VCL form designer
- GetIt dialog enhancements with image caching and reworked UI (based on VCL TControlList)
- “Start working” in user mode
11.1: IDE Enhancements
- Messages view: errors, warnings, and hints are differentiated by color (the colors can be customized)
- New Items dialog: available platforms for each item
- Also uses TControlList and offers other views
- The Compile dialog shows the platform and build configuration
11.0: New Welcome Page
- New native Welcome page, VCL based and flexible
- Layout and content is fully customizable: show what and where you want
11.1: Welcome Page Updates
- Background wallpapers
- Predefined for each of the 3 styles, you can use a custom image
- Supports adding custom frames with ToolsAPI
- Demos on github.com/Embarcadero/RADStudio11Demos in Object Pascal ➤ VCL ➤ VCL WelcomePage
11.1 Code Insight Across Delphi and C++Builder
- Delphi LSP quality work
- Big performance improvements, in common scenarios operations are 5-30x faster
- Biggest changes for units with lots of dependences
- Improvements: type parameters when completing a class declaration, including T in a generic declaration, and showing set types
- Extensive C++ cquery quality work
- Significant improvement to the features and performance (e.g., 30s down to 2 seconds)
- Planning a special C++ only follow-up release soon with even more improvements
C++ and Delphi Compilers and Tools
11.0 Compilers
- New Delphi MacOS 64-bit ARM target platform
- Universal binary (package Intel + ARM)
- Minor Delphi language enhancements
- Binary literals and digit separator support
- Inline assembler support for AVX instructions (AVX-512)
- C++ Compilers
- Improved RTTI (for components)
- Further work on exception handling
- CMake: revision of functionality and packages it can handle
- C++/Delphi interop improvements
11.1 Compilers and Debuggers
- Delphi compilers improve stability and performance (when used by LSP engine)
- The Delphi and C++Builder Window compilers have additional support for ASLR, DEP/NX, and TSAWARE platform security settings, now enabled by default
- New Delphi Debuggers based on LLDB
- Delphi macOS 64-bit ARM debugger
- Delphi Android 64-bit debugger
- Part of strategic direction for RAD Studio debuggers to LLDB
- C++ compiler, STL and RTL quality
- Further improved Delphi RTL integration
- For example, dynamic array with STL iterators
- Further improved Delphi RTL integration
New Linker Options
- Data Execution Prevention (DEP)
- Allows the system to mark one or more pages of memory as non-executable preventing code from running from these regions of memory, making it harder to exploit buffer overruns.
- Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR)
- Randomly arranges the address space positions of key data areas of a process, including the base of the executable and the positions of the stack, heap and libraries.
- Prevents exploitation of memory corruption vulnerabilities.
- High-entropy 64-bit ASLR (Only in 64-bit applications)
- Allows ASLR to use the entire 64-bit address space.
- Terminal Services
- Create Terminal Server aware (TSAWARE) applications.
New 11.1 Delphi Compiler Linking Options
New 11.1 C++Builder Linker Options
RAD 11.1 Libraries Quality & Improvements
“Alexandria” VCL Improvements
- 11.0: Modernization Work
- “New” RichEdit implementation (RichEdit 4.1)
- Large collection of small improvements focused on removing XP legacies
- New TDBLabeledEdit component
- 11.1 VCL focus on recent features
- Including enhanced TTreeView, TRichEdit, TEdgeBrowser, TLabelledEdit and TNumberBox, flickering and DoubleBuffering, VCL High-DPI and scaling issues
- A Delphi WinUI3 demo (available in GetIt)
- Part of our Windows App SDK focus
FireMonkey in “Alexandria”
11.0 Desktop and Mobile Improvements
- Better FMX Windows and desktop integration
- FireMonkey Windows High-DPI improvements
- From pixels to device independent units (PX to DP)
- Target Android API 30 (AndroidX, in-app purchases,
- matching new Play Store requirements)
- WebView 2 (Chromium Edge) implementation of TWebBrowser
11.1 Quality Work
- TListView and TWebBrowser quality
- Improved Android SDK integration
- Windows High DPI-related issues
- Performance and much more
Delphi RTL in “Alexandria”
- 11.0 Key Features
- TZipFile (including Zip64, files deletion, quality improvements and optimizations)
- Large data structures (and 64-bit) improvements
- Lists, large stream operations, dictionary improvements for hashing and capacity
- Record helpers for TDateTime and TCurrency, UTCNow function
- New core classes: TNoRefCountObject and TPointerStream
- Bluetooth LE quality (for most platforms)
- Performance optimizations and RTTI improvements (open array support)
- PPL Thread pool statistics
- 11.1 Delphi RTL optimization and quality work
- New TURLStream class (a TStream descendant with support for async operations)
- Support for Window 11 and Server 2022 in the TOSVersion data structure
11.1 Data and Internet Improvements
- Data RTL and FireDAC Improvements
- FireDAC Structure View integration
- Support for MariaDB 10.6, SQLite Encryption Extension (SEE), Firebird 4 new data types
- RAD Server
- New REST SysAdmin endpoints for logs handling, backups management, and database validation
- Integrated deployment feature for RSLite
- RAD Server Lite (introduced in 11.0): Embeds IBToGo, easy to deploy, unlimited deployment, limited throughput
- Web Technologies
- WebBroker on Android
- DataSnap quality
11.1 Quality Portal and Overall Quality
- Specific fixes for over 650 QP issues
- New Features: 30
- Bugs: 632*
*Estimate, pending final testing on a few issues, doesn’t include duplicates and won’t fix/works as expected items
- QP issues addressed by product area:
- IDE: over 250 issues
- FireMonkey and VCL: around 100 issues each
- RTL, Data, Compilers: over 50 issues for each area
Additional Product Initiatives
- Appercept’s AWS SDK for Delphi
- Long term distribution deal, included in Enterprise and Architect
- New releases expected at a constant pace
- Delphi UI libraries (VCL + FMX) for Python
- Free UI library for Python developers
- Upgrade to a Delphi license for additional power and features
- Also, you can use Python in Delphi applications
RAD Studio 11.1 Summary
- Focus on Quality and Improvements
- Usability, performance, stability
- Extensive High DPI IDE quality (and Remote Desktop)
- Improved High DPI designers for VCL and FireMonkey and the styled VCL form designer
- Welcome Page now offers background images and supports adding custom frames
- GetIt dialog with cached images and a reworked UI
- Small new IDE features
- Better Code Insight and LSP
- Significative C++ cquery LSP engine work
- Delphi LSP performance focus and quality
- Platforms and Tooling
- Official support for Windows 11, MacOS 12 Monterey , iOS 15, and Android 12
- Delphi MacOS 64-bit ARM debugger and Android 64-bit debugger based on LLDB
- C++ STL and RTL improve
- Libraries
- Performance and quality improvements and small additions to Delphi RTL, database libraries, VCL, FireMonkey
- Some new small features
More Information
- Marco’s announcement blog post blogs.embarcadero.com/announcing-the-availability-of-rad-studio-11-1-alexandria/
- See What’s New in 11.1 Alexandria embarcadero.com/products/rad-studio/whats-new-in-11-alexandria
- What’s New page in the DocWiki embarcadero.com/RADStudio/Alexandria/en/11_Alexandria_-_Release_1
- List of customer reported issues addressed in RAD Studio 11.1 docwiki.embarcadero.com/RADStudio/Alexandria/en/New_features_and_customer_reported_issues_fixed_in_RAD_Studio_11.1
- RAD Studio feature matrix at embarcadero.com/docs/rad-studio-feature-matrix.pdf
- Updated RAD Studio 11 demos on GitHub at github.com/Embarcadero/RADStudio11Demos
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