Low code app development is increasingly popular today, and for good reason: it speaks to the demand for software paired with the difficulty of creating it. In many ways, Delphi led the low code revolution: RAD, where you build software by connecting components in a visual designer, is low code. The key with many low code solutions is extensibility: low code which cannot be extended to a traditionally coded app has a hard upper limit of functionality. If you’re a technology adviser, you do not want to recommend something which will limit your client or company. The best development solutions that target low code provide an avenue to grow and extend. In this too, Delphi excels.
Until recently in Delphi you still had to create a new project and create the forms or screens yourself – no matter how little code you may have to write to get powerful functionality when you did. This is something we’ve now addressed with an addon to 10.4.2.
In GetIt for 10.4.2 and later is a Low Code App Wizard for FireMonkey, our technology for cross-platform applications. Once installed, the New Items dialog lets you run a wizard which will create a Delphi FireMonkey app for you. It is a fully functional cross-platform application, which already contains basic functionality that every mobile app will need — you can run and use the app as is — and hooks to build more, plus demonstrates application development best practices with a very clean extensible design to add more screens with low code, plus a set of tests to ensure your app remains high quality as you customise it.
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| Basic setup: Choose your app’s name, where to save it, and if you want a database. | Choose your app’s screens. If you selected to add a database on the previous page, you can also add a Data screen |
The app that Delphi builds for you is configurable through the wizard, but you can choose any set of the following:
- User accounts: sign up, sign in, and a profile screen, with hooks for your own authentication
- Settings screen (where you can change the app theme (light or dark), plus some example settings you can reuse or extend)
- Contacts screen
- Terms of Use, About, and Privacy policy screens, easily configurable for your own data
- A database layer: using Interbase, store data in your app
- An example new screen you can use as a template or example for adding new functionality
In other words, it generates the framework of an already working, useful application which you can extend using Delphi’s RAD (or low code) visual application design.
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| The generated wizard, showing the hamburger menu | The Settings screen, here showing the Theme setting plus some other example working settings |
Install the Low Code App Wizard through GetIt today, and use Delphi, one of the most productive development environments, providing you rapid development through visual design yet remaining fully extensible as your business needs grow.
