3 ms·

Try Lazarus / Free Pascal, it is essentially a free and open source Delphi (really, it has even similar API and some companies who release middleware for Delphi

Try Lazarus / Free Pascal, it is essentially a free and open source Delphi (really, it has even similar API and some companies who release middleware for Delphi also release it for Lazarus) without the bloat and with support for multiple platforms using each platform's native controls (Delphi also added support for multiple platforms in recent years but it uses some custom mobile-styled widget set that looks alien everywhere). Under Linux you can even choose between Qt and Gtk. As for your question, here is a video i made ~5 years ago making a simple 2D tilemap editor under Windows - starts from installing Lazarus (as well as a small image editor i wrote in VB5 :-P) to making the editor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3JgeIUo1X0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3JgeIUo1X0 Also as a bonus here is another video where i make a swapping tile puzzle game (this time under Linux, also includes installing FPC from repository and building Lazarus from source code which IMO is the best way to install it under Linux as to avoid issues common with packaging): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_01Xhd2EJM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_01Xhd2EJM Note these aren't tutorials (they do not even have sound), just screencasts. I thought about buying some mic and making some tutorials but i do not think my voice sounds that good :-P

markus_zhang 6y ago
Hah! That looks cool man, and exactly what I want to work on. Back then I only know C++ and didn't use any library, so I used SDL and directly blit some "buttons" onto the screen. Pretty ugly as I had to work out a simple GUI framework by myself, all those callback things.
DelphiABall 6y ago
I'm not sure I agree on the comments about the mobile framework (FireMonkey - FMX for short) looking alien everywhere. The components are platform aware and provide pixel perfect representations of the controls on each platform (that is, if you don't select on a number of them to provide the actual platform specific component) e.g. You can choose for TEdit to provide a styled control, or the actual native edit control. There are pro's and cons to both, and the style option means you can make some very cool looking UI's very quickly. I would agree some of the early implementations were a little rough around the edges, but the FMX framework is now about 9 years matured into the market. Other frameworks trying to achieve the same are clearly learning a lot from FMX and openly mirroring the architecture and approach, which tells you something about the direction.
- badsectoracula 6y ago
  I'm not sure how it looks under mobile platforms but on mobile most apps seem to be using HTML-based interfaces that tend to have their own look anyway. However my comment was about the desktop targets (FWIW LCL itself doesn't really have much in term of mobile support) not mobile - if anything, i wrote that it looks "mobile styled" meaning that it looks something like i'd expect to see on a mobile device as opposed to a desktop.

markus_zhang 6y ago

Hah! That looks cool man, and exactly what I want to work on. Back then I only know C++ and didn't use any library, so I used SDL and directly blit some "buttons" onto the screen. Pretty ugly as I had to work out a simple GUI framework by myself, all those callback things.

DelphiABall 6y ago

I'm not sure I agree on the comments about the mobile framework (FireMonkey - FMX for short) looking alien everywhere. The components are platform aware and provide pixel perfect representations of the controls on each platform (that is, if you don't select on a number of them to provide the actual platform specific component) e.g. You can choose for TEdit to provide a styled control, or the actual native edit control. There are pro's and cons to both, and the style option means you can make some very cool looking UI's very quickly. I would agree some of the early implementations were a little rough around the edges, but the FMX framework is now about 9 years matured into the market. Other frameworks trying to achieve the same are clearly learning a lot from FMX and openly mirroring the architecture and approach, which tells you something about the direction.

badsectoracula 6y ago
I'm not sure how it looks under mobile platforms but on mobile most apps seem to be using HTML-based interfaces that tend to have their own look anyway. However my comment was about the desktop targets (FWIW LCL itself doesn't really have much in term of mobile support) not mobile - if anything, i wrote that it looks "mobile styled" meaning that it looks something like i'd expect to see on a mobile device as opposed to a desktop.