Can I design Web pages with Delphi?

Question

I have been programming with Delphi for a long time, and I focused on desktop applications. I decided to enter the web-page programming world. How can I have an interface like Delphi but with a scripting environment for web programming? Is there any version of Delphi I can make web pages with?

Can the applications created by IntraWeb can be uploaded as a whole site?

Answer 1

You can try xProject (https://green-hill.srl) xProject compile your dpr/lpr project files and the dfm/lfm form files and the corresponding pas files to html/css and javascript. The result looks and behave same like your desktop app.

Answer 2

I have used the following

1. Thinfinity - Very quick to get started. Just requires one line of code in your source. An advantage is that you can use any third party components. Licensing is per user. It only has to be renewed for new features. You still have to sort out folder/file access into server side and client side. It has a property so you can flip it to suit at runtime.
2. TMS Web Core - It produces "javascript", so your whole application is in "javascript" files (one or many to suit). And you still need a backend for webservices and data access, which it has support for. The application has to be re-written from scratch.
3. UniGui - You need to replace all your components to theirs. This wasnt an issue for me as I already subclass all components I use. I just had to change it one place. It has support for css and javascript. The downside is that its a lot harder to use any third party components. This is because their source has to be changed too.

For quick and dirty progress I would use "Thinfinity". For the long term I would use "UniGui". I am still evaluating "TMS Web Core:, so the jury is still out.

Answer 3

if you want to fail, use IntraWeb. a framework that has more bugs than any other framework. even their demos are full of bugs. I'm talking from personal experience. try uniGui or PHP for delphi

Answer 4

For Delphi Web Development you have :

1 - Unigui unigui (Server side Tecnology and client side using Sencha Framworke
2 - Intraweb atozed
3 - Tms WebCore - cliente Side javascript Tms sofware Webcore
4- Elevate Builder -Elevate Software
5 - Smart mobile Studio - Smart Mobile Studio

For Mvc and Rest you have
6- Mars curiosity - MARS-Curiosity Delphi REST Library
7- Delphi Mvc framework - Mcv Framework
8- Mormot (fantastic ORM and REST and other stuff ) - Mormot

and there's more out there. So as you can see, Delphi is not dead, Delphi is algo great for web development.

Answer 5

Delphi has really made great steps recently. (as of 2019) Unigui is the way to go for webdevelopement. I dont know any better platform to develop webapplications currently.

Answer 6

You can develop something like a REST service using any HTTP server component and then use any front end technology such as CSS/HTML5+JS (angular or whatever framework you like). This is very common nowadays, still Delphi is not suitable for it, just switch to Java EE or .NET ecosystem, it shall open grater possiblitys for you since both are designed for web development.

Answer 7

Delphi is focused primarily on developing native applications for Windows (Win32), however there are a couple of alternatives for creating web pages or web applications using Delphi.

• ISAPI/CGI
• The IntraWeb components.
• extpascal (Ext JS wrapper for Object Pascal), check this link for some demos.

Another option is to use Delphi-prism, you can create ASP.NET, and Silverlight applications using a syntax very similar to Delphi.

Answer 8

Inspired by work I did in (old) ASP, Cold Fusion and (old) PHP, I wanted to use the power and speed of the Delphi compiler to build Web server back-ends, with Delphi (Object Pascal) source and HTML in the same files, and created http://xxm.sourceforge.net/

Answer 9

Delphi is good for old Win 32 applications. Forget it when thinking about web development ; although Embarcadero did some tries in the past, nothing really worked well. Go to modern technologies for front-end and/or back-end ; Javascript, CSS, HTML5, Ruby, PHP, .net and whatever ; just forget about Delphi when the application is web based.

Answer 10

I've been using the pre-release of Evelate Software's Web Builder and it is the most Delphi-like experience for making web applications that run in a web browser. Very focused, quite capable, and not a lot of learning for a Delphi-head. There are other more general solutions, but EWB should be included in any shortlist if Delphi-on-a-page is what you want.

Answer 11

Unigui is what you want. Create ajax extjs web applications inside your Delphi IDE.

Answer 12

I think that the best tool is Morfik : IDE very close to Delphi ans use Pascal Object.

Answer 13

The normal Delphi IDE (for Win32) has not been designed as a IDE for the creation and layout of HTML pages, CSS (style sheets) or JavaScript code.

The Delphi IDE can create a new JavaScript file, by default it will contain only this lonely line:

// insert JavaScript source code here

The IDE will not give you any further support specific to JavaScript from this point. At least, it tells you what you have to do next :)

The IDE can also create new CSS files with this minimalistic content:

BODY {

}

That's all, no further IDE support like style preview, validation or CodeInsight. I don't know if it is possible for Delphi add-on developers to write plugins to close these gaps.

The HTML editor in Delphi IDE offers some support for tables and forms. No preview, no formatting, no CodeInsight. New files are always ANSI encoded, if you need UTF-8 you have to change it manually for every single file because the IDE does not have an option to change this default. HTML files also have the classic *.htm extension (from the old DOS era), so if you prefer the .html extension you have to fix this for every file again.

Fortunately there are many free and very comfortable editors and IDEs. For example NetBeans, it has a very small storage space footprint, and is also a good PHP development environment. And it is free. And last but not least, it is an impressive example of a GUI built with Java.

Answer 14

Delphi for PHP can be' easily integrate with Delphi (PHP is very "open" language). You can have the best from the two worlds.

Answer 15

Delphi for PHP

For small applications you may use IntraWeb