I Purchased Delphi XE2 Today - Tue, 6 Sep 2011

I didn’t think it would happen so soon. I thought it was still months away. But a couple of weeks ago, Delphi XE2 became available for purchase. Today I bought the Professional Upgrade, normally $500 but 20% off because I was one of 700 attendees at an online Embarcadero Event on August 31.

I don’t normally upgrade every version. I had Delphi 4 many years ago, and I held out for about 6 versions until Delphi 2009 which had Unicode and Behold needed that. Since Delphi 2009, there was Delphi 2010 and Delphi XE. They each added a lot, but nothing I had to have.

But with Delphi XE2, they’ve added first of all - creation of Windows 64-bit programs. This should take Behold into the future and eliminate memory problems for even the largest genealogy files in existence today and Behold would be one of the first 64-bit genealogy applications.

After I release Version 1 (all that’s left is the User Guide / Help file), then I’ll convert my development environment over to Delphi XE2 while I work on Version 1.1 to implement Behold’s database and Saving GEDCOMs. When I release those, I’ll release them as 32-bit and 64-bit versions - both will work with your one license key.

Second of all, they’ve added a new framework called FireMonkey which will potentially allow me to compile Behold to run natively on the Mac under OS X, or on Apple devices using iOS, or potentially on Android devices and Unix as well. So this is making the future look very exciting. Potentially Behold will run on anything.

Unfortunately, it won’t be quite that easy. It will require conversion to FireMonkey and I’m sure there’ll be bumps along the way as some of my controls will not translate perfectly. Also, I’ll need all my 3rd party packages to convert as well. TRichView plans to, and they’re releasing an XE2 version next week, but won’t have a FireMonkey version for maybe a year. I’m hoping by that time, iOS and Android devices will have enough pixels on their screens that I won’t have to change Behold’s user interface very much to work on them. It will be very interesting to see if that can happen.

But Version 2 of Behold with on-report editing is more important for Behold than running on Macs and handhelds. First I’ll have to get that Version out. Then I’ll see where the priorities lie.

Whew! That’ll keep me busy for some time. I better get back to work. The documentation is coming along, but Behold does a lot! So there’s lots to document!