FireMonkey based IDE

[lhengen]

I am new to these forums, and Lazarus so I hope this question does not offend anyone who has contributed to Lazarus.  Personally I think that EMB's lack of attention to QC items and IDE productivity tools is harming Object Pascal development growth.  I think an open source IDE is a much better approach.

I was wondering if the Lazarus community is entertaining using FireMonkey for an IDE UI.  Assuming no significant FMX bugs, what advantage would such a framework bring compared to the UI frameworks already supported?

[felipemdc]

The only advantage that Firemonkey has over LCL-CustomDrawn are the 3D effects. But sincerely, I consider them to be useless.

Patches are welcome to add a Firemonkey designer in the Lazarus IDE as an extra package, but I am not aware of anyone currently doing it, so anyone interrested would have to get his hands to work. The way you spoke seamed more like adding a Firemonkey widgetset, but that would be useless because the LCL interface would not allow people to use the 3D side of Firemonkey, so it would offer no advantage at all over anything.

I am investing in something similar to Firemonkey for Lazarus but which offers 100% compatibility with everything which already has be written for Lazarus: http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Custom_Drawn_Interface

[ChrisSoftEng]

To get FireMonkey, development for Windows, Mac OS X, iPhone, iPad (and distribute on Apple's App Store) - Get Delphi XE2.
http://embarcadero.com/products/delphi

[marcov]

I'm not sure what supporting FireMonkey would deliver to the Lazarus project. There already is a multiplatform LCL, and Embarcadero hasn't really deprecated VCL yet.

Keep in mind that if you start, in OSS part time, with a totally new framework, it will take years to get on par with Embarcadero, and you don't want to be caught up in the "side" projects of Embacardero that are usually short  lived (like .NET, CLX etc)

[loopbreaker]

+1 that Custom Drawn Interface is a better investment than Firemonkey

If EMBT cannot produce professional quality then its their problem.
FMX 2D controls require too much memory, are slow and are risky
for professional apps while the previous VCL was more stable.

I also think there is no large need of 3D in dialogs,
but the 3D need is rather isolated to special components
(3D charts, 3D-model viewer)