Delphi 11.3 Alexandria

Delphi 11 Alexandria Release 3 (also known as RAD Studio 11.3) is focused on quality and improvements in terms of usability, performance and stability, as requested by customers. The release builds on the landmark new features in Delphi 11 Alexandria’s three previous releases.

Delphi 11.3 includes support for newer versions of several operating systems, adds a new ToolsAPI to the Delphi IDE to customizing the way source code is painted in the code editor, introduces a new Biometric Authentication component for mobile platforms, and a number of other features and enhancements.

Updated Target Platform Support

Delphi 11.3 offers official support for new versions of many operating systems for which it can build native applications. Specifically, RAD Studio now supports iOS 16 , Android 13, and macOS Ventura, all of which were released after RAD Studio 11.2 GA, in addition to Ubuntu 22 and Windows Server 2022.

Evolved VCL Form Designer and High DPI

Delphi 11.3 offers improvements to the High DPI IDE and in particular the VCL Form Designer quality under High DPI, with specific improvements in the scaling of non-visual components, including in frames.

Smarter Code Editor

The IDE code editor now has the ability to highlight matching words. This feature allows you to see instances of the same word you have selected, or the cursor is currently in, highlighted on the screen.

This release also brings a new ToolsAPI for painting in the code editor, which allows developers to customize the editor without affecting its stability.

Improved Code Insight and DelphiLSP

Delphi Code Insight through DelphiLSP sees very significant quality improvements, to further improve our Code Insight features and make them faster and more reliable, including with large applications. These improvements include code completion, Help Insight, and navigation, with a strong focus on overall reliability, as well as providing completion and navigation results and HelpInsight in areas where they were not previously provided.

Better Toolchain

Delphi 11.3 ships with a new LLDB-based debugger for macOS Intel and Android 32-bit, which means all non-Windows platform debuggers across Delphi and C++ are now LLDB-based.

Delphi 11.3 now also offers a new notarization process for macOS, which Apple introduced with XCode 14. The Windows signing support in the IDE now includes the timestamping of MSIX files, while using a library suffix of $(Auto).

Embedded InterBase Editions & Database Support

Delphi now also ships with the recently-released InterBase 2020 Update 4 Developer edition and the IBLite/ToGo edition.

Meanwhile, FireDAC now offers improvements for PostgreSQL database performance and full compatibility with version 14 and version 15.1 of the database. For Oracle and other databases, it offers better treatment of column names with square brackets. For Linux, the database layer offers preliminary support for UTF8 in the database RTL (like for TStringField) and in FireDAC’s DataSets.

Biometric Authentication

For FireMonkey mobile applications, Delphi 11.3 offers a new Mobile Biometric Authentication component. This component (called TBiometricAuth) provides a means of authorization to use an application or some specific features via Biometrics (e.g., Face ID on iOS devices or Fingerprint on Android devices).

FMX Mobile Device Integration

Another new FireMonkey feature for better mobile device integration is the new IFMXPhoneDialerListenerService interface, which was implemented for Android. The service is intended for tracking changes in the state of the phone system service (Calls, Carrier, CallState).

The FireMonkey library has undergone extensive fixes and improvements, beside the support for newer versions of target operating systems.

Web Technologies

The new release brings improvements to TMultipartContentParser, automatic token refresh to TOAuth2Authenticator, better support for NestedElements in TRESTResponseDataSetAdapter, and fixes in RAD Server, SOAP and other related subsystems.

Enhanced Security

For security reasons, Embarcadero no longer ships the Subversion DLLs, but recommends that users install and maintain their own Subversion client side DLLs.

Quality Improvements

The quality improvements encompass all product areas, with a specific focus on Delphi Code Insight using Delphi LSP, the High DPI IDE introduced in 11.0, and VCL styles. There are notable enhancements in the compilers and toolchains, the Delphi and C++ RTL, VCL, FireMonkey, FireDAC and other database libraries, Internet access and services.

Overall, Delphi 11.3 Alexandria implements over 25 feature requests from Quality Portal and fixes over 365 bugs reported by customers on that site, encompassing all areas of the product.

Help Insight now uses a VCL-based HTML display control and generates the HTML by processing the XMLDoc data returned by the compiler with an XSL transformation, applying CSS styling for display. As in 10.3 and earlier versions, the XSLT and CSS files are customizable. This offers more readable details, in terms of formatting, and the ability for a user to change the content and layout.

The GetIt Library Manager is enhanced with cached images and a reworked UI implementation. The Messages view now uses customized colours, while the new Welcome Page now offers background images and supports custom frames with a new Open Tools API.

According to Embarcadero Product Manager Marco Cantù, “The RAD Studio 11.1 release improves the performance and stability of the great features in 11.0, starting with the new High-DPI enabled IDE. On top of this, it delivers official support to operating systems released after 11.0 shipped: Windows 11, macOS 12 Monterey, iOS 15, and Android 12!”

IMPROVED CODE INSIGHT
Code Insight for both languages, Delphi and C++, is now improved. The C++ implementation has improved significantly in quality and performance, while the Delphi LSP engine is also between 5 times and 30 times faster. Furthermore, when completing a declaration, type parameters are now visible.

MORE POWERFUL COMPILERS AND DEBUGGERS
The stability and performance of Delphi and C++ compilers are improved. The Delphi macOS 64-bit ARM and Android 64-bit debuggers are now based on the LLDB debugger architecture, as already used for the Delphi iOS 64-bit debugger. As a result, Delphi debuggers for supported platforms are unified on this technology as part of the continuous commitment to quality improvement.

Embarcadero Chief Developer Advocate and Engineer Jim McKeeth say he is “the kind of person who gets excited about new features and big changes, but I also understand that the biggest impact in my daily productivity comes from quality improvements and performance enhancements. RAD Studio 11.1 takes all the new and exciting features of my favourite development tools and adds the quality and performance that makes each day I use it a little better than the one before”.

RICHER RTL, UI AND DATABASE LIBRARIES
Optimizations and quality improvements have been introduced to the core Delphi RTL in the 11.1 Release. There is also a new TURLStream class, a TStream descendant with support for async operations. Support for Windows 11 and Server 2022 in the TOSVersion data structure. FireMonkey has added quality improvements to TListView, along with improved Android SDK integration, TWebBrowser, Windows HighDPI-related issues, and performance. FireDAC has added Structure View integration and offers support for MariaDB 10.6, SQLite Encryption Extension (SEE), and new data types for Firebird 4. RAD Studio 11.1 also improves DataSnap quality and adds the ability to deploy a WebBroker application on Android.

SUPERIOR INTEGRATION WITH AWS AND PYTHON
Since the 11 Alexandria release, Enterprise and Architect customers have gotten a preview of the new AWS SDK for Delphi (licensed from Appercept). Embarcadero also extends the reach of their Delphi UI libraries to Python developers with new free libraries and also improves the integration of Python libraries in RAD Studio applications.

With all these improvements to a landmark core release, Embarcadero General Manager Kyle Wheeler says the company is “excited to bring this release to market as a continuing focus on quality improvements that build on the major work done for version 11. 2022 is shaping up to be another great year for Embarcadero and RAD Studio and our amazing community”.

Many VCL components updated to new features in the Windows API:

RAD Studio 11 Alexandria is a landmark release in the evolution of Delphi and C++Builder. You can get Delphi 11.3 today at a 25% discount for Professional Edition and 30% discount for Enterprise / Architect Edition.

You probably won’t be surprised to know we’re already working on RAD Studio 12. And we’re doing everything to make sure it’s well worth the wait! Buying RAD Studio 11.3 today also means you’ll have an opportunity to be part of the RAD Studio 12 Beta program.

This is a limited-time offer, so take advantage of this great offer plus the sneak peek of the upcoming release!

You can purchase Delphi/C++Builder/RAD Studio via webshop. You can also send your order as an email to info@alfasoft.com.

Terms and Conditions

• This offer ends on September 30, 2023
• This offer is valid with the purchase of:
  – C++Builder 11.3 Alexandria – All Editions
  – Delphi 11.3 Alexandria – All Editions
  – RAD Studio 11.3 Alexandria – All Editions
• License type: Named, Network Named & Concurrent New Perpetual Licenses Only
• This offer cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer.
• This offer does not apply to terms, renewals, or academic licenses.
• Embarcadero reserves the right to change, cancel or amend the offer at any time.
• Promotional pricing does not apply to most public bids/tenders.
• This offer is void where prohibited by law. Some regions are not eligible for this promotion.