Delphi with HTML/CSS interface

Question

I want to develop a delphi application with an HTML/CSS graphical user interface, not necessarily running from within a web browser. I want to do this do create a richer graphical user interface with animations etc. and break away from normal VCL components / Windows look. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

HTML and CSS won't deliver animations or a Rich User Interface to your feet. Far from it in fact. Quite the opposite. You will need to invest in a toolkit to provide that sort of functionality and almost certainly involve JavaScript. And even if you don't want your eventual application hosted in a web browser, your application will itself have to host a web browser to render your HTML/CSS/JavaScript UI, and you will then have a much more difficult job of connecting your GUI to your application logic (unless you do actually embrace a web application architecture).

Delphi (or any Windows application development language for that matter) gets you much, much further down the road towards a more simply, effectively and quickly implemented Rich User Interface than HTML or CSS.

If you don't like the look and feel of the standard Delphi controls (which in essence is what you are saying) there are numerous alternative libraries available.

Also bear in mind however that when someone uses a Windows application they expect it to look and behave a certain way to a large extent. Using fancy, web based paradigm's in a desktop application simply for the sake of it is likely to confuse and frustrate users if taken too far.

I'm all for user interfaces breaking with convention where it leads to a more intuitive user interface, but simply being "prettier" does not necessarily lead in that direction and is just as misguided as dogmatically adhering to convention.

Answer 2

In one of my applications I have an an embedded browser and I have implemented the IDocHostUIHandler interface. This allows me to expose a COM object via the "GetExternal" method. I simply have a COM object that exposes methods and properties of my application which makes them available to the web pages hosted inside the embedded browser.

So the script in my web pages has lines like "external.DoSomething()" and "i=external.GetThisValue()". So, for example, behind button onclick events you can run a method of your application (implement in the main form, in the COM object itself, or whatever you like).

This site has lots of info on embedding a browser in your Delphi app: http://www.delphidabbler.com/articles?article=22

It can certainly be cumbersome to implement a lot of this stuff and in many cases there are probably better options. But for my specific purpose I am able to offer a "home page" which can easily be modified to change its layout, look and even expose more (or less) functionality as required by myself or my users.

Answer 3

If you want a Delphi program with a better-looking interface, HTML is really not what you're looking for. What you really need are better-looking VCL controls.

Take a look at TMS Smooth Controls, for example. If you're on Delphi 2009 or 2010, you can get it as a free download here. That's one of many component libraries that can bring a slicker user interface to your program.