What is the "current" Delphi web app framework?

Asked 7/2, 2012 at 0:13 Answered 16/2, 2020 at 3:48

I'm looking at Delphi web server apps, and the first thing I notice when I go into the New Items dialog is that there are several different frameworks.

WebBroker looks the nicest from a conceptual standpoint, but in the documentation, it looks like its DB and session-management code is tied to the BDE, which makes it somewhat less than useful today.

WebSnap looks very similar, but the documentation says it's deprecated and IW ("VCL for the Web") should be used instead.

So I look at IW, and I can't make heads or tails of how it's supposed to work. The sample code is full of stuff that looks like it belongs in a desktop app, like clicking a button to fire an event handler to change the caption of a form element. (Wouldn't that have to be done client-side in JavaScript if we're creating a webpage?)

So what's the current standard framework for building a web server in Delphi?

Justiciary answered 7/2, 2012 at 0:13 Comment(12)

+1 very good question, if I remember correctly, IW automatically converts delphi code to javascript and adds it to the <head> section of the html, however, I would strongly recommend taking a different approach, maybe using IdHTTPServer(not sure how scalable it is yet...) and maybe DWScript as your server side scripting language? I've used this approach many times and it works very good. To give you an idea of what I'm talking about, take a look at a very old blog post delphigeist.com/2010/12/… – Taiga 7/2, 2012 at 1:27

Interesting, but that example only works for serving up pages. What happens when you need to take data from the user and process it? – Justiciary 7/2, 2012 at 2:51

on GET/POST request you process data, connect to database(if required) and all that good stuff. if you need to for example process data for table users, you can have a page called users.html and code in that unit will be responsable for insert/update/delete/retrieval/etc. in that post I haven't added this as example, but it shouldn't take you long before you start defining functions in DWScript that will establish db connection and class that will help you run queries. – Taiga 7/2, 2012 at 2:55

So, if you define a custom class called TQuery which has Execute|ExecSQL and Open methods and some way of retrieving field values and iterate through rows and such, you can also make it "db independent", if that's too much work(I estimate about 7-8h with testing) then you should look at a different alternative web2py, ror, django, etc. but the late ones have a pretty long learning curve... my idea is simple, you write delphi code all the way! – Taiga 7/2, 2012 at 2:57

P.S. users.html is the page to/from which the browser posts/requests data, that's DWScript code, no html. – Taiga 7/2, 2012 at 3:5

Do you have a reference for WebBroker being tied to the BDE? As far as I'm aware it can utilise any TDataSet descendant. – Ceruse 8/2, 2012 at 0:40

When it comes to IntraWeb it sounds like you're over thinking it. You write an IntraWeb application just like you write a desktop application. By default all actions are performed on the server, if you have a Delphi OnButtonClick event handler to change a caption that will be executed on the server. IntraWeb also provides client side javascript events that you can use to avoid making so many server round trips if you need to. IntraWeb is excellent for intranet applications, not so great for high traffic public facing websites. – Ceruse 8/2, 2012 at 0:44

@LachlanG: In the documentation for WebBroker, it says that DB connections and session management should be done with a TSession component, which is part of the BDE. I don't know if that's actually tied to WebBroker or not. If not, how do I do proper connection and session management on more modern DB frameworks such as DBExpress? – Justiciary 8/2, 2012 at 0:54

@Mason Wheeler: Do you have a DocWiki URL? I'm guessing that documentation is just out of date. – Ceruse 8/2, 2012 at 1:28

@LachlanG: docwiki.embarcadero.com/RADStudio/en/… – Justiciary 8/2, 2012 at 14:41

Though it may seem not so feature-rich, did you try ICS at overbyte.be? – Maldonado 12/2, 2012 at 20:8

Similar question: #3793612 – Leatrice 10/6, 2012 at 18:21

Old question but still deserves an up-to-date answer.

Current 'settled in' solutions are:

IntraWeb:

https://www.atozed.com/intraweb/

uniGUI:

http://unigui.com/

Introduction
uniGUI Web Application Framework extends Web application development experience to a new dimension. uniGUI enables Delphi developers to create, design and debug web applications in IDE using a unique set of visual components. Each component is designed to provide same functionality of its counterpart visual component in Delphi VCL. This provides a very comfortable development environment very close to native VCL application development with an easy learning curve.  uniGUI Web applications can be deployed to a server using one of the available deployment options such as Windows Service, Standalone Server or ISAPI Module.

Product Highlights:

Based on industry's most advanced JavaScript library Sencha Ext JS.
Includes OEM license for Sencha Ext JS. (Please see licensing for details).
A unique platform to create stateful web applications.
Complete IDE support for creating projects, designing forms, frames and handling data modules.
Advanced support for scripting client side JavaScript events.
Library core is fully optimized to achieve highest level of scalability.
Including advanced Stress Test Tool utility.
Comes with various deployment options: ISAPI Module, Standalone Server and Windows Service.
Supported Delphi versions: Turbo Delphi Pro, Delphi 2006, Delphi 2007, Delphi 2009, Delphi 2010, Delphi XE, XE2, XE3, XE4, X5, XE6, XE7, XE8, Delphi 10 Seattle, 10.1 Berlin, 10.2.3 Tokyo and 10.3.3 Rio (Win32 & Win64 platforms). (Linux support is in the roadmap)
C++ Builder supported.
Supported Browsers: IE 9+, Microsoft Edge, FireFox, Chrome, Safari and Opera
New state-of-the-art uniGUI HyperServer technology.

TMS WebCore:

https://www.tmssoftware.com/site/tmswebcore.asp

RADical Web
Modern SPA web application model
Pure HTML5/CSS3/Javascript based applications
Standard component framework for common UI controls and access to browser features
Debugging in Pascal code via the browser
Backed by a solid & proven Delphi Pascal to Javascript compiler that was years in development

Reuse skills and components Component based RAD development integrated
in the Delphi IDE A truly revolutionary & innovative TMS FNC component
framework that is now also web enabled, allowing to create UI controls
that can be used on VCL, FMX, LCL and WEB! Open to consume other
existing Javascript frameworks & libraries Open to use HTML/CSS for
design Open to use other jQuery controls or even other Javascript
frameworks Offers Pascal class wrappers for jQuery controls from the
jQWidgets library Easy interfacing to REST cloud services including to
TMS XData for database

Easy Deployment Application consists of HTML & Javascript files only
that can be easily deployed on any light or heavyweight webservers Use
any existing load-balancing software and/or techniques for highest
performance Small and convenient debug webserver is included for fast
RAD development

Eakins answered 16/2, 2020 at 3:48 Comment(0)

While there are several commercial options available for writing web apps with Delphi, in my opinion Delphi no longer ships with a modern web development solution included as part of the package.

If I had to give an answer to your question though I would say that the current out of the box Delphi web framework is WebBroker. WebBroker is the only web framework included with Delphi that isn't deprecated or restricted in its functionality.

WebBroker was introduced perhaps as far back as Delphi 4. It's a good honest work horse but it hasn't really been improved much since it was first introduced. It leaves you to do most of the heavy lifting but it also doesn't get in your way. WebSnap and IntraWeb were built using WebBroker as their foundation which gives you idea of the level of services it provides.

A full version of IntraWeb has been bundled with Delphi Enterprise for many years but as of Delphi XE it now has several limitations (no SSL, no ISAPI deployment, 20 minute idle timeout) that will very likely mean you'll need to buy a license from AtoZed to use it seriously.

The version of IntraWeb bundled with Delphi Pro has always been far too limited to be considered anything other than an evaluation version.

Ceruse answered 8/2, 2012 at 1:19 Comment(0)

http://docwiki.embarcadero.com/RADStudio/en/DataSnap_Overview_and_Architecture

DataSnap has been there for a long time, and the latest releases is DCOM-free. You can utilize it to build up server side piece (S in both C/S and B/S). Its current role is almost like WCF in .NET world.

Then if you are building a web site front end, you can use IW. But DataSnap makes it even possible to build up front end using PHP or other web technologies.

Extraneous answered 7/2, 2012 at 3:37 Comment(3)

I don't seem to have that. Is that Enterprise-only? – Justiciary 7/2, 2012 at 5:14

It is only available in editions higher than Pro. embarcadero.com/images/Delphi/… – Extraneous 7/2, 2012 at 5:28

I would say that a web application framework is more something like ASP.NET, a tool to build dynamic web sites. I think DataSnap belongs more in the Web Services category. – Leatrice 7/2, 2012 at 7:10

https://github.com/relativ/pascalweb

PascalWeb use pascalscript compiler , you can create web app, like php or python

Consumable answered 10/2, 2018 at 9:19 Comment(0)

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