Today my first Mac OSX computer arrived at my home. I have only used a Mac when working
on Sound and Lights at local theatre. I have spent about 10 hours total time working on a Mac in the last 10 years. So I would guess this as close to a new user experience as one my expect.
The primary reason I bought the Mac is because Rad Studio XE2 supports writing applications for this platform. I like to make sure I stay on top of the various Delphi technologies so I had to buy one.
I opened the box and hooked up the various cables. Turned it on and I saw a little diagram asking me to turn on my touch pad or mouse. Well I turned on the touch pad and nothing happened. After trying various combinations I gave up and called support. After having to power of the Mac twice we were able to get the wireless keyboard and mouse to work. Things were not going well, and I was a bit worried I had made a mistake but things turned around.
I had installed the latest Rad Studio XE2 Beta version on my home computer, which is a Windows 7 machine.
Then I performed the following steps:
1. File|New Firemonkey HD Application.
2. I then right Clicked on Target platform and added OSx
I opened the Help file and found it had a Huge amount of information that pointed me in the right direction.
From the little I did read I was very very pleased with the depth of coverage.
3. I Installed the Platform Assistant on the Mac according to the instructions.
4. I launched the platform assistant clicking on the "paserver.command" in
"Developer" section of finder.
5. Then in back in Delphi, I right clicked on the "OS X" Target Platform and selected "Assign Remote Profile"
6. On the "Select Remote Profile for 'OS X' Platform" dialog I pressed "Add..."
7. I walked through the Wizard and Added Information about my Mac.
8. Then finally I selected the new profile that was created.
9. I then pressed the run button.
The application appeared on the Mac as expected.
I must say the out of the box experience with Delphi and the Mac looks very polished, it was very easy to setup. I spent more time trying to get the wireless mouse and keyboard to work than getting Rad Studio configured and my first App running.
Now that I have a basic app running it's time to really explore how FireMonkey integrates will both Windows and OS X.
For more information check out the Rad Studio XE World Tour or the Delphi Live conference.
