RAD Studio 12 – Every New and Enhanced Feature

Blog by David Millington

In case you haven’t already heard, RAD Studio 12 is here! RAD Studio’s just-released version 12 is yet another landmark edition of your favorite IDE, ready to help you:

– Target the latest platform versions
– Supercharge your productivity with Visual Assist integration for C++
– Enable amazing graphics with SKIA for FMX
– Modernize your apps with an updated VCL
– And accomplish so much more…

So what exactly is new in RAD Studio 12?

With every new release the updated Feature Matrix can help, but to give you a clear sense of how much effort went into the new version, we also thought you’d appreciate this list of features that are new or enhanced in the just-released version 12 of Delphi, C++Builder and RAD Studio, known as Athens.

Features Enhanced in Delphi, C++Builder and RAD Studio 12 Athens

Enhanced! Support for Linux client-side applications using the bundled FMX Linux library*, available for download in the GetIt Package Manager

Enhanced! FireMonkey Application Platform for creating 32-bit Windows applications and 64-bit Windows applications for Windows 11, Windows 10, Windows 7 (SP1+); Windows Server 2022 and 2019

Enhanced! FireMonkey Application Platform for creating 64-bit macOS applications for Intel and ARM CPUs (M1), that run on macOS 14 Sonoma, macOS 13 Ventura, and macOS 12 Monterey, including support for universal binary

Enhanced! FireMonkey Application Platform for creating iOS ARM 64-bit applications for iOS 17 and iOS 16

Enhanced! Delphi iOS Simulator support for ARM 64-bit macOS

Enhanced! FireMonkey Application Platform for creating native 32-bit and native 64-bit Android ARM applications for Android 14, 13, 12, 11, and 10

Enhanced! VCL (Visual Component Library) for rapidly building 32-bit and 64-bit applications for Windows 11, Windows 10, Windows 7; Windows Server 2023, 2022, 2019 and 2016

Enhanced! Microsoft Windows SDK support for Windows 11, 10 and 7 APIs. Includes support for calling both classic Win32/Win64 APIs and enhanced support for WinRT APIs; required for the Windows App SDK (aka Project Reunion)

Enhanced! WebBrowser component for Windows, with support for both the classic IE ActiveX and the new Microsoft WebView 2 control (Chromium-based Edge).

Enhanced! TEdgeBrowser Component integrating Microsoft’s Chromium-based Edge WebView2 component and changes to the TWebBrowser component to support both IE and Edge — now based on Microsoft release version of Edge WebView2 component and supporting custom cache folders, with support for the UserDataFolder and the ExecutableFolder configurations. Enhanced in 12.0 with new properties and methods, mapped to new features in recent versions of the WebView 2 control (like UserAgent, browsing data management).

Enhanced! Delphi 1 through 11 project import and C++Builder 2007 through 11 project import

Enhanced! Support for calling WinRT APIs, with now over 50 specific Object Pascal interface units. The set of headers has been updated in 12

Enhanced! Delphi and C++ RTL for Android, with support for Android API level 33, a Google requirement for the Play Store app submission. In recent versions, we added support for the new “AndroidX” libraries

Enhanced! New Delphi Code Insight implementation (based on the Language Server Protocol architecture, or Delphi LSP) for including Code Completion, Parameter Completion, Error Insight, Find Declaration, and Tooltip/Help Insight. Enhancements include support for include files, better lifetime management of the agent processes, numerous fixes, and increased performance. The classic engine has been removed. In 12, code completion includes again language keywords and code templates, plus many other improvements.

Enhanced! GetIt Library Manager with support for updates, sort by date, subscription only packages, cached images, and an updated UI. Enhancements in 11.2 included a filter by language and the introduction of Local GetIt Packages*. Further enhancements in 12 include the ability to load multiple GetIt packages* at once and better logging.

Enhanced! Structural highlighting ; Flow control highlighting, to visually see the flow jumps in your code directly in the editor; Code navigation toolbar with classes and methods combo boxes at the top of the editor, with an additional option to hide it.

Enhanced! IDE ToolsAPI extended in 12.0 with direct access to editor content and more information about the editor display. Version 11.3 added support for painting in the code editor and highlighting elements of the source code, a new foundation allowing developers to customize the editor.

Enhanced! Full-featured debugger with color syntax highlighting for the call stack, debugger tooltips and other views

Enhanced! Continually updated help system with diagrams showing class hierarchy and declared members pages

Enhanced! Online documentation available at https://docwiki.embarcadero.com/

Enhanced! iOS and Android mobile database support, including SQLite, IBToGo and IBLite. IBLite is not available also in the iOS Simulator.

Enhanced! Updated FireDAC SQLite driver with support for version 3.42 while maintaining the option of using SQLite 3.31.1 with FireDAC encryption (FDE). Offers both static and dynamic linkage of SQLite engine. Includes support for SQLite SEE.

Enhanced! InterBase 2020 Update 5 Developer Edition – up to 20 users and 80 logical connections

Enhanced! IBLite 2020 Update 5 for Windows with unlimited deployment license

Enhanced! IBLite 2020 Update 5 for macOS, iOS, and Android, with unlimited deployment license

Enhanced! AWS SDK for Delphi by Appercept*, with support for multiple AWS services,  continually expanded over time. * Available for download in the GetIt Package Manager (requires an active Update Subscription)

New Features in Delphi, C++Builder and RAD Studio 12 Athens

New! Preview of a new C++ compiler for Win64. Based on Clang 15, UCRT for the C runtime, a mix of LLVM and MinGW for the C++ runtime, and LLVM’s libc++ STL. The preview of the new C++ toolchain is available as a command line compiler (bcc64x)

New! FireMonkey Skia support including direct APIs, specific UI controls, and the automatic mapping of FireMonkey UI controls UI rendering via Skia. In general terms, Skia improves the quality of the rendering and the performance.

New! New FireMonkey Skia-based controls: TSkAnimatedImage, TSkLabel, TSkPaintBox, TSkAnimatedPaintBox, and TSkSvg

New! Exclusive Skia features not found in the Skia4Delphi library: Vulkan Backend support for Android; Skia Shading Language (SKSL); Animated Codec: WebP Encoder; Printer Support and Printing to PDF

New! New Styled Memo Implementation with enhanced IME support, available for all supported platforms

New! FireMonkey TEdit now supports Undo functionality, using the recently added TUndoManager is shared between TEdit and TMemo

New! Editing improvements with new Virtual Keyboard for iOS, better interactive text selection, caret point management and finger gestures on Android

New! Split screen app support (side-by-side apps) for both iOS and Android

New! Android’s adaptive icons

New! New VCL Skia-based controls: TSkAnimatedImage, TSkLabel, TSkPaintBox, TSkAnimatedPaintBox, and TSkSvg

New! Support for full HighDPI and VCL styles in MDI applications. The MDI support in VCL has been reworked and expanded to overcome Windows platform limitations. Includes an updated MDI form Wizard

New! New TFormTabsBar control and IFormVisualManager interface to help build general tab-based UIs and a MDI tabbed forms architecture

New! Extended TFont VCL class with DPI-related and improved scaling support

New! New property editors: string list editor and multiline string editor (originally part of KSVC, Konopka Signature VCL Controls)

New! Quick configuration dialogs for buttons, radio groups and panels (originally part of KSVC, Konopka Signature VCL Controls)

New! A new set of units with the complete Windows API headers converted to Object Pascal. This API conversion includes 311 Delphi header files* with 41 MB of code, covering the entire platform API provided by Microsoft.

New! Single App Icon Wizard, a comprehensive tool integrated within the RAD Studio IDE, designed to streamline the process of generating icons and splash screens for user applications across the supported platforms.

New! Preview of Win64 C++ Clang 15 compiler

New! Preview of Win64 C++ Clang 15 STL using libc++, plus new RTL, new C RTL, and new toolchain including LLVM-based linker

New! Long string literals and multiline string literals, limited by triple quotes, to allow embedding of SQL, HTML, JSON, XML and similar text within an application source code

New! Weak type alias definition for NativeInt, do help write code that works better across 32-bit and 64-bit compilers.

New! Support for generating a GraphViz file with the uses unit graph, to help detect circular uses reference and visualize the overall structure of the dependencies across the modules of an application

New! Support for NaN comparisons for floating point numbers, as required by IEEE 754

New! New JSON mapping wizard, which can generate classes matching a JSON data structure and proper reading and writing code to read the JSON in a set of objects and stream it out to a new file

New! New UX for the feature installer, used for the initial product installation or to add additional features and platforms from the IDE. Includes extended logging and easier to access log files.

New! C++Builder integration of the Visual Assist, a plugin previously available only for Visual Studio, offering better Code Insight including code completion, code navigations and refactorings.

New! Visual Assist features include finding where your code is used with Find References or Find Symbol, refactorings which assist maintenance and active development in code, and navigation including the Go To Related feature. See the Refactoring section for more information.

New! Syntax highlighting in many secondary windows, like Structure view, Error Insight messages, and Navigation toolbar.

New for C++! Rename refactoring. In C++, provided by the integration of Visual Assist

New for C++! Find References. In C++, provided by the integration of Visual Assist

New! Find References granularity: entire project group, current project, or the current unit

New! Create Declaration and Create Implementation, to automatically create the matching method declaration or empty method implementation when only one is defined. Provided by the integration of Visual Assist

New! Add Include: adds the #include statement to include the header for a type used in code, for both user headers and system headers. Provided by the integration of Visual Assist.

New for C++! Go To Interface and Go To Declaration: navigate to the declaration or implementation of a method, including quick toggle shortcut Ctrl+Shift+Up/Down. For C++, provided by the integration of Visual Assist

New! Go To Member, to search and navigate through the member fields, methods and properties of a type, including of the type of a variable . Provided by the integration of Visual Assist

New! Find Symbol, to find any symbol defined in the project group and any headers including system and platform headers it includes. Provided by the integration of Visual Assist.

New! Go To Related: for #include files, to list and navigate to the headers included by the header in question, or the headers that include the header in question, as well as opening the file or showing it in Explorer. Provided by the integration of Visual Assist.

New! Go To Related: for types, list and navigate to the ancestor base classes, or derived descendant classes; go to the constructor, type definition, or type declaration; or go to member.  Provided by the integration of Visual Assist.

New! Go To Related: for methods, go to the base / ancestor methods a virtual method overrides, or the descendant derived methods that override a virtual method; go to type member. Provided by the integration of Visual Assist.

New! Go To Related: for variables / parameters: go to the declaration of the symbol’s type, including portions of the type such as template and template parameter; go to type member. Provided by the integration of Visual Assist.

New! Go To Related: similar features for macros and properties defined using the __property keyword, including going to ancestor and descendant property redeclarations. Provided by the integration of Visual Assist.

New! Debugging support for the Preview Clang 15 Win64 C++ compiler, with support for PDB debug info.

New! FireDAC support for the classic QBE mode (Query-By-Example), making it easier to let customers create database table filters.

New! FireDAC configuration (TFDSecurityOptions) to help developers improve database application security with options to filter allowed SQL command kinds, disable single SQL statements with multiple commands, disable dynamic changes to SQL statements, and verifying operations affect only one row.

New! The RAD Server engine is built with the FastMM5 memory manager, which improves performance, specifically in heavy multithreading scenarios.

New! Ability to easily support a smart ID model (squids), using a standard library to define better identifiers for resources exposed by the server.

For a detailed discussion and run-through of what you can expect from the new Delphi, C++Builder and RAD Studio 12 Athens, click on the banner below to watch the on-demand Launch Webinar.