Tip of the Day - Everyday is an Etch-A-Sketch

Sometimes all you need is a little motivation.

Everyday is an Etch-A-Sketch.

Sometimes, every hour is an Etch-A-Sketch.

And sometimes, every minute is an Etch-A-Sketch.

Happy New Year,

Gunny Mike

https://www.zilchworks.com

I Got Complacent—and Here’s What I Learned

 The Frog in the Beaker Parable:

If a frog is placed in a beaker of boiling water, it will immediately jump out to save itself. However, if the frog is placed in a beaker of lukewarm water that is slowly heated, the frog will remain in the water, not noticing the gradual rise in temperature. Eventually, the water will reach a boiling point, and the frog will perish because it failed to react to the slow, incremental change.

Moral of the Story:

The parable serves as a warning against complacency and the failure to act in the face of slow, incremental changes that can lead to disastrous outcomes. It’s a lesson often applied in business, personal life, or societal contexts, emphasizing the importance of staying vigilant, recognizing warning signs, and taking proactive steps to prevent negative outcomes.

My Story:

I spent most of 2024 in a beaker of  lukewarm water. If I'm honest with myself, it probably started in sometime in 2023. Perhaps even earlier than that. I had gotten complacent. I was totally unaware it was happening to me.

The first sign I realized something was wrong is when my July 2024 software payment from MyCommerce/Digital River was late. This had happened once before in October 2023. A quick email to support was all that was required. So, I sent off an email. I received a response saying they had put a new ticket system in place. I created an account and opened a ticket. And...crickets. 🦗

August turned into September, which turned into October. And now I'm missing July, August, and September payments. 

It was October and I started thinking about some of the other Delphi products I have purchased in the past and the user buying experience. I even sent Ray Konopka an email asking him what shopping cart system he put in place on https://www.raize.com/. Ray was gracious with his time and quickly responded.

It was at that point I realized this was not going to be a weekend just project. I also realized just how widespread the Digital River/MyCommerce/Share-It situation was. I wasn't the only one. 👇😓
 https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/15/digital_river_runs_dry_hasnt/

The solution I wanted was a Merchant of Record (MOR). I wanted someone else to handle all the interactions with customers. I just wanted to put links on my website to a shopping cart page.

Complacency Turned Into a Rabbit Hole 🐇🕳

I narrowed down my search to two MORs; FastSpring and Paddle. I crunched the numbers and decided to go with Paddle. I created an account with Paddle and submitted my website for verification.

 Your Website Has Been DENIED!

My website was denied with no specifics other than it did not meet Paddle's standards. So, I signed up with FastSpring. I was also denied by FastSpring.

Turns out that I did not have the adequate GDPR processes in place. I needed to severely update my website. I need to add a Consent Banner and all the necessary webpages; Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy. 

The Consent Banner. Oh yeah that little popup thingy that lets visitors accept which cookies they want to allow. And one of those cookies is Google Analytics.

This lead me down the path of implementing Google Tag Manager. I ignored all the warning messages Google Analytics had bee showing me about the change to GTM. 

I'm a do it yourself kind of guy so I was looking for a "do it yourself consent banner." I settled on Klaro https://github.com/klaro-org

So I spent three whole weekends implementing Google Tag Manager, Klaro, and updating my website to interact with the new consent banner.

I added the three necessary webpages; Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy and resubmitted to both Paddle and FastSpring. It took about a week to 10 days but I was now APPROVED!

Paddle

I started looking around the back-end in Paddle for how to set up a shopping cart with a download button. After several hours of reading the documentation I gave up. I sent an email to my sales rep asking for help. After several back and forth emails, it turns out that what I needed was "Paddle Classic" (a completely different system) from Paddle Billing. I gave up and switched over to FastSpring.

FastSpring

I found FastSpring to be very intuitive. And of course I was thoroughly testing all the pieces. I found a flaw in the "Invoice Email" which directly affects the download link. Unfortunately you cannot modify the email templates until your go live. The process of going live took another week to 10 days.

I finally got everything in place and ready to go just after Thanksgiving.

SEO vs AEO (Ask Engine Optimization)

Last week I discovered a few things.

I have found myself using ChatGPT more than Google when I want answers. Real answers. And last week I learned about Ask Engine Optimization (AEO). 

Is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) dead? Maybe? Maybe not? Read this post from Dave Collins at Software Promotions. https://www.softwarepromotions.com/news/seo-is-dead-again/

I also discovered https://www.perplexity.ai/ The first question I asked Perplexity was "Who are ZilchWork's direct competitors?"

I also found this fantastic website, Answer Socrates https://answersocrates.com/

Zilch - Complacent For Almost 7 Years

I haven't just been complacent, I've been asleep at the wheel. I've enjoyed a software product with a funny name "Zilch" for years. I noticed my sales have been steadily declining. I just assumed it was do to the look and feel of my current desktop software begin stuck in the 640 X 480 pixel mode. Wrong!

What I failed to notice was a modern product called Zilch was taking the world by storm. Zilch launched in 2018 (that's almost 7 years ago). It's not for paying off debt like my software... it's for buying products. It puts people in direct contact with products without using credit cards. 

Hopefully you can lean from some of my mistakes.

Use the comments and share how you have been complacent!

Enjoy!
Semper Fi
Gunny Mike
https://www.zilchworks.com

Delphi Tip of the Day: The Delphi Magazine Total Collection

I'm always looking for ways to improve my Delphi skills. Sometimes, this takes me down a rabbit hole. And each time, these little side trips never answer "Yes" to the question "Will this help me ship?"  

Last week I went down the "global variables are bad" rabbit hole. 🐇🕳

Global Variables Are Bad

I opened my copy of "The Delphi Magazine Total Collection" looking for some inspiration. And, I found a 6 Part series called "Effective Delphi Class Engineering" written by David Baer. I'm slowly working my way through these articles.

Issue: 57	Effective Delphi Class Engineering 1: Crossing The Chasm David Baer kicks off a new series of articles aimed at all of us who are reluctant, confused or ill-informed on what object-oriented development is all about. The goal is to demonstrate, clearly and without jargon-loaded obfuscation, how to design, create and use Delphi classes to make your development more productive.
Issue: 59	Effective Delphi Class Engineering 2: Welcome To The Machine David Baer continues his series on practical object orientation by putting Delphi’s object machinery under a magnifying glass. He examines topics such as memory management, method calling, protocols and other compiler- related issues.
Issue: 60	Effective Delphi Class Engineering 3: Skyrocketing Property David Baer thinks properties are wonderful and this month gives us insights and advice on how they can best be put to use in our classes.
Issue: 62	Effective Delphi Class Engineering Part 4: The TObject Of My David Baer focuses on inheritance in this part of his popular series on object oriented development in Delphi.
Issue: 63	Effective Delphi Class Engineering Part 5: You Are TEgg Man... I AM TWalrus David Baer has not gone mad (though he may have been listening to too many old Beatles albums!): this instalment of his series continues his practical real-world discussion of polymorphism and inheritance.
Issue: 65	Effective Delphi Class Engineering Part 6: To Talk Of Many Things David Baer concludes his series on developing Delphi classes with a miscellany of sound advice, ranging from events to exceptions, RTTI and message handling.

Part 1 of Baer's series of articles, refenced short paper written by Marco Cantu called "When RAD is bad", which I found it on the internet archive. 

https://web.archive.org/web/20001120081900/http://community.borland.com/devnews/article/1,1714,10463,00.html  

But that's not all I found. I found a download link to the entire "The Delphi Magazine Total Collection Issues 1 - 139 (April 1995 to March 2007)" ⏬

https://archive.org/details/the-delphi-magazine-total-collection

Enjoy,
Semper Fi
Gunny Mike
https:\\zilchworks.com

Sell Me This Pen!

OMG! I wish I had known this years ago. The Marine Corps taught me the Xerox Personal Selling Skills 3 (PSS3 = Needs Satisfaction) method. They turned me into a "regurgitator". If I had seen this video in 1994, it would have made a HUGE difference.

Show Me! Don't Tell Me!

HaveDemand your mentor model
the sales behavior for you!

Enjoy!
Semper Fi,
Gunny Mike
https:\\zilchworks.com

Delphi Tip of the Day: How to Keep Your Code Folded in Delphi 12

I like the "Code Folding" feature of  Delphi. However, I noticed that every time I reopened a project in Delphi 12 where I had previously folded the code, the code was no longer folded.

To keep your code folded in Delphi 12 you need to turn on the Save project desktop when closing option inside the IDE.

Tools > Options > IDE > Saving and Recovering

This option is unchecked in the default, out-of-the-box setup.

Delphi 12 also includes a new feature called Save editor state when closing a tab any time. 
https://docwiki.embarcadero.com/RADStudio/Athens/en/Saving_and_Recovering

Save editor state when closing a tab any time

When selected, the current state for the views is saved before closing it. State info includes collapsed regions, cursor/caret position, and bookmarks. This allows you to close and reopen a tab within the same editing session, and when the tab is reopened it will display exactly as it was when it was closed. This is similar to the Save project desktop when closing setting but functions all the time, not just when closing and reopening a whole project. This option can only be enabled when Save project desktop when closing is checked.

Let me know in the comments what other out-of-the-box tweaks you like to make to a brand new Delphi install.

Enjoy!
Semper Fi,
Gunny Mike
https://zilchworks.com

Delphi Tip of the Day: Always Use the MenuBar for FMX Desktop Applications

A couple months ago, I watch the video replay "The fundamental secrets of good UI design" done by Ian Barker. Around the 33:15 mark, Barker talks about supporting "dark mode", have a listen:

Transcript:

"One of the things you really should do at a very bare minimum if you do nothing else please support dark mode. And this is kind of a personal beg from me. As I said before I do get these floaters in my eyes, I can see perfectly well you know, I'm not blind or anything like that. I'm shortsighted which is why I have glasses but if you support dark mode you will make my life a lot easier. And other people that have visual  issues as well some people get migraines and things like that dark mode helps."

https://www.youtube.com/live/TL2YVio_eTo?si=GUzsPoZriiIdyfbj&t=1995

I never considered supporting dark mode

Until I watched this video, I never considered supporting dark mode in the current rewrite of my Zilch software. So I began looking into how to incorporate FMX styles. It was confusing at first. Then I got the hang of it. I decided to go with the "Air.Style" that comes with Delphi.

David Cornenelius' book "Fearless Cross-Platform Development with Delphi" and Andrea Magni's book "Delphi GUI Programming with Delphi" were big helps understanding FMX styles.

There were a couple of tweaks I had to make. The Air.Style is a vector style which means it does not use the bitmap designer. It is similar to how Cascading Style Sheets are used in web development. The graphic elements are drawn using SVG paths. 

FMX Main Menu component can't be styled 

The biggest surprise was the TMainMenu component. It turns out the FMX Main Menu component can't be styled. The Embarcadero FMX Style Viewer was showing a Main Menu that was styled how come my Main Menu wasn't styled?

FMX Style Viewer - Air.Style

I didn't want my application to have some stuff styled and some stuff not styled. Then I discovered FMX includes a MenuBar component which does take styling. And that is what is used by the FMX Style Viewer. So, I slowly and methodically swapped out the MainMenu component for the MenuBar component.

Always use the MenuBar for FMX desktop applications

FMX MainMenu vs MenuBar

My recommendation is to skip using the MainMenu component when developing FMX desktop applications and ALWAYS use the MenuBar component.

You will be happy. Your customers will be happy.

Enjoy!
Semper Fi
Gunny Mike
https://zilchworks.com

FastReport VCL & FMX Comparison (Embarcadero Edition)

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase, at no extra cost to you. Your support helps keep this blog running – thank you!

The upgrade of my flagship product from Delphi 5 VCL to Delphi 11.3 FMX is finally at the presentation stage. I've spent the last six weeks thinking about and learning about data visualization. 

https://amzn.to/4duMSf6 (Paperback)

https://amzn.to/47T0vUc (Kindle)

I took a few classes on LinkedIn Learning about data viz, and I re-watched Ray Konopka's excellent video on Data Visualization using Delphi. Seeing is Believing - Data Visualization in Multi-Device Apps. Ray has also made the source code for his demonstration available at https://delphibydesign.com/downloads/ Thank you Ray!

I've never used FastReport before. My current Delphi 5 VCL product uses QuickReports. I did find a great FastReport video available through Embarcadero Academy called Getting Started with FastReport by Cary Jensen. Jensen mainly focuses on the VCL version of FastReport. 

I've never used FastReport before 

I was surprised at the huge difference between the VCL and FMX versions of the FastReport Embarcadero Editions. That's probably why Jensen focused on the VCL version in his video. These are the palette entries for Delphi 11.3 Professional. (VCL on the left, FMX on the right)

I'm interested in the FMX version of FastReport because I'm developing a desktop software product which targets Windows and macOS users. Because I'm new to FastReport, I want to see how far I can take the "Embarcadero" version of FastReport before I commit to purchasing the full version.

Unfortunately, the Embarcadero Edition of FMX FastReport has no export capability. See the Palette image above.

I was surprised at the huge difference between the VCL and FMX versions

Because I'm targeting both Windows and macOS users I need to know if there are any stark differences between those platforms. I created a comparison chart which highlights these differences. This is the same data from the Fast Reports website sorted by features with missing capabilities highlighted.

Here is the same comparison which filters out any features that are unavailable across all platforms.

As you can see, the Embarcadero Edition of FastReports 2.0 FMX is very limited.

The Bottom Line: Because my application is cross-platform for both Windows and macOS, it looks like I will have to purchase the full retail version of FastReport 2.0 FMX in order to give my customers the experience they expect. 

Enjoy
Semper Fi
Gunny Mike
https://zilchworks.com

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