Building User Interfaces with Style

If you would need to choose one single most important concept to understand in Delphi cross-platform programming, then it would probably be the concept of styles. Styling is the cornerstone of cross-platform FireMonkey architecture. Styles are used at different levels. There are built-in styles, which are specific to a platform that you use when you create a multi-device project and switch between in the form designer. The FireMonkey controls on a form have a StyleLookup property, which can be used to use a specific style for a given component. You can also apply a custom style using a TStyleBook component. Finally, with the built-in style editor, you can visually customize a given style item in the stylebook as easily as you would customize a component on the form. The goal of this chapter is to give you a solid understanding of FireMonkey styles for building stunning graphical user interfaces (GUIs).

This chapter will cover the following points...