This book will be published shortly.

Buy Code Faster in Delphi From LeanPub or Amazon.com

This book will make you a faster Delphi developer, it doesn't matter if you are just starting out, or have been using Delphi since version 1, you will find all sorts of tips, tricks and hacks to boost your productivity.

But don't take my word for it, here is what people are saying...

Reviews:

"This book is extremely well thought out and focuses on many aspects of how you may code faster in Delphi. Did I say many? Everything related to boosting your productivity is covered!" -- Dave Nottage.  Full review here.

Buy big and save bigger, Megapack is the complete premium video content (over 34 hours) at one low price.  

Megapack Includes:

Building Apps in Delphi With the VCL Part 1 - 6 hours
Building Apps in Delphi With the VCL Part 2 - 6 hours
Building Apps in Delphi With the VCL Part 3 - 6 hours
XML in Delphi Part 1 - TXMLDocument - 1.5 hours
XML in Delphi Part 2 - XML Databindings - 1 hour
TClientDataSet Part 1 - 2 hours
TClientDataSet Part 2 - 2.5 hours
TClientDataSet Part 3 - 2.5 hours
Building Data Aware Apps using the VCL - 1.75 hours
Android Clients with Delphi REST Servers - 1.5 x2 hours
Generic Collections 2.5 hours

Being entirely new to Delphi I found your videos extremely useful because I’m able to actually watch you working.  I’ve seen many Delphi code examples on the web but very often they are only code, but for me, I wanted to know how the graphical elements were pulled together as well… because you do this while you are explaining the components it has given me a handle on what is going on and how it all comes together.  Anyway, thank you so much for the videos.  I’ve bought many teaching aids, books etc. in the past but they get opened looked at and then I find my own way in the end so they don’t get used… I have USED your videos!

Greg

Get the Megapack - bundle of all videos now

The fastest way to get started in Delphi

In this video we cover building applications in Delphi from the ground up, we start with "Hello, World!" at the console and later build a periodic table of the elements, in between we look, in great detail, at about 20 VCL components and their properties.  

Watch a sample (right click and "Save As").  The file is in the same format as the full video - the sample file is about 18MB / 10 minutes. 

The full video is over 6 hours long and over 500MB.  The video is a .MP4 container with H264 video and low bitrate AC3 Audio.

There are two example CSV files we use in building the periodic table example, they are a list of elements and their properties and the periodic table layout

Alister’s videos are truly the fastest way to get started in Delphi. I would definitely recommend anyone starting out to buy them. The videos are really easy to follow and interesting – beats reading tedious technical books any day. I especially like working through a real application including a section on using an installer to deploy.
The LearnDelphi.tv site is also a great resource with lots of brilliant free videos and information.
I can’t wait for the next series. Awesome work Alister!
Chris

See Table of Contents by clicking 'Read more' below.

Get Building Applications using VLC Part 1 now

The fastest way to learn Delphi just got better!

Yes, that's right, it's back, it's better, it's part 2. This video continues from where we left off in Part 1.  We continue to examine the Visual Component Library, enhance our Periodic Table, write a couple of new periodic tables (using a TGridPanel and TPaintBox) and look at how Drag and Dock works.  

Your video has been a lifesaver for me. I am a developer of software applications built in Delphi and knew nothing of Delphi before I came here. I purchased the video just a short while ago and I can tell you that I wish I had this when I first started here. The benefits of knowing the component library are just as equally important as learning the logic of Delphi. If you can learn the components, you can learn the logic as I feel they go hand in hand. This video series is really invaluable to me and I recommend it to everyone here at the office.
Chad Neipling

See Table of Contents by clicking 'Read more' below.

Get Building Applications in Delphi Using the Visual Component Library - Part 2 now

In this video we tackle two of the most complex Delphi components in the VCL:  TListView and TTreeView - almost half of this video is dedicated to them.  We use TListView regularly in developing VCL applications, so it is a very important component to cover.  TTreeView is also important especially if you want to represent hierarchical information.  In the second half, we cover all of the dialog components, you will find yourself using the open and save dialogs all the time, so it is important to know them inside and out. In each video, we cover a property that is used by most of the controls, this time we look at context-sensitive help - a highly important topic for the usability of your applications.

Alister Christie's 'Building Applications in Delphi Using the Visual Component Library' series is easy to follow, to the point, and a no-nonsense method for learning to program in the great language of Delphi. Among other things, Alister's series covers one of the most important, and incredibly vast, parts of the language, the component library. In a well versed, and incredibly easy to follow the way Alister takes each component in Delphi's library and talks about each one of their properties and events. The series' whopping coverage of Delphi components, Alister's incredibly easy to follow instructions, and his down to earth teaching approach, is what really sets this series apart from other training videos. As I mentioned to him already, "You keep making 'em Alister, and I'll keep buying 'em."
Troy Lamire

See Table of Contents by clicking 'Read more' below.

Get Building Applications in Delphi Using the Visual Component Library - Part 3 now

Handling XML in Delphi can be tricky and the primary tool to do this is the TXMLDocument component, which is not the most friendly tool to use.  However, in this video, we strip away all the confusion and look at both producing and consuming XML.  You will learn how to create XML files in a simple and straightforward manner and also how to read and process XML.  We look at several ways of doing this, both when the structure of the file is known and unknown.  We then look at some methods for manipulating the structure of XML files.  Delphi XE3 is used throughout, and we build our example code using the FireMonkey framework (the examples are simple enough to translate into the VCL).  The video is over an hour and a half long and anyone with a basic (or better) understanding of Delphi should be able to follow.

I'm a newbie to Delphi and was looking round for some videos to give me a head start. Luckily for me I found Alister's site - not only are there many free videos and information snippits, there are also brilliant and comprehensive paid videos. The vid's are a great price and are packed full of info about delphi in general, loads of components, how to use them and some comedy too! If you don't buy them, you'll always be behind me...
Nothing to add by way of improvements, but if Alister does another - I'll be purchasing it!
Guy

Get XML in Delphi Part 1 - TXMLDocument now

In this video, we begin our journey to produce data-aware applications.  Before we can do this, we need to understand how datasets work.  Probably the most common dataset is TClientDataSet which is used extensively in all sorts of data-aware applications, making knowledge of it essential in building modern Delphi applications.  In Part 1 we take a close look at many of its properties and methods and using its abilities to load and save data to either an xml file or binary packet.  Examples are done using the VCL and you should be able to follow along even with very old versions of Delphi.

I am still watching the first video. Really helpful. There were things I did know, and things I did not know. After I've watched all of it, I am planning to buy the next video.
Dirk Smits

See Table of Contents by clicking 'Read more' below.

Get Using TClientDataSet Part 1 now

We now continue our journey learning about TClientDataSet, picking up from where we left off Part 1.  In this part we finish covering the properties, events and methods of TClientDataSet that relate to local datasets (that is to say, not connecting to a database or multi-tier development).  After finishing both Part 1 and 2 you should have a very good understanding of how TClientDataSet and it's ancestor TDataSet work.

I very much like the style of your videos, a little informal and conversational at times which helps to understand the thought process behind the code.  I’d like to thank you for your free videos, there a fantastic resource for people like myself who struggle on in almost complete isolation.  I’ve watched most of your free videos and I have purchased both of your Delphi videos. I’ll definitely purchase number three when you get it done.
Andrew Emmans

See Table of Contents by clicking 'Read more' below.

Get Using TClientDataSet Part 2 now

This video is a continuation of Part 1 and 2 where we (very almost) conclude our coverage of TClientDataSet.  We also cover the TDataSetProvider which allows us to (finally) connect to a real database, for which we use Interbase via Database Express (DBX4) - which is also covered briefly.

See Table of Contents by clicking 'Read more' below.

Get Using TClientDataSet Part 3 now

Delphi is all about writing applications that interact with data and in this video we cover the components that will allow you to do this, we build on our previous videos and examine how the data-aware versions of controls are used.

If you can't find a copy elsewhere, here is the biolife.xml file we use for our data.

It is recommended that you watch the Building VCL Apps videos and the TClientDataSet videos first, but if you have some experience, it is not an essential prerequisite.

This video does not cover talking to databases or Livebindings in any detail - see our other videos for these topics.

See Table of Contents by clicking 'Read more' below.

Get Building Data Aware Applications using the VCL now

This video will give you an overview of how to write a Delphi REST server and then access it via an Android client, both of which we will write from scratch.  We will also look at a REST server that is in production and the Android application that uses it.

In March 2013 Alister Christie had the pleasure of presenting at the ADUG Symposium, this was a one-day event held in both Melbourne and Sydney.  It was well attended and everyone seemed to enjoy his talk.  His presentation lasted an hour and a half long and covers the basics of writing a REST server in Delphi and then consuming that service via an Android client written in Java.  During the preparation for his talk, Alister did a screen recording and also recorded both Melbourne and Sydney events. As part of this package, you will get the screen recording (where you can see the code clearly) and the Melbourne event (which you can see both Alister and the screen).

Included:

Delphi XE3 was used for this presentation and it should also work in Delphi XE4, XE2 introduced the mobile connectors.

Get Android Clients with Delphi REST Servers now

The Generic Collections Library is one of the best recent additions to the Delphi RTL. With it, you can get type safety on your containers without having to write a whole bunch of boilerplate code each time.  This can represent a big reduction in the amount of code you need to write and also reduce bugs in your code. Learn how to best make use of this library and take advantage of some of its more powerful features.

These videos cover all the containers available in the collections library and gives an in-depth account of most of their capabilities.  You will learn about the basic containers (TStack, TQueue and TList), covering their basic features (adding, moving, removing etc.) then more advanced topics such as how the internals of sorting works.  Then we move on to TDictionary and how hashing works and how you can provide your own hashing mechanisms to changes its default behaviour.  Finally, we look at the thread-safe collections and how they can be used in multi-threaded code.

See Table of Contents by clicking 'Read more' below.

Buy Generic Collections now