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Bold for Delphi Roadmap

This roadmap outlines the development direction for Bold for Delphi. It is a living document that evolves based on community feedback and contributions.

Current Version: 26.9.1 Status: Active Development

Vision

Make Bold for Delphi a modern, well-documented, and reliable ORM framework for Delphi developers who value model-driven architecture.

Status Legend

Status Meaning
Done Completed
In Progress Currently being worked on
Planned Scheduled for future release
Considering Under evaluation

1. Delphi Version Support

Status Version
Done Delphi 11.3 Alexandria
Done Delphi 12.x Athens (one package for 12.1 Community Edition through 12.3)
Done Delphi 13 Florence
Planned Delphi 14+

Goal: Support each new Delphi version within 30 days of release.

2. Documentation

Status Item
Done Quick Start Guide
Done Example documentation
Done About dialog in IDE
Done Changelog
Done Documentation website (GitHub Pages + MkDocs)
Planned Complete API reference
Planned OCL language reference
Planned Component reference guide
Planned Video tutorials

3. Database Support

Current Adapters

Status Adapter Database
Done FireDAC SQL Server
Done FireDAC PostgreSQL
Done FireDAC Firebird
Done FireDAC SQLite
Done FireDAC Oracle
Done XML File-based
In Progress FireDAC MySQL
In Progress FireDAC MariaDB
Done UniDAC SQL Server and SQLite (optional: UniDAC is commercial; the adapter tests run on both engines)

Planned Improvements

  • Improve PostgreSQL-specific optimizations
  • Document database-specific configurations

4. Testing & Code Quality

Testing Infrastructure

Status Item
Done DUnitX test framework migration
Done Code coverage reporting with DelphiCodeCoverage
Done Adapter x engine test matrix (UnitTest\run_matrix.ps1: FireDAC and UniDAC on SQLite and SQL Server)
In Progress Increase code coverage
In Progress Performance benchmarks (id-list SQL benchmarks exist)
Considering Automated CI builds (GitHub Actions)
Considering Automated test runs on pull requests

Code Coverage Progress

Live tracking: Codecov.io Dashboard

Test Focus Areas

Status Area
Done OCL parser and evaluator (117+ end-to-end evaluation tests)
In Progress Persistence layer: FireDAC and UniDAC adapters, batch queries, DbCopy and validator end-to-end tests
In Progress SQL generation from OCL (collect(role) added in 26.9.0)
Planned Subscription system

Code Quality

Status Item
Done Remove deprecated database adapters (ADO, BDE, DBExpress)
Done Remove C++Builder-specific code
In Progress Fix warnings from Pascal Analyzer
Planned Consolidate duplicate code
Planned Use generics

5. Examples & Demos

Status Item
Done MasterDetail demo (basic CRUD)
Done XML persistence demo
Done LogBridge demo (logging integration)
In Progress Building/Person demo (associations)
Planned REST API integration example
Planned Real-world application template

6. Core Improvements

Performance

Status Item
Planned Generate BOLD_ID from Windows service
Planned Object synchronization from Windows service
Planned SpanFetch for efficient batch loading
Planned Lazy loading improvements
Planned Query result caching

Model Editor

Status Item
Done Save and Generate All
Done Save prompt on close
In Progress Working SQL-script generator
In Progress Search/filter in model tree
Planned Model Editor v2 using DevExpress grid

7. New Features (Under Consideration)

  • JSON serialization for REST APIs
  • Async/await database operations
  • LINQ-style query syntax alternative to OCL
  • Entity change tracking/auditing
  • Soft delete support
  • GraphQL integration

8. Distribution

Status Channel
Done GitHub releases with the design packages for Delphi 11.3, 12.3 and 13
Done TMS Smart Setup: tms install bero.boldfordelphi (community registry)
Done DPM: dpm install bero.BoldForDelphi from the public feed at delphi.dev
Considering GetIt (Embarcadero submission)
Considering Delphinus (requires a non-fork repository)

9. Community & Ecosystem

Status Item
Done GitHub repository with issue tracking
Done Discord community
Planned Contribution guidelines
Planned Issue templates for bugs/features
Considering boldfordelphi.org domain

How to Contribute

  1. Report issues - Use GitHub Issues for bugs and feature requests
  2. Submit PRs - Fork the repo and submit pull requests
  3. Documentation - Help improve docs and examples
  4. Testing - Report compatibility issues with different databases/Delphi versions
  5. Spread the word - Blog posts, conference talks, social media

Release History

Version Date Highlights
26.9.1 2026-09-16 Win64 DPM packages for Delphi 12 and 13, ASP example ported to FireDAC and SQLite, HTTP transport sends bytes not characters, OCL workbench demo, OCL Explorer off DevExpress
26.9.0 2026-09-06 collect(role) in PS evaluation, UseBatchQueries fixed on both adapters, FireDAC PMCreate corruption fix, UniDAC leak fixes, package managers
26.8.1 2026-08-16 Parameterized ID-list SQL for SQL Server, read-transaction fix, SQL parameter logging
26.8.0 2026-08-03 XML roundtrip tests for OLW nodes and conditions
26.1.0 2026-01-06 Oracle support in the persistence mappers
25.12.1 2025-12-30 SQLite and Firebird support in the MasterDetail demo
25.12.0 2025-12-22 Delphi 13 support, improved examples, documentation
25.10.0 2025-11-01 DUnitX migration, code coverage
4.0.1.0 2004-04-23 Original Boldsoft release

Feedback

Have suggestions for the roadmap? Open an issue on GitHub or discuss on Discord.