Build a Simple VCL Application for Streak Data

Embarcadero RAD Studio provides a development environment for Delphi and C++Builder applications. With the CData ODBC Driver for Streak, you gain access to live Streak data within RAD Studio, abstracting the data into tables, views, and stored procedures that can be used to retrieve Streak data. This article will walk through connecting to Streak and creating a simple VCL application with the Form Designer.

Create a Connection to Streak Data

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

Use the following steps to generate a new API key for authenticating to Streak.

1. Navigate to Gmail
2. Click on the Streak dropdown to the right of the search bar
3. Select the Integrations button. This will open a window where you can view existing integrations and create new API keys.
4. Under the Streak API section of integrations, click the button to Create New Key.

You can then follow the steps below to use the Data Explorer to create a FireDAC connection to Streak data.

1. In a new VCL Forms application, expand the FireDAC node in the Data Explorer.
2. Right-click the ODBC Data Source node in the Data Explorer.
3. Click Add New Connection.
4. Enter a name for the connection.
5. In the FireDAC Connection Editor that appears, set the DataSource property to the name of the ODBC DSN for Streak.

Create VCL Applications with Connectivity to Streak Data

Follow the procedure below to start executing queries to Streak data from a simple VCL application that displays the results of a query in a grid.

1. Drop a TFDConnection component onto the form and set the following properties:

   • ConnectionDefName: Select the FireDAC connection to Streak data.
   • Connected: Select True from the menu and, in the dialog that appears, enter your credentials.

2. Drop a TFDQuery component onto the form and set the properties below:

   • Connection: Set this property to the TFDConnection component, if this component is not already specified.

   • SQL: Click the button in the SQL property and enter a query. For example:

     SELECT UserKey, Email FROM Users WHERE Email = 'user@domain.com'
   • Active: Set this property to true.

3. Drop a TDataSource component onto the form and set the following property:

   • DataSet: In the menu for this property, select the name of the TFDQuery component.

4. Drop a TDBGrid control onto the form and set the following property:

   • DataSource: Select the name of the TDataSource.
5. Drop a TFDGUIxWaitCursor onto the form — this is required to avoid a run-time error.

You now have an executable application that displays the results of the SQL Query set in the TFDQuery object.