I need the components for Delphi to create a web-application that can be beautify by skins

Question

In C #. NET is present WPF, which allows you to create desktop applications that without changing the source code can also work as a web-application to IIS. For Delphi, I found only unigui.com and raudus.com which may not have been quite stable. It can work as a normal VCL, as WebServer Embedded and as ISAPI for IIS or Apache Win32. Is there any other similar libraries for Delphi that you have used or at least heard of them? (or maybe there is something similar in XE2 or XE3)

I need the components to create a web-application that can be beautify by skins.

Answer 1

If it has to be Delphi, is running a web app (in the browser) on the desktop good enough as a 'desktop application'?
In that case I'd suggest Intraweb which comes with Delphi. You can make two projects which use the same units/forms: one EXE which runs with their built-in webserver and one ISAPI DLL that you can install on IIS.
These two programs will have different project files, and you will have to use some IFDEFs throughout the code depending on the version you're compiling (e.g. when defining file locations).

As for skinning: The Intraweb pages come with a setting (Set a TIWTemplateProcessorHTML to the form LayoutMgr property) that the page rendering has to be done 'externally', so you can rely on proper HTML/CSS rendering; and updating the look and feel might be as easy as changing the CSS file.

The downsides are that Intraweb is quite a steep learning curve, and all your form components have to be Intraweb components - which might limit what you can do (look at the Intraweb palette in the IDE).
Intraweb documentation is still insufficient, I don't know how it is today (and you might have to update to the standard or professional edition).
Luckily, judging from the posts in e.g. the Embarcadero forums, there's still a fair number of people building Intraweb apps, and there are even companies like TMS offering additional components.
(I'm not one of them anymore, but that has nothing to do with Intraweb)