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Kick Ass Delphi Programming
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Keyword
(Publisher: The Coriolis Group)
Author(s): Don Taylor, Jim Mischel, John Penman, Terence Goggin
ISBN: 1576100448
Publication Date: 09/01/96
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Introduction
----------- What's on the CD-ROM
About the Authors
CHAPTER 1—32-Bit Console Applications
Console Applications
Filters
Console Applications and Delphi
Hello, Delphi
Saving a Program Template
Console Input and Output
Filter Programs in Delphi
Your Basic Filter Program
Processing the Command Line
Command Line Options
A Reusable Command Line Parser
Testing the CmdLine Unit
A Note on Program Structure
Reading and Writing Files
Using the Filter Template
A Critique
CHAPTER 2—Drag and Drop the Windows Way
Drag and Drop the Windows Way
What to Do with Windows Code?
Responding to Windows Messages
Custom Controls
Subclassing
Defining the Interface
Implementing the New Interface
Subclassing Revisited
The Elusive Drag and Drop Server
CHAPTER 3—32-Bit Delphi DLLs—When, Why,
How
What’s a DLL and Why Do I Want One?
How Do I Do It?
Building a DLL
Calling DLL Functions
Linking DLLs at Runtime
Where Windows Looks for DLLs
DLLs: Disadvantages and Cautions
Creating Forms in DLLs
Coding for Flexibility
Creating the Text Editor
Sharing Memory Between Applications
The DLLProc Variable
Movin On!
CHAPTER 4—The Delphi Winsock Component
What Is Winsock?
Dissecting WSock
Running the Resolver Application
What’s My Name?
What’s the Address?
What’s Your Name?
Getting the Name Asynchronously
Who’s at This Address?
Canceling a WSAAsync Operation
Resolving Ports and Services
Finding the Service
Resolving Protocols
To Block or Not
CHAPTER 5—Shopper: An FTP Client Component
Are You Being Served?
The Shopper Component
Displaying Output
Putting Shopper to Work
Odds and Ends
CHAPTER 6—3D Fractal Landscapes
Bending and Dividing
The Shared Edges Problem
A Triangular Array
Bending
Draw, Then Display
Generating and Displaying the Landscape
The Project() Routine
Outline Mode
Filled Mode
Rendered Mode
Create Your Own Worlds
CHAPTER 7—Problems with Persistents, and Other Advice
Reading to Write?
Reasonable Workarounds
A Little Perspective
Using RDTSC for Pentium Benchmarking
Drag-and-Drop Rectangles for a Delphi Listbox
Making String Collections More List-Like
Letting Delphi Applications Set Up Themselves
Using INHERITED with Redeclared Properties in Delphi Taking Snapshots of the Screen with Delphi
Delphi RadioGroup Buttons You Can Disable
CHAPTER 8—Animated Screen Savers in Delphi
Secrets of the Main Form
Adapting to the Environment and the User
Idle Work
Animation
Callback Functions
Configuration
A Color ComboBox
The Project File
CHAPTER 9—The Shadowy Math Unit
Three Good Reasons to Use the Math Unit
Dynamic Data and Static Declarations
Creating TDBStatistics
Defining the Component’s Tasks
Getting Access to the Data
Storing Data Locally
Extracting data
Making the Data Available
Test Driving the DBStatistics Component
Bugs in the Math Unit
Poly: The Function That Got Away
Filling the Pascal Power Gap
Math Unit Function Summary
Trigonometric Functions and Procedures
Arithmetic Functions and Procedures
Financial Functions and Procedures
Statistical Functions and Procedures
CHAPTER 10—Dynamic User Interfaces
An Example “UI-It-Yourself” Application
Building-in a “Delphi” for Your Users
Moving Controls
Re-sizing Controls
Responding to the Popup Menu
Abandoning Changes
Changing the Tab Order at Runtime
Changing Other Properties
Changing Control Fonts at Runtime
Changing Properties in an Object Inspector
Saving Component Changes Made at Runtime
Snag: Components with Components as Properties Alternate Paths to a Stream
Toward More Flexible User Interfaces
CHAPTER 11—Hierarchical Data in Relational
Databases
One-to-Many Hierarchies
Simple Recursive Hierarchical Data
Class TQuery as a Detail DataSet
Nested Recursive Hierarchical Data
Hierarchy Navigation
Displaying the Data
Using the Data
Finding Rows
Using Hierarchical Data in Queries
Referential Integrity and Circular References
Using SQL
Solving the Problem of Arbitrary Nesting
Using Stored Procedures
The TreeData Components
TreeData Property Management
TreeData Component Internals
TreeDataComboBox
TreeDataListBox
TreeDataOutline and TreeDataUpdate
End Note
CHAPTER 12—The Oracle Vanishes
An Evening at the Office
An Urgent Plea
The Disappearance
At the “Sleeveless Arms”
Doing the Old ‘Drag/Drop’
Kind of a Drag
Dropping the Payload
Packing Paradox and dBASE Tables
The Packing Demo
Back at Ace’s Office
Different Strokes
Playing a .WAV File
Some Sound Advice
A Disconcerting Discovery
CHAPTER 13—A Revelation in the Mud
Resizing Forms
Making a Splash
Ace Gets an Answer
Making Data Global to an Application
An Exciting Discovery!
Taking Win95 for a Walk
Just Say “Cheese”
The WalkStuf Unit
Stepping Out
CHAPTER 14—The Oracle Returns
Sharing Event Handlers
Taking a First Run
Down a Crooked Path
Just One More Thing…
Using Memory Files
Before the Beginning
Preventing Program Execution
Floating Toolbars
Ace Gets the Goods
Epilogue
CHAPTER 15—An Age-Old Problem
Facing the Situation
Specifying the Problem
Designing the DLL
Startup Code
Signals from a Semaphore
Shutdown Code
Examining the DLL Routines
Creating the Sender Component
Creating the Receiver Component
Subclassing the Owner Window
Other Interesting Stuff
Creating a Receiver Demo
Creating a Sender Demo
A Rude Awakening
Index
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To access the contents, click the chapter and section titles.
Kick Ass Delphi Programming
Go!
Keyword
(Publisher: The Coriolis Group)
Author(s): Don Taylor, Jim Mischel, John Penman, Terence Goggin
ISBN: 1576100448
Publication Date: 09/01/96
Search this book:
Go!
-----------
Introduction
Way, way back in the mid-to-late 80s, the Pascal programming language was the target of a systematic slander attack by C and (later) C++ partisans, who got the ear of the media and said “Pascal is a kiddie language” so often that the media chowderheads took their word for it.
Most of these people knew nothing of Pascal, or perhaps took a college-level course in it from other chowderheads who considered drop-in code portability the sole virtue in all computer science. So the Pascal taught in schools is typically castrated Pascal that can’t do much more than iterate arrays and talk to the command line. C is no more portable than Pascal, but…c’mon, already: The whole issue is ridiculous because portability is and always was a myth. Quick, you C gurus: Write me a single, library-free C program that will locate the text cursor to 0,0 on any C implementation on any platform. See what I mean? No es posible. Arguing about portability is about as useful as discussing where UFOs come from.
A better measure of a language is how much it can accomplish—and how productive it makes the programmer. There was a time when C++ had a slight edge in power. But then Borland got hold of Pascal and added everything of value that C++ had. The “kiddie language” now had typecasts, pointers, objects, inline assembly, special hooks for Windows, the “woiks.” Those of us who used Pascal immediately leapt on the additional features, and before you knew it there were hordes of highly sophisticated applications everywhere you looked, all written in Borland Pascal.
Sometimes you can’t win. The C++ guys snorted and looked the other way, and the media chowderheads still call Pascal a kiddie language. It got so bad that a lot of commercial software vendors were afraid to admit that their applications were written in Pascal.
So Borland did the right thing. They dumped the P-word. Delphi, when it happened, stood on its own merits. It wasn’t a language. It was a lean, mean, program-building machine. The sheer depth of the Delphi product is astonishing—you can wander for months in the help system and not see the same entry twice.
The potential in all that power was slow to be understood. We’re only now starting to appreciate what you can do in Delphi. This book is meant to be a compendium of truly advanced Delphi techniques—stuff you can’t do in a kiddie language, and stuff that isn’t a cakewalk even in C++. It’s proof, now and for all time, that Delphi goes all the way down to the metal and back in creating professional applications for Windows as good as anything you can create in any language you can name.
Having lost the P-word to kick around, the media chowderheads have begun repeating a new mantra, that anything you can do in Delphi takes five or six times as long in C++. It’s gotten so bad I’ve heard tell of MIS shops where managers are forbidding the use of C++ and replacing it with Delphi and Visual Basic.
Hey, pass the chowder. There may yet be justice.
Jeff Duntemann KG7JF
Scottsdale, Arizona
July, 1996
Products | Contact Us | About Us | Privacy | Ad Info | Home
Use of this site is subject to certain Terms & Conditions, Copyright © 1996-2000 EarthWeb Inc.
All rights reserved. Reproduction whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of EarthWeb is prohibited. Read EarthWeb's privacy statement.
To access the contents, click the chapter and section titles.
Kick Ass Delphi Programming
Go!
Keyword
(Publisher: The Coriolis Group)
Author(s): Don Taylor, Jim Mischel, John Penman, Terence Goggin
ISBN: 1576100448
Publication Date: 09/01/96
Search this book:
Go!
-----------
What’s on the CD-ROM
The CD-ROM in this book exists primarily to carry the code listings for the projects developed in the book. However, there’s so much room on a CD-ROM that we’ve added a lot of additional material that we felt might be useful to you as a Delphi programmer.
All of the projects have been tested on a 32-bit Windows operating system, either Windows 95 or Windows NT. Some will also work under Windows 3.x, but some may not. When a choice had to be made, we chose the 32-bit side of things.
If you have trouble getting one of the project executables to run, recompile it under Delphi 2. (Not all projects will compile under Delphi 1.) Make sure you have database aliases set up for projects that require them.
Listing File Updates
Every so often a source code file may have to be updated. It isn’t always a matter of bugs. Sometimes, an author will send us an update that improves the code or adds new features, even if no bugs are involved. So check now and then! Typically, we’ll provide an updated ZIP for the project in question rather than an update of the entire CD-ROM.
Book disk update files are available most easily through ftp, from:
ftp://ftp.coriolis.com/pub/bookdisk
There will be subdirectories for many books there. Look for a subdirectory name corresponding to KickAss Delphi. That’s where the update files will be.
The CD-ROM Directory Structure