Delphi Developer's Handbook
Table of Contents

Here is a detailed description of the contents the list of the chapters of the Delphi Developer's Handbook, ISBN 0-7821-1987-5 written by me with Tim Gooch, and with a contribution from OLE expert John Lam. This book has only advanced material, starting where Mastering Delphi 3 stopped.

The manuscript is now complete, and the book should be on the US shelves on November 11, 1997. At that time I'll post more information and possibly also a free chapter to download. Stay tuned.

Part I : Delphi Foundations

The first six chapters explore Object Pascal and VCL topics such as accessing protected properties and component ownership, as well as issues related to streaming and persistency, run-time type information (RTTI), building components, and using packages to distribute components.

• Chapter 1: Object Pascal Secrets. Long Strings, Integer Bitwise Manipulations, Class References, A VCL Hierarchy Viewer, Cloning Objects, Accessing Protected Properties.
• Chapter 2: VCL Secrets. Freeing an Object Twice, Components Ownership, The Name Property, Building a Type-Safe List.
• Chapter 3: Streaming. Delphi Stream Classes, Using Delphi streams, Building Custom Stream Classes, Writing and Reading Components, Reading and Writing Form Files, Parsing Pascal code, The PasToWeb Application.
• Chapter 4: RTTI. Accessing to type information at run-time for ordinal and class types, Accessing to properties, events, and methods, Invoking methods by name.
• Chapter 5. Writing Components. Why and How to Build Components, Building Simple Components, A Compound Component: TDdhSemaphore, Customizing Buttons, Using the TCustom classes: TNumEdit, Using Collection Properties, Advanced Topics in Building Components.
• Chapter 6: Delphi 3 Packages in Depth. Distributing Components, Using the Package Collection Editor, Installing packages, Run-time and Design-time packages, Exploring packages, Packages and unit versioning.

Part II: Delphi and Windows

Chapters 7-11 focus on Delphi's interaction with the Windows operating system, including an extended discussion of the VCL and Windows, advanced window components, and Windows and Delphi memory management. The last two chapters (10 and 11) offer an in-depth look at the theory of COM and the Windows and Delphi tools for implementing it.

• Chapter 7. The VCL and Windows. Windows Applications Without the VCL, Using Windows API Functions, Windows Messages and Delphi Events, Using Windows Procedures within the VCL, Delphi Message Loop, Posting and Sending Messages, Exploring Delphi own Messages, Component Notifications, Component Messages, Delphi Forms, Windows Reserved Memory, and Subclassing, Accessing the Reserved Memory of a Window.
• Chapter 8. Form and Application Components. Subclassing a Window, A FormExtender component, Message Hooks, Writing an Application/Screen component, Non-rectangular windows and controls.
• Chapter 9. Processes and Memory. Windows and Delphi Memory Management, Looking into Delphi Heap, Writing a Delphi Memory Manager, Passing Data between Programs, Memory Mapped Files.
• Chapter 10. Delphi and COM. Component Software, Delphi, and COM, Programming Problems and COM Solutions, COM Programming Problems and Delphi Solutions.
• Chapter 11: Applying COM. Scripting an Application, Ole Automation, Extending an Application, Drag-and-Drop, Context Menu Handlers.

Part III: Extending the Delphi Environment

In Chapters 12-16 you'll learn valuable ways to customize the Delphi IDE to streamline and safeguard the development process. You'll build property editors, component editors, and wizards, explore version control systems, and finally walk through all the decisions we made in creating an object debugger.

• Chapter 12. Property Editors. Introducing Property Editors, Writing Property Editors, Property Editor Attributes, Real-World Property Editors, Editing a Collection.
• Chapter 13. Component Editors. Writing Component Editors, Advanced Component Editors, Creating New Event Handlers, An Editor for Every Component, A Wizard-Like Component Editor, Editing with the Object Inspector.
• Chapter 14. Wizards. Experts Basic, Standard and Project Wizards, Add-In Wizards, The List Template Wizard, The Component Wizard, Writing Form Wizards, Proxy-Based Form Wizards, Using the Project Creator, PasToWeb Wizard.
• Chapter 15. Other Delphi Extensions. External Tools and Transfer Macros, The Version Control System Interface, Handling Delphi Notifications, A Summary of the ToolsAPI, Using Custom Design Modules, Publishing Custom Form Properties, Hacking the Delphi Environment.
• Chapter 16. The Object Debugger. The RTTI Helper Routines, Viewing Run-time Properties, A Tree of Components, Editing the Properties, Cloning the User Interface of the Object Inspector, Wrapping the Object Debugger in a Component.

Part IV: Delphi Database Programming

Chapters 17-20 explore-and extend-Delphi's support for database applications. You'll build data-aware components, customize the DBGrid, create a database form wizard, and create custom data set components. You'll also work in the three-tier database model, building remote data modules and thin clients; and you'll explore Delphi tools for publishing a database on the Web.

• Chapter 17. Writing Data-Aware Components. The Data Link, Writing Field-Oriented Data-Aware Controls, Creating Custom Data Links, Customizing the DBGrid Component, Replicatable Data-Aware Components.
• Chapter 18: Extending Delphi Database Support. An Enhanced Database Form Wizard, Building Custom Data Sets, Saving Database Data to a Stream, Saving Components in a Custom Data Set.
• Chapter 19: Remote Data-Sets and Thin Clients. One, Two, Three Levels, Building a Sample Application, Adding Constraints to the Server, Adding Features to the Client.
• Chapter 20: Publishing a database on the WEB. Static and Dynamic Web Pages, Introducing CGI Programming, CGI Database Programming, Using Plain ISAPI, Delphi 3 ISAPI and CGI Support, The HTML Producer Components, ActiveForms as Database Front-Ends.

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