News Page

July 31st, 1998

Looks like the HTML Help version of UNDU is working well... Haven't had any major problems and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. The new format uses the Microsoft HTML Help viewer application, and if you are a user of Win95 or WinNT and cannot view this test issue of UNDU, you may want to visit the Microsoft HTML Help site to get the viewer. Win98 includes this viewer as part of its standard configuration. Also, if you have downloaded and installed IE4, you should already have the new viewer. As far as I know, there is not a system in place that allows Win3.x users to view HTML Help files. Correct me if I am wrong!

When you disable a menu item in Delphi 4 that has an associated glyph, have you ever wondered why your tiny little work of art turns into a gray shapeless blob? Turns out it is a bit of a glitch in the Delphi 4 VCL. To learn more, check out David Yowell's article Fixing a Menu Drawing Glitch in Delphi 4.

There has been a lot of interest in the Pascal/Delphi compiler story I mentioned on the 29th. I suppose there is little need for me to be a middleman for people showing interest in this, so the developer of this project has indicated it would probably be easier to just include his email and web site. So here it is:

Also today, Lighthouse Software has announced the availability of DocSuite, a document management system primarily used to track Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS). The reason I mention this is that it is a pretty neat tool developed with Delphi 3 and I had worked on some aspects of its user interface. Hey... a little free advertising never hurt anyone... ;-)

I have a bunch more stuff to put up in the next day or two but ran out of time today... stay tuned!

July 29th, 1998

A bunch of things to cover today...

First, those of you who use my IniOut component, I recently received my upgrade to Delphi 4 and have updated it to support this latest version. You all should be receiving the update today, but if for some reason you do not, please email me and I will send it right out. If you are not a user of IniOut and would like to try the shareware version, click here. If you would like to see a review of IniOut, click here.

As many of you know, at the beginning of this year, I discontinued the distribution of the downloadable versions of UNDU. Starting with February, the issues were only readable online. Due to popular demand however, it looks like this is going to change! A reader of UNDU in Indonesia, Irwan Adriansyah, has very gratiously offered to convert the material each month into a downloadable version in HTML Help format. We are still in the process of ironing out what they will look like, but he has a first draft copy of the February, 1998 "issue" of UNDU. If you would like to download it and check it out, please click here. Remember however, that this is in HTML Help format and not the older Windows HLP format. As a result, some of you (most likely Windows 3.x users) will not be able to do anything with this file. I have tested it with Win95, Win98, and WinNT and it works fine in all of these environments. I suspect, however, that some Win95 users who have older versions of some of the system DLL's will also not be able to view this file. If you have any comments or suggestions on the design or functionality of these files, please let me know. You may also want to send a brief thank-you note to Irwan as he is volunteering his spare time to do this for us. Please keep the emails brief though, because he pays for his connect time to the internet.

More interesting news... I have learned of a project which is working on implementing a free Delphi compatible 32-bit pascal compiler.

The project is still in the early stages, but it's aims are as follows:

The project must be considered as still in beta-stage, since the Delphi compatibility isn't 100% finished yet, although this is expected in the near future. I presume from my conversations with the developer that we are just talking about the "compiler" here, not any kind of environment for designing forms, or a code editor or anything like that. I might be wrong though. However, the potential ability to take a 32-bit app designed and coded using Delphi, and then recompiling it for use on Linux will no doubt draw considerable interest.

If you are interested in this project, please let me know and I will forward your comments or questions to the developer.

July 20th, 1998

I will be taking a short vacation and will be back on July 27th. Look for a big update then!

July 15th, 1998

Last month, there was a mention about a Delphi memory checker called MemProof. I recently received an email from Mattias Linde who reports that there is another freeware solution called Snoop which can be found at the IHS Software web site. Looks interesting, but I haven't tried it out yet. Maybe someone who has had some experience with one or both of these products could do a little review/comparison of them?
 
Two more articles today: The first is one from Matt Hamilton on managing network lock files entitled Sorting Out Lock Files Once And For All! Also today, Steve Gill follows-up the TDateTimePicker article from earlier this month with a descendant component in Enhancing the TDateTimePicker Component.

Also, I recently have received a flurry of e-mails from users offering neat IDE and/or code editor shortcuts. You are going to be seeing a few of them over the next few days, but it got me thinking that there are probably a lot of people out there who have their own little customizations they have done to Delphi's code editor that other readers could benefit from. If you have one that you think is unique, please send it along. Remember, every contributor to UNDU gets included in the random prize drawing at the end of the month!

July 13th, 1998

Some interesting company and product announcements from Baltic Solutions as well as a very cool trick that helps you to see all your global variables in a list from within the Delphi IDE. Read more about it in Picking Global Variables from a List.

July 7, 1998

Another small adjustment to this site... I will be moving all Reviews of Delphi-related products (software, books, etc) to their own link on the button bar to the left.

There will be two prizes awarded to randomly selected contributors this month. The first goes to Grahame Marsh for his articles on the The MultiLine Hint Property Editor and the Drop File Helper Component. His prize is a copy of InputPro by FarPoint Technologies. InputPro is an impressive set of custom editing controls in their Visual Architect Series. You can learn more about InputPro by visiting FarPoint's web site at http://www.fpoint.com.

The second prize winner is Chad Roalson for bringing a Delphi Job site to my attention. His prize is a copy of the Delphi Informant Works CD which contains all issues of Delphi Informant through the end of 1997.

We start off the month of July with a bang by bringing two more great articles. As you may recall, last month Grahame Marsh presented an article on the Drop File Helper component which, as it turns out, I said could handle dragging and dropping files to and from your Delphi Apps. As it turns out, it was only a "Drop" file helper. Grahame jumped on the opportunity and wrote a companion article entitled Drag File Helper Component.

Also, a reader recently commented on a failing in the TDateTimePicker component which sparked some investigative juices in me. After some research, I came up with an article on Formatting a TDateTimePicker. It's one of those "1 line of code" solutions, so I think you will all find it interesting.

Lastly, there have been a few more additions to the Delphi Job Site link. Thanks for everyone's help on putting this together.

 

In order to keep the size of the News Page to a minimum, I will be archiving previous months and listing them at the bottom.
News Page for June, 1998  
News Page for May, 1998
News Page for April, 1998
News Page for March, 1998
News Page for February, 1998