XCL classes

Here You can see list of available problems to solve named 'tasks'. If problem is solved or it is solving now then name of member is appearing in right column of table below. Any case name of task in left column is referred onto more detailed description of this one in separate html (if such description is ready). You may click it to read either project definition or final description if task finished. If You feel that task list not full, feel free to e-mail me about it to suggest new necessary task name and its brief and/or detailed definitions.
Choose one of not allocated problems to become a member or if You consider that task list is not complete, add your own here. Feel Yourself free to use source of any solved task similar given to get a template to solve any other. If You give task be remember that Your code must satisfy to basic principles of XCL project. E-mail me, if You are ready to vote yourself as XCL developers team member.

Task name	Task description	Status
XClass and XChild in XClasses.pas	Similar TComponent in VCL. But it is descending from TObject and differ from this last mainly by ability to have parent XClass object and list of child XClass objects. Parent is responsible for destroying of childs when it is destroyed.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 16-Jun-99; improved by GuX, 13-Oct-99 (type LongWord for Delphi3)
XVisual in XVisuals.pas	Ancestor of XWindow and XControl. Intended to provide XForm (->XWindow) and XControl with common virtual methods and properties (BoundsRect, ClientRect, Visible, Enabled and so on).	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 16-Jun-99
XWindow in XWindows.pas	Similar TWinControl and TForm in VCL. Provides registration of window in Windows environment and basic functionality of it (message handling, creating, destroying).	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 16-Jun-99
XApplet in XApplets.pas	Similar TApplication in VCL provides running of applet, interface with main window, loop of messages dispatching.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 16-Jun-99, modified by C.Kok, 5-Sep-99
XForm in XForms.pas	Similar TForm in VCL but without reading itself from executable. Just XWindow with ability to have XControl objects as childs. Responsible for painting, focusing, mouse and keyboard events handling. In contrast to VCL TForm, is simplified by avoiding of support of printing form, responding for MDI, scaling, aligning of controls. And at least it can not read itself from executable.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 18-Jun-99
XFormAutoSizer in XFormAutoSize.pas	Add-on module for autosizing of XForm and its descenders and XControl descenders with child controls. It is adding by calling of UseAutoSizer increasing applet for several Kbytes.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 19-Jun-99
XAligner in XAlign.pas	If used in applet (by calling UseAligns), adds for all XForm(s) and its descenders support of Align property for all its child controls, which are using this one. If this add-on is not used, executable become smaller for about 3Kbytes.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 19-Jun-99
XResizeAntiFlicker in XResize.pas	This add-on when used (by call UseResizeAntiFlicker) eliminates flickering of controls aligned to opposite side to moving with mouse border edge during x-form resizing. There are no similar solutions for VCL, and I think this task can not have solution in Delphi VCL in common case at all. Even in XCL ResizeAntiFlicker works better for forms without MFC-based controls (and in VCL the most of controls are MFC-based). When used, increases size of executable by 4Kbytes.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 05-Sep-99
XFormsStdMouseEvents in XMouseEvents.pas	Add-on for XForm for handling mouse events. It is included into final executable only by calling UseStdMouse adding about 1Kb.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 02-Jul-99
XFormsStdKeyEvents in XKeyboardEvents.pas	Add-on for XForm adding keyboard handling and tabulating between controls. It is added to executable only by calling UseKeyboard increasing size of applet onto about 1,5Kb.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 02-Jul-99

XControlAutoPlacer in XControlAutoPlace.pas	If used, it adds for all XForm(s) support of autoplacing and autoresizing controls when size and / or position of its childs are changed. This allow to adjust size and position of controls and form itself so its never overlaps and form always is shown correctly independently of screen resolution, font sizes and so on.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 19-Jun-99
XControl in XForms.pas	Similar TGraphicControl in VCL. In XCL it is a descendent of XVisual. Created as a child of XForm, which simulates focusing and provides device context for it while painting.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 18-Jun-99
COMMON UTILITIES
ZList in XClasses.pas	Similar TList in Delhi VCL, but more simple (does not not support sorting, has no Move or Swap methods).	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 16-Jun-99
ZTimer, XTimer in XTimers.pas	Objects to encapsulate Windows timer. Similar to TTimer in VCL, but ZTimer and XTimer are using applet button window and handles messages directly. ZTimer is derived from TObject so You are responding for its freeing. XTimer can be child of any other XClass (in that case it is destroying when its parent is freeing).	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 02-Jun-99, 27-Jul-99, 08-Sep-99
ZThread in XThreads.pas	Similar to TThread in VCL, but easier.	by Tim Slusher, finished Oct-99
XMenu, XPopup in XMenus.pas	Similar to TMainMenu and TPopupMenu in VCL. But very simple. These two classes allow to create easy statically designed (as a list of strings) menu with submenus.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 27-Jul-99
XOpenSaveDialog in XDialogs.pas	Open/Save dialog implementation.	finished by Carlo Kok - 28-Oct-99
ZStrList, ZStringList, ZStrings in XStrLists.pas	Similar to TStringList in VCL.	finished by Tim Slusher 28-Sep-99
XWindowUtils.pas	Set of useful windows utility functions. FindWindowByThreadID, GetDesktopRect.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas 16-Nov-99
XStrUtils.pas	Set of necessary string utility functions.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas
XDateUtils.pas	Set of functions to work with date and time. XDateTime in XCL made slightly another (days are counting from 30-Dec-0001 B.C., not from 30-Dec-1899 A.D. as it is made in VCL).	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 25-Sep-99
XFileUtils.pas	Set of functions to work with files (XFileExists, XFileCreate, XFileSeek functions).	by Mr.Bonanzas, improved by Tim Slusher 28-Sep-99
ZFileChange in XFileChange.pas	Class (derived from ZThread) to notify about changes in given folder or folders tree.	by Tim Slusher 21-Oct-99, finished
XShellLinks.pas	Set of functions to work with Wondows shortcuts (shell links). Now function ResolveLink is ready to use.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 16-Nov-99
XStreams.pas	ZStream, ZFileStream and ZMemoryStream classes to work with streams.	by Tim Slusher 28-Sep-99
function JustOne( Id : String ) : Boolean in XJustOne.pas	Very simple JustOne function to allow only one instance of given applet to execute.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 30-Sep-99
function JustOneNotify(...) : Boolean and JustOneNotifier: ZJustOneNotifier in XJustOneNotify.pas	Like above, but allows also get notifications about attempts to run other instances of applet and command line parameters string of correspondent 'execute' command.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 30-Sep-99
ZTrayIcon in XTrayIcons.pas	Allows place icon on tray, remove it, change it or its tooltip text and get mouse messages from it.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 30-Sep-99
HIGH-LEVEL GRAPHICS SUPPORT
XGraphicObject, XPen, XBrush, XFont, XGraphicsManager in XGraphics.pas	Basic graphics objects and other definition. Primarily these are used with XCanvas, but can be used separately.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 20-Jun-99
XCanvas, XCanvasManager in XCanvases.pas	Similar TCanvas in VCL but smaller and more simple. It does not avoid duplicating of resources but it is intended to paint mainly on WM_PAINT message and this ability is not necessary. At least, it is possible to use additional XCanvasObjectsManager to reuse resources at the expense of increasing code.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 20-Jun-99
XCanvasObjectManager in XCanvasObjects.pas	Intended to expand XCanvas with ability to void of duplicating resources and reuse it from heap. If it is not used, executable can be smaller. It is recommended to use it if applet is performing a lot of painting or have big number of controls - to reduce needs in GDI resources.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 20-Jun-99
XFontRotator in XRotateFonts.pas	This add-on is intended to allow painting of rotated text (in XLabel and other controls, using XLabel). Setting property Orientation of XFont object is not sufficient to paint rotated text correctly. FontRotator calculates correct size of area to place rotated text and origin point to pass it to Windows.TextOut function.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 20-Jun-99, 19-Jul-99
XImageList in XImgLists.pas	API ImageList implementation for XCL (similar to TImageList in Delphi, but easier).	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 10-Oct-99
ZPicture in XImages.pas	Abstract class to derive different image storages from it (bitmaps, icons and so on).	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 18-Oct-99
ZDDB in XImages.pas	First bitmap class to store Device Dependent Bitmaps. More useful than hBitmap handle because can have Canvas and allows painting onto it. It is possible to free canvas at any time without loosing of the image. Format of image can not be changed and depends on Windows screen mode.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 18-Oct-99
ZHiBmp in XImages.pas	Extended DDB. Allows changing of format. Ambigous if You are going to use DIB bitmaps (below).	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 18-Oct-99
ZDIBitmap in XImages.pas	Intended to store Device Independent Bitmap. Pixels of DIB can be directly accessed using property ScanLines[] and function GetScanLine (faster). ZDIBitmap does not support pf4bit and pf8bit formats, which needs of palette handling. ZDIBitmap needs in Canvas only to paint onto its surface. To draw bitmap itself Canvas is not necessary. This last (and other GDI resources) can be safely free using FreeResources.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 18-Oct-99
ZBitmap in XImages.pas	Full featured DIB bitmap (supporting all formats and handling palette). As well as ZDIBitmap, can draw itself (onto another DC) without Canvas; and allows accessing of pixels fast with ScanLines[] property or GetScanLine function (even faster)	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 18-Oct-99
ZIcon in XImages.pas	Icon incapsulator. Similar to TIcon in VCL.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 18-Oct-99
ZGifDecoder, ZGif in XGifs.dcu	Gif87a and Gif89a implementations for XCL. Calculating exact transparency mask, allow correct showing of any gif clips. ZGifDecoder is similar to freeware TGifImage from RxLib, but calculates exact transparency mask for every frame. Just decodes gif into series of bitmaps. ZGif provides correct painting of resulting frames of animated gif (it already combined all the frames and it is only need to call its drawing methods to paint given frame). Also ZGif allows to economy resources using its method FreeResources after drawing every frame.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 11-Nov-99
SELF-PAINTING CONTROLS These controls require XCanvas and perform painting and other controlling itself, using only API calls. So, size of applet using such controls, is greater then in case of using MFC-based controls only (see below). But is You want to get some effects (e.g. rotating font in labels) or to replace some standard controls with more efficient, this is your choice. All the more self-painting controls do not require window handle, so needs in user resources can be reduced using these ones.
XCustomControl in XControls.pas	Prototype of self-painting controls, which use canvas of parent form.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 22-Jun-99
XLabel in XControls.pas	Simple self-painting label similar to TLabel in Delphi (but can not WrapWords and to be transparent).	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 22-Jun-99
XCustomBevel in XControls.pas	Prototype of beveled controls (panels, buttons and so on).	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 23-Jun-99
XBevel in XControls.pas	Simple panel without caption, beveled as default with raised 3D-frame.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 23-Jun-99
XPanel in XControls.pas	Panel very like to TPanel in Delphi. Uses internally XLabel to draw caption.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 24-Jun-99
XSplitPanel in XSplitPanels.pas	Panel, divided onto several inner panels. This control requires XAligns add-on and necessarily includes this last into executable. Inner panels can be sized with mouse if add-on XSplitSizing is used (call UseSplitSizer). Inner panels ( which are derived from XPanel ) can be put vertically or horizontally, from left/top to right/bottom or from right/bottom to left/top (the last of inner panels is client-aligned, so Side property determines which panel will resizing with form - first or last).	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 31-Jul-99
XStatus in XSplitPanels.pas	Status bar similar to VCL TStatusBar but even more power if add-on XSplitSizing is used (in that case inner panels can be sized with mouse).	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 31-Jul-99
XSplitSizer in XSplitSizing.pas	Add-on, allowing splitting of XSplitPanel and its descendents (i.e., XStatus).	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 31-Jul-99
XGrep in XControls.pas	Special control to draw grep in bottom-right corner of parent control (usually panel, status inner panel or any other XCustomBevel descendant). Also provides response to WM_NCHITTEST message, growing area where cursor becomes NW-SE and sizing of form is possible.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas 31-Jul-99
XGroup in XControls.pas	Similar TGroupBox in Delphi. Can have title on any part of border.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 25-Jun-99
XPaint in XControls.pas	Simple self-painting control with OnPaint message (similar to TPaint in Delphi VCL).	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 25-Jun-99
XCustomCheckBox in XControls.pas	Prototype for checkboxes and radioboxes.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 26-Jun-99
XCheckBox in XControls.pas	Simple checkbox without caption.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 26-Jun-99
XRadioBox in XControls.pas	Simple radiobox without caption.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 27-Jun-99
XCustomCheck in XControls.pas	Prototype for XCheck and XRadio (look below).	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 27-Jun-99
XCheck in XControls.pas	Checkbox with caption similar to VCL TCheckBox.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 27-Jun-99
XRadio in XControls.pas	RadioBox with caption similar to VCL TRadioBox.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 28-Jun-99
XCustomButton in XControls.pas	Simple button without caption or picture. It is intended mainly as prototype of button but therefore can be used itself.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 29-Jun-99
XButton in XControls.pas	Simple button with caption. Can be fixed, focusable or speed button, autosizable, aligned, ...	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 30-Jun-99
XDropButton in XControls.pas	Simple button to represent drop (up, down, right, left) triangle arrow.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 01-Aug-99
XImgButton in XImgButtons.pas	Button with image and caption (similar to TBitBtn component in VCL). Uses image from XImageList.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 10-Oct-99
XScroller in XControls.pas	Similar to TScrollbar in VCL and even more power.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 28-Aug-99
XScrollBar in XControls.pas	Similar XScroller, but more specialized to work in pare with another scrollbar on the same parent control.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 28-Aug-99
XScrollBox in XControls.pas	Similar TScrollBox in VCL. It allows place into and scroll other controls.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 30-Aug-99
XEdit in XEdits.pas	Similar TEdit in VCL.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 08-Sep-99
XCaretShower in XCarets.pas	Add-on providing the painting of blinking caret in edit controls which are derived from XCustomControl (like XEdit) and has no window handle. It does not use Windows' caret APIs, instead it paints caret itself what requires about 1Kbytes of code, but is looking more correctly when controls are overlapped and requires nothing when not used. Activated by call UseCaret( True ). Can be deactivated at run time.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 08-Sep-99
XEditMouseSelect in XEditMouseSel.pas	Add-on to provide selecting of portions of text in XEdit control with mouse and to scroll its content with mouse.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 08-Sep-99
XEditClipboard in XEditClipbrd.pas	Add-on to provide copying/cutting selected part of XEdit text to clipboard and pasting from clipboard to XEdit.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 08-Sep-99
XEditUndo in XEditUndoExt.pas	Add-on to provide undo/redo operations for XEdit on pressing CTRL-Z, CTRL-SHIFT-Z or by calling appropriate methods.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 10-Sep-99
XCustomGrid in XGrids.pas	Similar to TCustomGrid in VCL but lighter.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 12-Sep-99
XGrid in XGrids.pas	Similar to TDrawGrid in VCL but lighter (no fixed rows and columns).	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 12-Sep-99
XListView in XLists.pas	Similar to TListBox in VCL (without editing).	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 14-Sep-99
XListMouseSelect in XListMouseSel.pas	Add-on which allows mouse positioning, selecting and scrolling for XListView.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 14-Sep-99
XListKeySelect in XListKeySel.pas	Add-on which will allow positioning, selecting and scrolling of lines in XListView with keyboard.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 15-Sep-99
XListEdit in XListEditExt.pas	Add-on to provide editing lines of XListView using temporarily created XEdit control.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 16-Sep-99
XNotebook in XControls.pas	Similar to TNotebook in VCL. Allows to place children controls on several Pages[], only one of which last (ActivePage) is visible at the time.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 20-Sep-99
XTabs in XControls.pas	It seems to be like as TTabControl but slightly different in appearance and behaviour, especially in case than a lot tabs are needed to be shown. I think, my solve of this task more complient then in VCL.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 20-Sep-99
XTabbedNotebook in XControls.pas	It is the union of XTabs and XNotebook, where XTabs is controlling ActivePage of Notebook and can be placed at one of four sides of the last.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 20-Sep-99
XCalendar in XCalendars.pas	Similar TCalendar in VCL. Can be horizontal or vertical - oriented, first day of week can be changed from Sunday to other (e.g., Monday), and some other features make it even more power (then TCalendar).	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 26-Sep-99
XGauge in XControls.pas	Similar TGauge.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - ??-Sep-99
XHysto in XHystogramms.pas	Allows to store and graphically represent mesure values. Has very big set of adjustments.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 24-Nov-99
MFC-BASED CONTROLS These controls are very important, because it is very easy to create it just constructing interface with existing (globally in Windows) control classes. These classes are located in standard DLL's, which are supplied by Windows itself. And these are painting and controlling itself, so code of Mfc-based controls is very small, and applet can use large set of those without great growing of size of executable. Some disadvantages of Mfc-based controls are: necessity of window handle for every Mfc-control, flickering (this can be eliminated using special add-ons), inefficient of some Mfc-controls in handling of large data volumes - treeview, listbox and so on. At the same time, creating of Mfc-based controls is essentially easy task than designing of self-painted controls above. Just look at its similar one in VCL, definition of it in Win32.hlp and create the same for XCL, using existing Mfc-based controls as prototype how to do it. I held up working under MFC-controls and stop it temporarily, waiting for volunteers, who could find this job acceptable. And my believes was happy when Tim Slusher decided to start working with it. Let us say GREAT THANKS to Tim. But do not wait, do not be lazy - join to project and take part in growing of XCL! Just look at XMFCControls.pas and learn how to create another mfc-controls. And You will be first who get benefits from this work. Unfortunately I have no time now to create full-scale documentation on MFC-controls. Be patient, I will try to make it as soon as possible. At least, You always can read source.
XMfcControl in XMfcControls.pas	The prototype for all Mfc-based controls below. Derive new Mfc-based controls from it.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 19-Jul-99
XWCustomStatic in XMfcControls.pas	The implementation of 'STATIC' control. Needs in further detailization. Potentially can be ancestor of static text label, static bitmap/icon image or event play role of panel with bevels.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 19-Jul-99
CLabel in XMfcControls.pas	Derived from XWCustomStatic, is presenting natural Windows label (similar TStaticText in Delphi VCL). If You plan change it often, use anti-flickering add-on below.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 19-Jul-99
XWCustomPaint in XMfcControls.pas	Prototype of owner-painting controls. Implemented next after XWlabel to derive XMfcCover (local in XMfcAntiFlick.pas). This last was required to cover XWLabel temporarily and prevent flicks in WM_SETTEXT message.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 19-Jul-99
CPaint in XMfcControls.pas	Derived from XWCustomPaint. Similar to TPaintBox in VCL.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 19-Jul-99
XMfcAntiFlicker in XMfcAntiFlick.pas	Add-on to avoid flicks in Mfc-based controls: (1st) by painting through memory bitmap buffer; (2nd) by preventing changing of caption during assignment new one. Just call procedure UseMfcAntiFlicker before creating the first form in dpr-file (as well as for other add-ons). Size of code added there is about 2 Kbytes.	finished by Mr.Bonanzas - 19-Jul-99
CButton in XMFCControls.pas	Standard Windows button.	by Tim Slusher (& Vladimir Kladov), finished 27-Oct-99
CEdit	Standard Windows edit control.	by Tim Slusher finished 5-Nov-99
CMemo	Similar to TMemo in VCL.	by Tim Slusher finished 5-Nov-99
XCL TOOLS This part contains definition of possible external tools which (could be) made using standard VCL. Such utility applications could be used to simplify programming in XCL which is not now "visual" process and seems to be harder then working in IDE. As it is said in introduction, we have to refuse from such IDE beauties as visual form designing using Components Palette and Object Inspector. But this does not mean that it is impossible to create wizard, which could play role of these great tools. Such wizard could allow to design XCL forms and adjust its controls properties and events making XCL-plogramming visual and convenient again.
XCL Wizard	Tool, which allow to preview XCL form, drop controls onto it, inspect and change its properties and events similar to how IDE shell does for standard VCL form. Designer takes definitions of controls from its source (may be, taking some of those from comments). In result designer has to generate source for dpr-file and project units. It would be pleasure if the Designer could work interactively generating source code immediately in correspondance with performed commands similar that IDE does.	???
XCL Help This set of documents can be used as help. Well, but creating of help in hlp-format could be very useful to get context help when coding under XCL. If anybody has sufficient experience in creating such format of help and installing it into IDE help, I would be appritiate to accept your assistance.
XCL.hlp	Translation of this documents set into standard Windows .hlp-file (or set of such files). It is desirable to provide files, needed to traslate its into "hlp" using hhw.exe, because documentation about XCL is always under construction.	???