Delphi

• My Components

  TStringAlignGrid V2.0

  At the time I started to get deeper into Delphi I read several news articles asking how to get the cells in a TStringGrid right aligned, and since I needed such a feature on my own project (the database front end which I used to generate the space statistics) I created a component which does exactly this and more. You can set an alignment for the whole grid, columns (for fixed and normal separately) and cells. Due to some requests, I recently added quite a lot of new features to the grid including hint strings for each cell, individual fonts for the cells, an inplace edit which also uses the font and alignment, the grid has some new events which pop up on the start and the end of the editing, the ability to set single cells read-only, a component editor which allows you to set all these properties at design time, even the cell strings, several import and export routines (including HTML), and finally sorting. It's a 100kB zip archive including full source, and it can be used for all Delphi versions (and C++ Builder, too, however I cannot check this one myself). Although it is no longer as simple as the first version it is still Cardware, and now even includes a complete online help.

  TMoon V1.2

  Another component is TMoon, a TImage descendent which always shows the current phase of the moon, either as a bitmap or as an icon. It comes together with a set of functions for calculating the moon's phases, the distance to the sun and the moon, the solstices and equinoxes (the beginning of the seasons), sun and moon rise and set times, and the type of the next eclipses. As a demo application there's a (expanded) clone of the Moontool by John Walker. Needless to say both the components as well as my Moontool is Public Domain. The algorithms used in this program are all based upon the book Astronomical Algorithms by Jean Meeus.

  TJEPGImage V1.3

  Luciano Bajo Eloy has created a native Delphi 2 component to display JPEG images based upon the free PasJPEG library. At first I only added a few methods and made it working with Delphi 1 and 3, too, and now I added the often-requested JPEG saving as well as a TDBJPEGImage - a functionality Delphi 3 with it's JPEG unit lacks, the TDBImage only allows BMP's. As this now uses nearly the whole PasJPEG it's now 350k big, you can download it here, or if you have any problems with that server it's also available at the Delphi sites listed below.

  Internet components V0.2 and ICMP V0.3

  I'm currently working on a collection of components for a more Delphi-like internet connection without those OCX delivered with Delphi 2.01 and Delphi 3 - just what Borland should have done instead of buying that third party product. While still in heavy construction, there are now a quite a few components - Finger (client and demon), HTTP (including post and proxy support and basic authentication), FTP, time, RExec, RSh, lpr, POP3, SMTP and Mail (including MIME for file attachments), and NNTP and News. This is the second beta version, still available for free. Instead of a detailed documentation I've included all the sources and a simple demo application for nearly every component. And all the components are usable for Delphi 1, 2 and 3, only some of the demo applications are for 32bit only.

  As I'm still struggling with making the components asynchronous to make a new release I decided to offer a patch to fix the problems found in Version 0.2. This also includes the winsock.pas I created to support all Delphi versions as well as offering both static and dynamic linking to the winsock DLL.

  In a separate package there are two ICMP components, TPing and TTraceRoute, to program your own visual ping with Delphi 2. These are now Version 0.3, and I'll merge these two with the TCP/IP component to a internet packages once I think I can call the TCP/IP stuff "finished". Of course any feedback on these is welcome, especially any bug reports. A good book which helped me a lot to get started with this is Building Internet Applications with Delphi 2 by Davis Chapman et.al., Que Corporation. Only sad thing is this book is currently out of print, so you need to be lucky to get one copy of.

  Some notes

  As there's never really bug free software I've added a page with the known bugs in the current version of the components and if possible a work-around. Just to avoid a new version every week...

  And I've created a mailing list where I'll post update notifications for any of my components or programs, so if you'd like to be added to this you can do this by sending a mail with Subject "subscribe" to ah-delphi-request@scp.de or press this button

  
  You will receive a short notification email, if not check your email address (defaultuser@domain.com is already subscribed).

  All my components and programs are freeware, or to be more exact postcardware, that means you're free to use them as you like, and if you like them you can send me a nice picture postcard of your hometown. To all those who already send me one (or even gifts) a big thanks.

  Resources on the web

  Of course I'm not the only one interested in winsock programming and Delphi, so here are some links to other sites I find interesting, especially if you want to really understand how the components work internally.
  • J. Peter Murgas has his own sockets encapsulation.
  • Franτois Piette also has a socket encapsulation, together with a set of components for the various protocols
  • Dave Baldwin's shareware HTML component which supports everything needed for a simple web browser
  • Sockets.Com have all the Winsock specifications, sample code (C++ only) and other documentation, e.g. about Microsoft's ICMP.DLL.
  • The document archive at the RIPE; FTP site including the Internet standards for the several protocols etc.
  • Socks, a standard for firewalling and accounting.
  • The Delphi Internet Newsgroup at Borland.

• My programs

  One of the demo application those TCP/IP components is an automatic Dilbert and Peanuts downloader, which gets all the strips located in the Dilbert Archive or Peanuts Archive respectively which you don't already have (to be correct all the other comic strips located at United Media are also implemented). But don't forget the comic strip are copyrighted.

  The program is freeware, and the sources are included in the tcpip package (with one small exception, the command line interface is left out as it contains some company internal code); there's a Windows GUI version as well as a command line version (for batched use...), both for Windows '95 or NT, all in an about 200k zip archive.

  And then there's the Moontool clone mentioned above, again an about 200k zip archive with both a 16bit and 32bit version. The sources are in the Moon package.

• Delphi sites on the WWW

  There are several sites which offer quite a lot of freeware and shareware components for free download. The first one was the Delphi Super Page located in Poland with mirrors all over the world (e.g. try the german mirror at the University of Aachen), and it is still one of the best.

  Torry's Delphi Pages in Russia have the components sorted a bit better in my opinion, but what I like most at that site is their service - they inform every components author about the download statistics of his files, so you can make yourself an image of how interesting your stuff is to the world.

  Another site worth visiting are the Delphi Pages.

  Richard Fellner collects quite a lot of good Delphi Informations on his page, not only components and links but also job offers etc.

  If you search for something like a Delphi magazine on the web have a look at The Unofficial Newsletter of Delphi Users by Robert Vivrette.

  The JEDI project is a joint effort to convert all those C header files of the WinAPI Borland left out to Delphi code, thus making them accessible to everyone.