I guess there's a good side to everything, because if it hadn't been
for the fact that my system and only copies of Delphi were stolen, and that
I had to have a copy of Delphi on hand to deal with past projects, I never
would have bought D2006! I had grown quite disgusted by Borland's direction
and the sad shape the last two IDE's were released in, and because of this
had no desire to even look at a new copy of Delphi again.
Now that I have D2006 up and running I can say once more that it's a
real joy to work in the Delphi IDE! I believe now that I'll be continuing
to complete a lot more win32 projects then I had originally intended!
Along these lines, I was going to post this information on my web
site, but seeing as how it's down right now and probably will be for the
next few months, and because right now is when this information can be best
used, I'll give it to you now here on the Lists!
It has to do with making use of component libraries originally
created for a previous version of Delphi like those provided for D7 or
D2005. In many cases you'll find that merely re-compiling the source code
will make the component or component set available under D2006 as well,
however this is not always the case! And another problem often encountered
when trying to do this is the plain fact that you do not have or have access
to the component's source code...only it's packages and/or dcu's! And since
the very first version it has always been absolutely necessary to have the
source files in order to add any such component designed for a previous
version of Delphi to the latest one!
Lastly, sometimes, and even though you have it's source code, it
doesn't matter what you do...how you might create updated dpk files and
recompile them...it's just plain impossible for one reason or another to
update them!
But even if you've given up on trying to add these components to
your toolbox, there may still be a way that you can make use of them!
Long-time users of Delphi will well know this, and even though I've done it
this way myself more than a few times it's just one of those little tricks
that seem just too easy to forget!
I wouldn't hesitate to guess that better than 50% of those
components for which you have the source code, and which were originally
created for a previous version of Delphi and so will not install in D2006,
are rendered useless not by some "real" problem inherent to it's practical
use or working abilities, but by code in their component registration and/or
design-time interface which needs often a complete re-write! And if you
stop and think about what the VCL is and how it has been designed to work,
you'll also realize that many of these same components can still be used
quite easily in your own projects with but one slight difference in the way
you use them at design time only!
One of the better and most current examples I can give you right now
is that of the Open source freeware versions of many of the original
TurboPower products. In the case of many of them, such as SysTools and
Orpheus, those working to keep these products up to date have already done
the hard work for you and have made available for download new package files
that will allow you to install them just as if bought brand new this week!
But others, such as Lockbox...a component library which provides some great
encryption routines I couldn't work without, this is sadly not true!
Naturally I tried making some changes myself in hopes of getting
Lockbox to install properly into my D2006 IDE environment, but after an hour
of no success and little hope that there was going to be any, I decided that
I'd simply sneak up on the library from behind and make use of it the old
fashioned way...without the design advantages of being able to drop a
component onto my Form during design!
To do this, just open up the dpk in Delphi and take a look at the
requirements clause un the project manager...and find out which of the units
included in it's source code are required to be entered into your form's
interface section uses clause. It should be pretty easy to figure this out,
but if not, perhaps you can cheat and just look to see what units have been
automatically added to the uses clause of those forms which you dropped it's
components on in a previous version of Delphi! In the case of LockBox. All
you need to add are two units namely:
LbCipher and LbClass.
Once these have been added to any unit in which you wish to make use
of it's components, all you gotta do is Create, use, and then Free the
components in the library you wish to use normally!
If you take a hard look at many of your now unused component sets
you may be surprised to find that you can once again make them useful. Like
I said earlier, it's a method we all know but because we get so dependant
upon the VCL is also easy to forget!
from Robert Meek dba Tangentals Design
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