Pascal Newsletter #20 - 15-APR-2001
INDEX
1. A FEW WORDS FROM THE EDITOR
2. HELP & MANUAL
- What is Help & Manual?
- A straight-forward and easy-to-use interface
- Good reasons to use Help & Manual
- What do you need to work with Help & Manual?
· What do you need to create Windows help files (.HLP files)?
· What do you need to print a manual?
· What do you need to create HTML pages?
· What do you need to create the new fancy HTML HELP (.CHM files)?
- EC Software Help Suite (EHS)
· All about Help files in Borland Delphi
- Where to get Help & Manual
- Other interesting stuff
3. DETERMINING IF A FORM HAS MOVED
4. GETTING THE BIOS SERIAL NUMBER
5. FROM NEWBIE TO NEWBIE
WRITING WITH LABEL1 IN "REALTIME"
6. DELPHI ON THE NET
- Kylix articles
- Delphi articles
7. RESOURCES
________________________________________________________________________
1. A FEW WORDS FROM THE EDITOR
In this issue I'm glad to present Help & Manual, an excellent tool that
will help you create a good documentation quickly and easily.
---------------------------------------------
I M P O R T A N T A N N O U N C E M E N T
---------------------------------------------
Before writing this article, I contacted EC Software -the makers of Help
& Manual- and I convinced them to do a drawing ("raffle") with one
license of their software (including twelve months of free upgrades),
and as a special courtesy, the subscribers of this newsletter that
participate in the drawing will be given two numbers instead of one.
Besides that, participants can get more numbers by referring other
participants. Participation is free, and you don't need to purchase or
evaluate the product.
To participate, or get more information follow this link:
http://www.latiumsoftware.com/ec-software/index.php?lang=en
Best regards,
Ernesto De Spirito
eds2008 @ latiumsoftware.com
________________________________________________________________________
JfControls Library. Multi-language. Multi-appearance. Skins. Privileges.
More than 40 integrated and customizable components. Impressive GUI.
Centralized resources administration. Multiple programming problems
solved. For Delphi 3-2006 & C++ Builder 3-6. http://www.jfactivesoft.com
________________________________________________________________________
2. HELP & MANUAL
Writing a good help file with browse sequences, table of contents, index
and everything, and fully integrating it to an application can be too
cumbersome... or at least that was my idea until I tried Help & Manual.
What is Help & Manual?
======================
Help & Manual is a stand-alone and true WYSIWYG authoring tool that
simplifies the creation of Windows help files, printed manuals and
documentation in general.
A straight-forward and easy-to-use interface
============================================
Help & Manual combines a text editor and a tree-view of the content in
one window. It lets you easily navigate the table of contents and insert
or edit help topics without much fuss. This simple and intuitive
interface has much been copied but never reached the same usability
level.
The WYSIWYG interface leaves out all the cryptic references for
hyperlinks, macros and images. Instead of scuffling with topic IDs,
footnotes and obscure commands, you can concentrate on more important
things: to design your help file. Everything you need is right there at
your finger tips.
With Help & Manual you can easily create Windows help files (for Windows
3.x, Windows 95 / NT and the new format HTML HELP) as well as electronic
documentation (HTML pages, richtext files to ship an electronic manual).
Last but not least, you can print user manuals directly, including a
table of contents and a keyword index, with customized page layouts,
headers, footers and page numbering.
All these documentation types are created from one single source! From
a Help & Manual project that saves the data for topics, contents,
keywords, index and all project settings in a single source file.
Good reasons to use Help & Manual
=================================
* Save time
Help & Manual helps you to create better documentation more quickly.
Writing the help file for a mid-ranged software project is a matter of
days, not weeks.
* Save money
Online help is a key feature of your software and cannot be
undervalued. A professional and well organized documentation can
decrease support costs drastically.
* Concentrate on the important thing
Explain your software to your users, not the help authoring tool to
yourself. Help & Manual's intuitive user interface is transparent,
straight-forward and shields you from the technical stuff of help
files. What you see is simply what you get.
* Supply a print manual
What other help authoring tools just promise - Help & Manual does it.
It directly prints ready-to-ship user manuals from your help project.
Forget the fuss about different formattings for online help and print
output.
* Get ready for HTML HELP
Microsoft has introduced the new help standard HTML HELP with Windows
98. Help & Manual is ready and creates HLP files as well as HTML HELP
(CHM). When you want to step, don't choose a new tool. Choose a
different output in Help & Manual.
What do you need to work with Help & Manual?
============================================
Help & Manual is a stand-alone and true WYSIWYG authoring tool. You do
not need an additional word processor to write your documentation.
What do you need to create Windows help files (.HLP files)?
-----------------------------------------------------------
You need a help compiler - freely available from the Microsoft web site.
Depending on the target system you want to create help for (Windows 3.x
or Windows 95/98/NT) there are different compilers available. You can
download them from these locations:
* 16-Bit Winhelp compiler "HCP.EXE" 3.10.505 (~108 Kb)
http://www.ec-software.com/pgm/hcp505.zip
* 32-Bit Winhelp compiler "HCW.EXE" 4.03 (~1.5Mb)
http://www.ec-software.com/pgm/hcw403.exe
What do you need to print a manual?
-----------------------------------
A printer. Unlike other authoring tools that need a word processor to
print manuals, Help & Manual directly prints booklet style manuals
including a content page, chapter numbering, topic headings and a
keyword index.
What do you need to create HTML pages?
--------------------------------------
Help & Manual - nothing else. Help & Manual directly creates plain HTML.
What do you need to create the new fancy HTML HELP (.CHM files)?
----------------------------------------------------------------
You must have the Microsoft HTML HELP Workshop installed - freely
available from the Microsoft web site.
* Microsoft HTML HELP Workshop 1.31 (~4 Mb)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms669985.aspx
EC Software Help Suite (EHS)
============================
EC Software has developed an interesting set of components for Delphi
that are freeware and include source code, but are not GPL, so you can
use them freely in your applications without restrictions and without
having to pay any charge or runtime fees.
http://www.ec-software.com/comppage.htm
Among these components, you have the EC Software Help Suite (EHS), a set
of four component to make it easy to integrate help to your application:
* TWhatsThis
Automates right-click context sensitive "What's this?"-help and
implements a fully automated context sensitive help mode similar to MS
Word. Drop a TWhatsThis component on your main form and instantly
enable context help menus for all controls without a single code line.
What's more, it enables right-click help for menu items and gives you
full control over the F1 key.
* THelpRouter
Builds a bridge to HTML HELP without extra coding. It manages the
translation of help calls and context sensitive help. This component
is the successor of former THTMLHelpRouter. New functions: support for
context sensitive HTML HELP popups and mixed-mode help (HTML HELP plus
Winhelp popup windows).
* THelpContextMap
Stores help context numbers and their associated topic IDs in a
compressed form with ultra-fast searching. It reads help context
numbers directly from a help project file (Winhelp and HTML HELP) and
is designed to work with TWhatsThis.
* TTrainingCard
Simplifies the implementation of Winhelp training cards. Training card
help is a kind of wizard in HLP format that interacts with your
application. Please refer to the documentation for more info. This
component was earlier released as a stand-alone component. If you use
it, please uninstall the single component and delete the source before
you install EC Software Help Suite.
Downloads:
* EC Software Help Suite for Delphi 3, 4 and 5 (includes full source
code and compiled samples)
http://www.ec-software.com/delphi/ehs.zip (~656 Kb)
* mycomp: An example project showing how to create a help file for a
Borland Delphi component and how to integrate it into the Delphi IDE.
http://www.ec-software.com/delphi/mycomp.zip (~15 Kb)
All about Help files in Borland Delphi
--------------------------------------
This comprehensive tutorial covers all aspects of integrating a help
file into a Delphi application.
Learn how to...
* Display the table of contents, the index and find tab from your
application
* Work with help commands and macros
* Brush up your application with context sensitive help
* Implement What's This? popup help
* Accomplish contextual help with keywords (like the Delphi code editor)
* Component help files seamlessly integrated into Delphi online help
* And much more
The document comes with a demo application that features all the
highlights discussed in the tutorial. The compiled EXE and full source
code is included.
Download:
* All about help files in Borland Delphi
http://www.ec-software.com/delphi/helpd3_5.zip (~542 Kb)
Also available online:
http://www.ec-software.com/helpdelphi/index.html
Where to get Help & Manual
==========================
You can download an evaluation copy fully functional for 14 days from:
http://www.ec-software.com/pgm/hmsetup.exe (~5.2 Mb)
Other interesting stuff
=======================
* T.N.T Screen Capture Tool - This is a screen capture utility that
claims to create "screen shots that look better than the original
screen". Can that be possible? Well, seeing is believing, so see it
by yourself: http://www.ec-software.com/tnt/index.html
Download a fully functional evaluation copy of T.N.T:
http://www.ec-software.com/pgm/tntsetup.exe (~1.6 Mb)
* HelpPos - A small freeware tool that can change and store the window
position of a help file durably. The position of a help window is
defined when the help file gets compiled. If you have no source of a
help file (and you usually don't if you have not written it) you have
no chance to change the window positions... but with HelpPos you can!
http://www.ec-software.com/pgm/helppos.zip (~140 Kb)
For more resources, pricing and other information, visit EC Software's
web site:
http://www.ec-software.com
------------------------------------
Portions of this article are Copyright © 2000 EC Software
________________________________________________________________________
3. DETERMINING IF A FORM HAS MOVED
We can know if a form has resized with the Resize event (OnResize
property), but how do we know if a form has moved? Simply by capturing
the WM_MOVE Windows message:
interface
...
type
TForm1 = class(TForm)
...
private
{ Private declarations }
procedure FormMove(var Msg: TWMMove); message WM_MOVE;
...
end;
...
implementation
...
procedure TForm1.FormMove(var Msg: TWMMove);
begin
inherited;
Label1.Caption := Format('(%d,%d)', [Left, Top]);
end;
...
We call "inherited" to let the ancestors of TForm process the message.
This will update the Left and Top properties. In the above example we
simply displayed them, but we can use this kind of Move event for
example to guarantee that the form is always placed within the limits
of the screen's work area (the portion of the screen not used by the
system taskbar or by application desktop toolbars).
procedure TForm1.FormMove(var Msg: TWMMove);
var
WorkArea: TRect;
begin
inherited;
if SystemParametersInfo(SPI_GETWORKAREA, 0, @WorkArea, 0) then begin
if Left < WorkArea.Left then
Left := WorkArea.Left
else if Left + Width > WorkArea.Right then
Left := WorkArea.Right - Width;
if Top < WorkArea.Top then
Top := WorkArea.Top
else if Top + Height > WorkArea.Bottom then
Top := WorkArea.Bottom - Height;
end;
end;
________________________________________________________________________
4. GETTING THE BIOS SERIAL NUMBER
For a simple copy-protection scheme we need to know whether the machine
that is executing our application is the one where it was installed. We
can save the machine data in the Windows Registry when the application
is installed or executed for the first time, and then every time the
application gets executed we compare the machine data with the one we
saved to see if they are the same or not.
But, what machine data should we use and how do we get it? In a past
issue we showed how to get the volume serial number of a logical disk
drive, but normally this is not satisfying for a software developer
since this number can be changed.
A better solution could be using the BIOS serial number. BIOS stands for
Basic Input/Output System and basically is a chip on the motherboard of
the PC that contains the initialization program of the PC (everything
until the load of the boot sector of the hard disk or other boot device)
and some basic device-access routines. Unfortunately, different BIOS
manufacturers have placed the serial numbers and other BIOS information
in different memory locations, so the code you can usually find in the
net to get this information might work with some machines but not with
others. However, most (if not all) BIOS manufacturers have placed the
information somewhere in the last 8 Kb of the first Mb of memory, i.e.
in the address space from $000FE000 to $000FFFFF. Assuming that "s" is
a string variable, the following code would store these 8 Kb in it:
SetString(s, PChar(Ptr($FE000)), $2000); // $2000 = 8196
We can take the last 64 Kb to be sure we are not missing anything:
SetString(s, PChar(Ptr($F0000)), $10000); // $10000 = 65536
The problem is that it's ill-advised to store "large volumes" of data
in the Windows Registry. It would be better if we could restrict to 256
bytes or less using some hashing/checksum technique. For example we can
use the SHA1 unit (and optionally the Base64 unit) introduced in the
issue #17 of this newsletter:
http://www.latiumsoftware.com/en/pascal/0017.php
The code could look like the following:
uses SHA1, Base64;
function GetHashedBiosInfo: string;
var
SHA1Context: TSHA1Context;
SHA1Digest: TSHA1Digest;
begin
// Get the BIOS data
SetString(Result, PChar(Ptr($F0000)), $10000);
// Hash the string
SHA1Init(SHA1Context);
SHA1Update(SHA1Context, PChar(Result), Length(Result));
SHA1Final(SHA1Context, SHA1Digest);
SetString(Result, PChar(@SHA1Digest), sizeof(SHA1Digest));
// Return the hash string encoded in printable characters
Result := B64Encode(Result);
end;
This way we get a short string that we can save in the Windows Registry
without any problems. You can take it as a sort of "BIOS serial number".
DISPLAYING BIOS INFORMATION
---------------------------
If we wanted to display the BIOS information we should parse the bytes
to extract all null-terminated strings with ASCII printable characters
at least 8-characters length, as it is done in the following function:
function GetBiosInfoAsText: string;
var
p, q: pchar;
begin
q := nil;
p := PChar(Ptr($FE000));
repeat
if q <> nil then begin
if not (p^ in [#10, #13, #32..#126, #169, #184]) then begin
if (p^ = #0) and (p - q >= 8) then begin
Result := Result + TrimRight(String(q)) + #13#10;
end;
q := nil;
end;
end else
if p^ in [#33..#126, #169, #184] then
q := p;
inc(p);
until p > PChar(Ptr($FFFFF));
Result := TrimRight(Result);
end;
Then we can use the return value for example to display it in a memo:
procedure TForm1.FormCreate(Sender: TObject);
begin
Memo1.Lines.Text := GetBiosInfoAsText;
end;
________________________________________________________________________
5. FROM NEWBIE TO NEWBIE
WRITING WITH LABEL1 IN "REALTIME" by Anders Dahl
=================================
You had finished your project and everything is running as you like,
but... helppage and aboutbox could be much nicer, almost better than if
a pro had wrote it :) How? I'll show you:
Place a Timer and a Label on your helppage or aboutbox:
procedure TForm1.Timer1Timer(sender:TObject);
const
LabelString = 'This is a Label';
begin
Label1.caption := copy(LabelString, 1, Timer1.Tag + 4);
Timer1.Tag := Timer1.Tag + 3;
if Timer1.Tag = Length(LabelString) then
Timer1.Enabled := False;
Application.ProcessMessages;
end;
You can write your messages in the LabelString as above, and if you
want to do it in multiple lines use #10#13. I'll write an example:
LabelString = ('This is how to' +#10#13+
'write in realtime!!,' +#10#13+
'with a Label......');
You can change the speed by Timer1.Interval and even with TagNumbers.
The number 3 above is how many letters are to be shown in runtime.
I think best solution is 1, and the 4 is how fast it going, best
solution is 9, but you can find out for yourself.
Set the Timer1.Interval to 1.
There is a famous Delphi programmer named Marco Cantù from Italy who
wrote the books "Mastering Delphi 4" and "Mastering Delphi 5". On his
web site you can download the source code examples of the books.
http://www.marcocantu.com/md4/md4dload.htm
http://www.marcocantu.com/md5/md5dload.htm
It contains many examples of Delphi programming, from basic to Internet.
I recommend you to download them, and if you have questions about them
you can join one of Marco Cantù's newsgroups:
http://www.marcocantu.com/home/newsgroup.htm
Have fun! :)
________________________________________________________________________
6. DELPHI ON THE NET
Kylix articles
==============
* RADical Performance Linux Application Development - Evaluator's Guide
January 2001 - by Borland Staff
An excellent material to help you evaluate Kylix and see its features
http://dn.codegear.com/article/images/28560/eval_guide.pdf (~1.22 Mb)
* Creating Kylix Database Applications - by Bill Todd
Examines the architecture of dbExpress and the provide/resolve
mechanism. Subsequent sections describe the components that implement
the Kylix data access strategy, and lead you through the steps of
building a simple database application, demonstrating the power and
productivity they provide.
http://dn.codegear.com/article/images/28558/kylix_dbapps.pdf (~383 Kb)
* A Quick Tour of Kylix - by Kylix Publications Team
Explains how to start Kylix and gives you a quick tour of the main
parts and tools of the desktop. It also gives you an overview of
software development with Kylix. This includes creating a project,
working with forms, writing code, and compiling, debugging, deploying,
and preparing programs for international use.
http://dn.codegear.com/article/images/27598/kylix_tour.pdf (~689 Kb)
* Apache Development with Kylix Server Developer - by Colin A. Ridgewell
Shows the ease with which Apache web server, web and Internet
applications can be developed using Borland Kylix. This paper acts as
an introduction to the capabilities of Kylix and Apache.
http://dn.codegear.com/article/images/28556/apache_development.pdf (~674 Kb)
* Using the Open Tools API in Kylix - by Ray Lischner
How to extend and customize the Kylix IDE.
http://community.borland.com/article/0,1410,27205,00.html
* Borland's Kylix: turbocharging Linux development - by Scott Courtney
A review of Kylix, with screen shots and an example of the creation of
a simple application
http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reviews/3207/1/
Delphi articles
===============
* Internet Programming with Delphi - by Marco Cantù
http://community.borland.com/article/0,1410,27143,00.html
* Creating WAP Applications with Borland Delphi - by Jani Järvinen
For Dynamic Data Driven Applications Beyond the Web Browser (~772 Kb)
http://community.borland.com/article/images/27140/creating_wap.pdf
* Using XML and XSLT with Delphi 5 and WebBroker - by Vincent Parrett
This article is aimed at Delphi developers who wish to make use of
XML/XSLT in their WebBroker applications. I'll present some WebBroker
extensions/components which make it easier to create XSLT based
WebBroker applications.
http://community.borland.com/article/0,1410,27106,00.html
* Delphi Database Programming Course - by Zarko Gajic
Free online database programming course for beginner Delphi
developers. Focus on ADO techniques. Chapter 5 ("Behind data in
datasets") has been added recently.
http://delphi.about.com/compute/delphi/library/weekly/aa010101a.htm
* Spell Checking with MS Word - by Zarko Gajic
Add spell checking and thesaurus capabilities to your Delphi
application using automation with the MS Word Object Library.
http://delphi.about.com/compute/delphi/library/weekly/aa032701a.htm
________________________________________________________________________
7. DELPHI RESOURCES
* Delphi Frequently Asked Questions
http://community.borland.com/downloads/ti-faq/delphi-faq.zip (~909K)
* Delphi Technical Information Docs
http://community.borland.com/downloads/ti-faq/delphi-ti.zip (~886K)
________________________________________________________________________
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________________________________________________________________________
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you can get them from http://www.latiumsoftware.com/en/file.php?id=p20
________________________________________________________________________
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________________________________________________________________________
Latium Software http://www.latiumsoftware.com/en/index.php
Copyright (c) 2001 by Ernesto De Spirito. All rights reserved.
________________________________________________________________________
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