Develop Delphi programs in Windows API (Without VCL)

Develop Delphi programs in Windows API (Without VCL) About the course: intermediate The course is written by Wes Turner, brought to you by Zarko Gajic Overview: This Guide is about developing Delphi programs without the Forms and Controls units or any of the Component Library. You will be shown how to create windows classes and windows, how to use the Message Loop to pass messages to the WndProc message handling function, etc... Prerequisites: Chapters: Introduction: The file size of a standard Delphi application is at least 250 Kb, due to the Forms unit, which will include a lot of code that may not be needed. Without the Forms unit, developing in API means that you will be coding in the .dpr (program) unit of your app. There will not be a usable Object Inspector or any components, this is NOT RAD, it is slow and there is no visual Form to see during development. But by learning how to do this you will begin to see how the Windows OS operates and uses window creation options and windows messages to do things. This is very useful in Delphi RAD with the VCL, and almost essential for VCL component development. If you can find the time and patients to learn about windows messages and message handling methods, you will greatly increase your ability to use Delphi, even if you dont use any API calls and only program with the VCL. CHAPTER 1: When you read the Win32 API help, you see that the C language syntax is used. This article will help you learn the differences between the C language types and the Delphi language types. Discuss about questions, comments, problems and solutions related to this chapter! CHAPTER 2: Lets make a formless program that gets user input and creates a file (populated with system information), using only Windows API calls. Discuss about questions, comments, problems and solutions related to this chapter! CHAPTER 3: Lets see how to create a Windows GUI program with windows and a message loop. Heres what youll find in this chapter: an intro to Windows messaging (with a discussion on message structure) ; about the WndMessageProc function, handles, the CreateWindow function, and much more. Discuss about questions, comments, problems and solutions related to this chapter! More coming...