What's Next?

In this chapter, we've explored some important form properties. Now you know how to handle the size and position of a form, how to resize it, and how to get mouse input and paint over it. You know more about dialog boxes, modal forms, predefined dialogs, splash screens, and many other techniques, including the funny effect of alpha blending. Understanding the details of working with forms is critical to proper use of Delphi, particularly for building complex applications (unless, of course, you're building services or web applications with no user interface).

In Chapter 8, we'll continue by exploring the overall structure of a Delphi application, with coverage of the role of two global objects: Application and Screen. I'll also discuss MDI development as you learn about more advanced features of forms, such as visual form inheritance. In addition, I'll discuss frames, which are visual component containers similar to forms.

In this chapter, I've also provided a short introduction to direct painting and to the use of the TCanvas class. More about graphics in Delphi forms can also be found in the bonus chapter "Graphics in Delphi", discussed in Appendix C.