What's Next?

In this chapter, you have seen how to define various types of properties, how to add events, and how to define and override component methods. You have seen various examples of components, including simple changes to existing components, new graphical components, and, in the final section, a dialog box inside a component. While building these components, you have faced some new Windows programming challenges. In general, programmers often need to use the Windows API directly when writing new Delphi components.

Writing components is a handy technique for reusing software, but to make your components easier to use, you should integrate them as much as possible within the Delphi environment by writing property editors and component editors. You can also write many more extensions of the Delphi IDE, including custom wizards. I've built many Delphi extensions, some of which are discussed in Appendix A.

Chapter 10 focuses on Delphi DLLs. You have used DLLs in previous chapters, and it is time for a detailed discussion of their role and how to build them. I'll also further discuss the use of Delphi packages, which are a special type of DLL. To learn more about component development, refer to Chapter 17, which focuses specifically on data-aware controls and custom dataset components.