Contents
Issue 57, May 2000

• News
  Keep up with all that’s new.

• Dragging And Dropping Part 2: Enhanced VCL
  Brian Long continues his in-depth examination of drag and drop in Delphi applications. This month he moves on to custom drag objects.

• Correction: ADO Batch Updates
  Guy Smith-Ferrier has some updated information concerning his article in Issue 54 (February 2000).

• Beating the System: Alpha Blending In Windows 2000
  Dave Jewell has a flash of déjà vu from the days of EGA video cards... and unveils the secrets of creating cute translucent effects in Windows 2000.

• Life Without Data-Aware Controls
  What’s this? Heresy or the way we should all be working? Philip Brown presents the case for doing away with data-aware controls in our database applications, along with some ideas on how we can make life bearable without them.

• Under Construction: Delphi 5 And MIDAS 3
  Bob Swart discusses the new things to be found in MIDAS 3, including stateless remote data modules. He covers deployment issues and describes the best way to migrate your MIDAS 2 applications over to MIDAS 3. With the new (much) lower licence cost, MIDAS could now see far wider use by Delphi developers.

• Effective Delphi Class Engineering, Part 1: Crossing The Chasm
  David Baer kicks off a new series of articles aimed at all of us who are reluctant,confused or ill-informed on what object-oriented development is all about. The goal is to demonstrate, clearly and without jargon-loaded obfuscation, how to design, create and use Delphi classes to make your development more productive.

• Algorithms Alfresco: Push The Limits
  Julian Bucknall has a collection of useful tips and tricks to give your applications that high performance edge.

• Resolve That Date!
  Martin Lanza presents a handy routine to convert dates in just about any commonly used string format to Delphi’s own TDateTime.

• One Last Compile...
  Into the IUnknown

• The Delphi Clinic
  Brian Long with more answers to your queries, including: how to find the My Documents folder, converting filenames to UNC, toolbar customisation, tips on modifying the VCL source, working with TClientDataSet and adding properties to ActiveXs and ActiveForms.