This month, David Cornelius will explore several of the recently open sourced libraries previously sold commercially by TurboPower Software, one of the largest Delphi and C++Builder 3rd-party tools vendors over the last decade.

Not all the libraries available can be adequately covered in one night. Therefore, we will look at the following code packages (descriptions taken from SourceForge.NET where these code libraries can be obtained):

Abbrevia is a compression toolkit for Borland Delphi, C++Builder, & Kylix. It supports PKZIP 4, Microsoft CAB, TAR, & gzip formats & the creation of self-extracting archives. It includes visual components that simplify the manipulation of ZIP files.

Essentials contains 13 native VCL controls for Borland Delphi & C++Builder. The controls include drop-down calendars & calculators, roll-up dialogs, 3-D labels, tiled backgrounds, scrolling messages, menu buttons, and more.

LockBox is a cross- platform toolkit for data encryption. It contains routines & components for use with Borland Delphi, C++Builder, & Kylix. It provides support for Blowfish, RSA, MD5, SHA-1, DES, triple- DES, Rijndael, & digital signing of messages.

OnGuard is a library to create demo versions of your Borland Delphi & C++Builder applications. Create demo versions that are time-limited, feature- limited, limited to a certain number of uses, or limited to a certain # of concurrent network users.

Orpheus is an award- winning UI toolkit for Borland Delphi & C++Builder. It contains over 120 components covering everything from data entry to calendars and clocks. Other noteworthy components include an Object Inspector, LookOut bar, & report views.

ShellShock provides a set of components that let you customize applications with the functionality available in the Windows Shell & Windows Explorer, all without writing code. The components are written in native VCL for Borland Delphi & C++Builder.

SysTools is a library of utility routines & classes for Borland Delphi, C++Builder, & environments that support COM. It includes 1-D & 2-D bar codes, sorting, money routines, logging, high-precision math, a run-time math expression analyzer, & much more.

PRESENTER:

David Cornelius has been using Borland's software tools for over 15 years, using mostly the Object Pascal language. He is currently employed at Oregon Health & Science University developing software for researchers using Delphi and Firebird. In his spare time, he develops more software through his contracting business, Cornelius Concepts, using Delphi and DBISAM.