(This book was a big bundle of 11 "extra" chapters on the CD-ROM that came on such topics as graphics programming and coding standards.) This text presents how-to information about many topics, along with short code excerpts and complete programs where appropriate . (Besides the basics of building ActiveX controls and OLE Automation in Delphi, there is material about the use of MTS and ADO.) This book also gives some insight about the "thin client," with solid coverage of Borland's MIDAS middleware solution, as well as support of Delphi to make browser-based applications (through classes WebBroker). This material can help you get your existing Delphi skills up to speed with current browser-based Web application requirements. Not many books out there on Delphi programming, so this text meets the essential needs with a comprehensive tour of what is available in version 5 Dragan. - Richard Topics covered: Delphi 5 basic, history of Delphi, Delphi IDE features, the Object Pascal language, object-oriented programming techniques, exceptions, Win32 API programming, Delphi application frameworks, Windows messages and Delphi events, dynamic link libraries, printing, multithreaded applications, threads and synchronization objects, file basics, directories and drives, memory-mapped files, programming the Windows shell, hooks, system information, use the clipboard, the Visual Component Library (VCL), building custom components, COM basics, building ActiveX controls , ActiveForms, OLE Automation, OLE containers, DCOM and MTS programming, Delphi CORBA support, BDE and databases, ODBC and ADO support, client server engineering / programming, WebBroker, NSAPI and ISAPI Internet applications in Delphi, thin clients, and MIDAS applications.