Are there any good materials or examples on creating a custom Designer in the Delphi IDE

Question

I am working on creating a custom form designer in the Delphi IDE. I'm trying to use the RegisterCustomModule, TBaseCustomModule, and ICustomModule functions, classes, and interfaces.

My first question on this pointed me to the Delphi Developer's Handbook and the idea that I could even create a custom form designer. However, that book seems to be all Delphi 3 information and things have really changed since then. I'm not finding any material in the Delphi Help file, and searches have not returned very much.

I did find the Accidental Programmer's page on the Open Tools, but that looks like it was last updated in 1998? It does at least have the correct unit names and uses the new interfaces.

I'm willing to track down and buy an older book if that is the best reference.

Answer 1

http://delphi.about.com/od/objectpascalide/a/wizardsexperts.htm

Answer 2

would be a good resource if only it were to point to documents which still exist. Sadly the BDN disappeared some time after Embarcadero purchased Borland's developer tool line. The OTA documentation disappeared from the product line some time after that. However searching Embarcadero's website turned up these 2 links which might help: http://gexperts.org/otafaq.html and http://mustangpeak.net/opentoolsape.htm

Answer 3

Sorry to bring up that old question, but Mark did you found more useful information than these links?

I have the same problem as yours and still cant find good source of information about that. Looks like I have to work with RegisterCustomModule and ICustomModule, but cant find a good example on creating completely new kind of designer for Form derived from TComponent.

Thanks in advance,