Windows Programming Power with Custom Controls (1994)

Windows Programming Power with Custom Controls teaches you to master the powerful techniques of visual programming. It gives you a handle on the essentials of using and writing VBX custom controls and shows you important Windows concepts such as messages and properties, resources, bitmaps, the GDI, processing files in Windows, graphics, and much more. Teaches you to create powerful controls for viewing and editing text files, browsing databases, storing and accessing data in virtual listboxes, displaying and controlling 3D panels, and more. Shows you how to use the techniques presented to develop tools that will work with Visual C++, Borland C++, and Visual Basic. The companion disk contains numerous ready-to-use controls written in C/C++ and can be used with Visual C++, Boland C++, and Visual Basic.

Jeff Duntemann, CEO of The Coriolis Group that had published my first book, Borland Pascal Insider, asked if I would be interested in writing the first book to be actually published by the Group. (Borland Pascal Insider was published by Wiley & Sons, as would be a second book also sold to them but not yet written, Borland C++ Insider). Well, of course I was! And it was to be quite ambitious: At a time when computer programmers and their books normally specialized in one language, this book was to involve several: The custom controls that were the centerpiece of the book were to be written in C++ (either Microsoft's or Borland's) but the controls themselves would be used in Visual Basic applications.

When I got the galley proofs back of the book (the author has that last chance to find any errors/typos and make corrections), I was somewhat surprised to see that Jeff was listed as co-author. I was surprised, because while he had written a very nice forward, he hadn't actually written a word of the book itself. However, he explained that, as a new author, I would find the book would sell better if it included the name of a well-known author, such as himself.

And it's true: Of the four technical books I wrote, this was the only best-seller (a relative term that means less for niche books like programming manuals than it does for a romance or young adult novel) among them. Not only was my advance covered, but my next royalty check was even more. And I got a second royalty check, though that one was rather small.

Windows Programming Power with Custom Controls came with a floppy disk, on which were provided the sample and example code from the book. Every once in awhile, I get a request from someone who's purchased the book recently (!), probably used, and found it to be missing the floppy. Few computers even come with floppy disk drives any more; so here is the code in a simple ZIP file.