Teach Yourself Borland C++ in 14 Days - portal

NOTE
Getting Your Feet Wet
As you modify properties, C++Builder will immediately display the
results of the property change when appropriate. As you type the new
caption, notice that the window caption of the form is changing to
reflect the text you are typing.
Now click the Run button on the speedbar (the one with the green arrow). (You could also
press F9 or choose Run | Run from the main menu.) C++Builder begins to build the
program. The compiler status dialog box, shown in Figure 1.2, is displayed, and you can
watch as C++Builder whips through the files necessary to build your program. After a brief
wait, the compiler status box disappears, the form is displayed, and the caption shows Hello
World!. In this case, the running program looks almost identical to the blank form. You may
scarcely have noticed when the program was displayed because it is displayed in the exact
location of the form in the Form Editor. (There is a difference, though, because the Form
Editor displays an alignment grid and the running program does not.) Congratulations—
you’ve just written your first C++ Windows program with C++Builder. Wow, that was easy!
“But what is it?” you ask. It’s not a lot, I agree, but it is a true Windows program. It can be
moved by dragging the title bar, it can be sized, it can be minimized, it can be maximized,
and it can be closed by clicking the Close button.
Figure 1.2.
The compiler status
dialog box.
Okay, so maybe displaying Hello World! just in the caption was cheating a little. Let’s spruce
it up a bit. If you still have the Hello World program running, close it by clicking the Close
button in the upper-right corner of the window. The Form Editor is displayed again, and you
are ready to modify the form (and, as a result, the program).
To make the program more viable, we’re going to add text to the center of the window itself.
To do this, we’ll add a text label to the form. First, click on the Standard tab of the
Component Palette. The third component button on the palette has an A on it. If you put
your mouse cursor over that button, the tool tip will display Label. Click the label button and
then click anywhere on the form. A label component is placed on the form. Now turn your
attention to the Object Inspector. It now displays the properties for Label1 (remember that
before it was showing the properties for Form1). Again the Caption property is highlighted.
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