Hello Lebeau-Software Subscribers,

A small bug was found in my latest ICQLaunch version for the ICQ2003
support, where the online status wasn't being updated correctly. This has
been fixed and posted on my website.

On separate notes..

For those of you who have been waiting for the new version of my
TRegExtension VCL component, I have been working on it again lately, and it
is nearing completion. It is a complete internal re-write from my previous
version. Most of the changes are internal, though there are a few smaller
interface changes as well. It includes support for many new file extension
features that were introduced in Windows Me, 2K, and XP, as well as natively
supporting Builder 6, and it now includes full Object Inspector support at
design-time (no more need to code file extension registrations only via code
anymore). The biggest challenges I still have to overcome before I can
release this new version is making the new IDE package design (the new
version has 2 packages - runtime and designtime) to work correctly in
Builder 3, 4, 5, and 6, and also to get the documentation updated with all
of the new features. Be on the lookout for this future release.

For those new members who are not familiar with TRegExtension, it is a
native VCL (Visual Component Library) componenet for Borland C++ Builder
users to provide easy file extension support to their custom applications.

For those of you who are waiting for the new version of my TMSAgent VCL
component, I haven't forgotten you, either. TMSAgent is also nearing
completion. This is also an internal re-write from the previou version,
although the public interfaces have not been changed very much. There are a
few new minor features. At this point, mostly the documentation has to be
re-written from scratch as the original files I used for it have became
corrupted and are useless now. Also, once I get TMSAgent released, I'll
also be releasing its companion suite of Balloon Dialog components as well.

For those new members who are not familiar with TMSAgent, it is a native VCL
(Visual Component Library) componenet for Borland C++ Builder users to
provide support for the Microsoft Agent technology
(http://www.microsoft.com/msagent) in their custom applications.

For those new members who are not familiar with the balloon suite, it is a
native VCL (Visual Component Library) componenet for Borland C++ Builder
users to create popup dialogs that are similiar to the popup help dialogs
found in Microsoft Office, which have a kind of rounded speech balloon look
and feel to them. This suite includes components for custom CheckBoxes,
Radio Buttons, Push Buttons, Icons, and the main balloon itself. This last
component can be dropped onto any TWinControl-based container, such as TForm
and TPanel, to transform it into looking like a balloon. Being a
TWinControl derived component itself, the balloon container can contain
other standard windows components as well as the new support components.

Once all of these components finally get released in the near future
(hopefully), I'm looking to jump back into my ICQ clone development, and
hopefully in the not-too-distant future release my own clone as an
alternative to the official ICQ client application. I'll most likely
re-write my clone with a new plugin architecture so that I can add-on other
protocols later on, such as AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Jabber, etc. I'll let you all
know more about that in the future when I get back to it.

Until next time...


Remy Lebeau
Lebeau Software