How can I use ALL system registered themes/styles in my Delphi App? - delphi

With Vcl.Themes.TStyleManager.StyleNames, I have access to just the style names enabled in the project options (Application/Appearance).
How can I list all of the style names registered in the system, and make it active in Delphi 11?

This is how I fill a TComboBox with the available styles:
procedure FillComboboxWithStyles;
var
stylename: string;
begin
for stylename in TStyleManager.StyleNames do
CBVclStyles.Items.Add(stylename);
end;
To activate a certain style you fill TStyleManager.SetStyle(const Name: string) with the stylename. For example the selected one from the TComboBox.
if (CBVclStyles.ItemIndex >= 0) then
TStyleManager.SetStyle(CBVclStyles.Items[CBVclStyles.ItemIndex])
else
;// handle a non-selected style
Don't forget Vcl.Themes in your uses.

You can include the style files (*.vsf from C:\Program Files (x86)\Embarcadero\Studio\22.0\Redist\styles\vcl with 22.0 marking your RAD Studio version) along with (externally from) your .EXE and then iterate over them when you fill your ComboBox. Then manually load the style from the file with TStyleManager.LoadFromFile when selected.
This will also allow your user to add his own style files to the setup.
This, I believe, is what the IDE does (except that it reads the list directly from the folder, since there's no "installation" of a style other than making the file available in a recognized location).

Related

Insert values on Windows Dialog from Delphi Dialog

I want to know if there's a way to insert, for example, a FilePath in a DialogBox opened by Windows itself, but inserted from a Delphi variable to the Windows Dialog? Something like, click on an Upload button in any website that does open the File Explorer Dialog, and in Delphi send the value of the Path to the File Explorer of Website.
PS : I already have the code to get his HWND handle.
I don't know if this is possible, or is there's a way to do it.
Edit : A Select File from the site, what I want is simply to input the FilePath of this site by an app variable in Delphi.
Variants
If you know that dialog window's handle already then there are at least 2 variants:
finding the control by going through the children hierarchy, using FindWindowEx()
relying on the dialog template's IDs, using GetDlgItem()
Both may work out great, but are at the same time fragile, since the dialog window's structure (as per its controls and IDs) can change even by Service Packs already, let alone entire Windows versions. My experience here is from Win2000 up to Win7 and on those systems it worked.
Dialog versions
What you posted as screenshot is the "Vista" version of the dialog; the older "Win95" version is identical in terms of accessing the "filename" ComboBox.
The old one is typical for having the buttons ("open" and "cancel") in one row. Older software might still use these, but your web browser most likely not:
The one since Vista has its buttons in one line and is notable of featuring a full folder pane:
But both pictures show that the control layout is the same: a ComboBoxEx32 is a direct child of the window, having its own child(s). So we can use the same code for both versions.
Code
var
hDialog, hCbx32, hCbx, hEdit, hFilename: HWND;
sText: String;
begin
hDialog:= 9568854; // Dialog window, class "32770"
sText:= 'M:\my\filename.ext'; // What should be set
// Variant #1: finding the control by parents and childs.
// Luckily both the old dialog up to XP and the new dialog
// since Vista do not differ as per the filename ComboBox.
hCbx32:= FindWindowEx( hDialog, 0, 'ComboBoxEx32', nil ); // Most likely the 3rd child control
hCbx:= FindWindowEx( hCbx32, 0, 'ComboBox', nil ); // Actual ComboBox inside that
hEdit:= FindWindowEx( hCbx, 0, 'Edit', nil ); // Edit control inside ComboBox
SendMessage( hEdit, WM_SETTEXT, 0, LPARAM(PChar(sText)) );
// Variant #2: using dialog template IDs, which haven't
// changed since XP with one of its Service Packs. However,
// tested with Win7 only.
hFilename:= GetDlgItem( hDialog, $47C ); // "cmb13", found at least in XP SP3
if hFilename= 0 then hFilename:= GetDlgItem( hDialog, $480 ); // "edt1" = Maybe prior to XP without any SP
SendMessage( hFilename, WM_SETTEXT, 0, LPARAM(PChar(sText)) );
end;
One of both variants should do already. Successfully tested on Win7x64
using Paint's "Open" command for the Vista dialog version, and
one of my older program's "Open" command for the Win95 dialog version:
the text in the filename's ComboBox was set as expected.

Changing paths in Delphi

I am working on a project where I need to play a video from a file in Delphi. I often work from home and school, and I have the problem that at home, my USB is drive 'J' and at school my USB is drive 'D'.
I manually go and change it every time. Is there a way for Delphi to automatically get the video from where ever it is?
Each sector has an image component laid over it for selecting the sector.
*Note, I know I can search for a specific file's location in Delphi, but I have over 24 different places where I need to play different videos, so searching would probably be my last resort, unless I use a procedure and set constants for each sector to differenciate between them.
The code currently looks as follows:
procedure TtForm.imgSector1Click(Sender: TObject);
begin
//Variables,this is for initializing them when I create them later.
//Procedures
SectorDeselect; //Procedure to turn all sector borders white
// Video
WindowsMediaPlayer1.Controls.stop;
WindowsMediaPlayer1.URL := 'J:\IT\PAT\phase 2\Videos\Footage1.mp4'; //Where my problem lies
WindowsMediaPlayer1.Controls.Play;
// Sector Info. The memos and Rich edits
redSectorInfo.Lines.Clear;
redSectorInfo.Lines.Add('');
// Sector. Highlighting the sector borders surrounding the sector
SectorBordr1.Brush.Color := clGreen;
SectorBorder10.Brush.Color := clGreen;
end;
I would suggest adding a TEdit control in your app's UI to let you specify the base drive/path for the files on the machine the app is currently running on. Your code can then construct individual file paths at runtime that are relative to that base path. Don't use hard-code paths in your code.
You can then save that base path into the Windows Registry in a new key you create, ie HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MyApp. Or, you can save the path in a configuration file (INI, XML, JSON, etc) created in a subfolder in your Windows user profile, like %APPDATA%\MyApp. Your code can then read in that base path each time the app is run.
If the files are stored on a USB drive, an alternative solution would be to simply enumerate the available drives at runtime, such as with GetLogicalDriveStrings(). For each drive, append a relative path for a given file onto the end of it, and then check if that file exists, such as with FileExists(). If so, you now know which drive to use for all of the files until the next time your app is run (you can save the drive path between runs, as described above). If the file is not found, move on to the next drive.
What about adding a parameter on the CommandLine?
Start
D:\myfolder\myfile D
OR
Start
J:\myfolder\myfile J
GUI files can accept a parameter. Capture it with code like:
DriveLetter := ParamStr(1);

Adding a .res file to project replaces the default icon.How to prevent it?

I needed to add some icons to my project as a resource (I can't use a TImageList in this case, because of a bug in TCoolTrayIcon, and I can't replace the component quickly).
I've created an icons.rc script to add the two ico files to a Delphi resource file:
redicon ICON "c:\icon\red.ico"
greenicon ICON "c:\icon\green.ico"
it compiles fine to icons.res, so I add it to the first unit of my Delphi 7 project:
{$R icons.res}
then I store the handles in OnCreate() of the MainForm:
hRedIcon := LoadIcon(hInstance,'redicon');
hGreenIcon := LoadIcon(hInstance,'greenicon');
and then use the handles just fine.
Now to the problem - after doing that the project icon that was added in the project options (in sizes of 16x16 to 48x48) is replaced by the first icon (16x16 redicon) I've added in {$R icons.res}.
How to prevent this? How to add additional icons to a project as a resource without replacing the icon that is added in Project Options -> Application -> Load Icon?
The VCL hard codes the name 'MAINICON' for your application's icon. This can be seen in the code in TApplication.Create:
FIcon.Handle := LoadIcon(MainInstance, 'MAINICON');
On the other hand, the shell assumes that the first icon in your executable is the main application icon. The order that the shell uses is alphabetical by icon name.
The consequence of this is that all your icons should have names that appear after MAINICON in the alphabet.

Delphi HtmlHelpAPI- How to direct a CHM file to open to different sections

I am able to open a CHM file by passing a ShortInteger and casting it as a Word for the dwData parameter. I.E.
Unit Help; //this is where the Id's are set with their description
Interface
Const
Address_File = 35; //delphi identifies Address_File as a shortint
etc..
Call get help pass my ID
GetHelp(Address_File); //call get help pass my ID to open to the Address_File topic
GetHelp procedure
procedure GetHelp(HelpID : Word);
begin
Application.HelpFile := ProgramPath + 'help.chm';
HtmlHelpW(0, PWideChar(Application.HelpFile),HH_HELP_CONTEXT , HelpID);
end;
HtmlHelpW function
function HtmlHelpW(hwndCaller : HWND; pszFile: PWideChar; uCommand : Integer;
dwData : DWORD) : HWND; stdcall; external 'hhctrl.ocx' name 'HtmlHelpW';
As I pass different ShortIntegers I am able to initialize the help file at different sections.
However I can't figure out how the values are mapped. There are some sections in the chm file that I want to be able to map to but the short Integer or context ID associated with them is not documented in the program or is not mapped.
Free Pascal comes with a chmls.exe util that has a command that tries to recover the alias (context) data:
chmls, a CHM utility. (c) 2010 Free Pascal core.
Usage: chmls [switches] [command] [command specific parameters]
Switches :
-h, --help : this screen
-p, --no-page : do not page list output
-n,--name-only : only show "name" column in list output
Where command is one of the following or if omitted, equal to LIST.
list <filename> [section number]
Shows contents of the archive's directory
extract <chm filename> <filename to extract> [saveasname]
Extracts file "filename to get" from archive "filename",
and, if specified, saves it to [saveasname]
extractall <chm filename> [directory]
Extracts all files from archive "filename" to directory
"directory"
unblockchm <filespec1> [filespec2] ..
Mass unblocks (XPsp2+) the relevant CHMs. Multiple files
and wildcards allowed
extractalias <chmfilename> [basefilename] [symbolprefix]
Extracts context info from file "chmfilename"
to a "basefilename".h and "basefilename".ali,
using symbols "symbolprefix"contextnr
extracttoc <chmfilename> [filename]
Extracts the toc (mainly to check binary TOC)
extractindex <chmfilename> [filename]
Extracts the index (mainly to check binary index)
This might be a start, since at least you'll know which pages are exported using an ID, and maybe the URL names will give some information.
The util is in recent releases (make sure you get 2.6.0) and also available in Free Pascal source, which should be convertable to Delphi with relatively minor effort.
Basically the chmls tool was created out of various test codebases. The testprograms decompiled and printed contents of different CHM sections and were used while creating the helpfile compiler, chmcmd, which is also part of FPC.
In Delphi, calling a help file is rather easy. In any VCL Forms application, you can set the HelpContext property of almost any control to a unique Context ID, which corresponds to a particular topic in the Help File. The Help File was compiled with these mappings, but when you decompile it, these mappings are no longer there. You must have access to the original help file project in order to know these ID's.
Set HelpContext of controls to the corresponding Context ID in the Help File
Set HelpType of controls to htContext to use the HelpContext ID
Assign Application.HelpFile to the appropriate location of the CHM file
When pressing F1 anywhere in your application, the help file will open based on the Help Context ID on the control, or its parent control
If you don't have the original project, and you don't want to re-create it, then you would have a long task of iterating through the Context ID's of your help file. Try to call the help file starting from 0 through 1,000 or possibly 50,000, depending on the size of it.
A practice I implement is a set of constants in a designated unit called HelpConstants.pas which is shared across our common application base. Each constant name uniquely and briefly describes the topic which it represents. Upon starting the application, I dynamically assign these Context ID's to their corresponding controls (usually forms) and VCL takes care of the rest.
I got the utility Marco suggested from
https://github.com/alrieckert/freepascal_arm/blob/master/packages/chm/bin/i386-win32/chmls.exe
(download by selecting View Raw).
I was able to extract all the context tags from the .chm help file and add the one I was interested in to my C++ Builder program by calling Application->HelpJump().
HTH

Delphi: EReadError with message 'Property Persistence does Not Exist'

My program written with Delphi 7 compiles OK, but when I run it it gives me the error message:
Project1.Exe raised exception class EReadError with Message 'Property Persistence does Not Exist'. Process Stopped.
This only started after I installed the TMS Component Pack to use with this project. Thanks for any help.
Open the Form in Delphi IDE
Use Alt + F12 to edit the .DFM source
Search the "Persistence" property
Delete the line with "Persistence" property
DFM example:
SomeComponent1 = TSomeComponent
OtherProperty = OtherValue
Persistence = True
AnotherProperty = AnotherValue
end
Also you can use the great DFMCheck 1.4 tool, by Andreas Hausladen. To check any other missing property like that:
http://andy.jgknet.de/blog/?page_id=177
This is most likely caused by the compiled & installed package being out of sync with the actual .pas file. If you have source code then rebuilding the packages will probably fix it.
Set a breakpoint(F5) and step the program(F7/F8).Get to the location where you get that exception and then give us more information about it(show some code).
This error means that it's trying to load something (usually a form) from a DFM resource and it comes up with a value for a property that the component it's creating doesn't have.
If it only happened when you started using TMS components, the solution is simple: don't use them. Send as much information as you can about the error and the project that caused it to the authors and see if they can find a way to fix it. Until then, use something else.
If you're using text DFMs (right click on the form, check "Text DFM", save), you can use Search|Find in Files to find all instances of Persistence in your DFM files. Just set the search string to "Persistence" (I usually tell it to ignore case), the file mask to "*.dfm", and check the "All files in project" checkbox.
If you're not already using text DFMs and don't want to manually open all forms and check the box and then resave them, you can use CONVERT.EXE (in the ($DELPHI)\Bin folder) to convert them en-masse. Run CONVERT with no parameters from any command prompt to see the options. By default, CONVERT will save .DFM as .txt, but you can have it work in-place (rewriting the binary .DFM as the text .DFM) by using the -i switch. (I usually back up the .DFMs to a different folder first, then convert them. If no errors are reported, I can then delete the backed up .DFMs later.)
I had similar problem with TMS when I upgraded to a new version:
If you think that some particular component is causing the problem,
delete it , compile project without it, place it on the form/frame again.
If that doesn't work for you:
Things you need to do in order to fix the problem , so you can use Designer and new properties, because that's what you really want , don't you ? :-) :
Uninstall TMS Component Pack ( or whatever you're using )
Re-Install TMS Component Pack
Build & Install the packages
Add appropriate TMS .lib files to your Application Project ( I'm using C++ Builder )
Add appropriate TMS .pas files to your Application Project . For example I had a problem with TAdvSmoothCalendar component , so I've added the AdvSmoothCalender.pas to my project.
Cheers!
I hope it works for everyone with a similar problem :)
I had similar problem with nuiGui Delphi Framework,
To Solve this, create a include file with some properties and use it in your class.
/// include class 'Basic.inc'
private
function GetWidth: Integer;
published
property ClientHeight : Integer Read FHeight Write FHeight;
//property ClientWidth : Integer Read FWidth Write FWidth;
//property OldCreateOrder : Boolean Read FOldCreateOrder Write FOldCreateOrder;
end;
...
/// main class like this
TuMemoFrame = class(TUniFrame)
UniMemo1: TUniMemo;
UniMemo2: TUniMemo;
UniButton1: TUniButton;
procedure UniButton1Click(Sender: TObject);
private
public
{$Include Basic.inc } // <---
end;

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