So as the title says I need to make code to create a window and add some content to it, like text, images etc, so Is it possible or not?
(note that window needs to be interactive, that means you can code buttons, progress bars, selection boxes etc.)
You cannot do this in Lua alone. There are plenty of libraries and frameworks available that allow you to create graphical user interfaces.
http://lua-users.org/wiki/GraphicalUserInterfaceToolkits
Related
Is there any way to embed a TPopupMenu directly on a form, as if it was a panel always open? or maybe just the TMenuItems.
No, it is not possible to embed a menu on a form. The reason is partly that a menu isn't an ordinary window that you can easily manipulate.
So you need to find a different solution. And there are many options you can chose from:
Using a TToolBar:
It doesn't look particularly modern and out of the box you don't get much control over the appearance, though. Also, I don't know exactly how robust this solution is. I stopped using toolbars many years ago.
Using a TCheckListBox:
In this case, I'd recommend you to create a subclass TCheckListBoxEx which toggles an item if you double-click its caption.
Creating a custom control:
This is what I'd do if it is about a central GUI in an important application, because this way you get full control over the appearance and behaviour and can make it really robust. I have done a modern such menu at work, but currently I am at home so I cannot show you it. Here, however, is a menu I made more than ten years ago for a hobby project:
If you don't need the menu to be attached to the form like a control, but only need it not to close when you select an item in it, there are (hacky) ways to achieve that. But that is a different Q.
I'm trying to activate Hint from control of different application created from delphi upon focus, I'm using hook to identify the focused control, and then use WM_MOUSEMOVE, which I think will activate the Hint of that control, the handle would be the Control itself and the lParam is the Left and Top of the Control. The Control activate the OnMouseMove Event, but the Hint never shows. but when I use SetCursorPos, Hint show, but I need to show the Hint with out the cursor move on that Control. Can you please help me with this? Thank you in advance... by the way I'm using Delphi XE4
Among the really asked question is how to show the hint of a control that resides on another application (i am afraid without hook that application can not be done), the title is "Delphi - Activating the Hint from another control of Application".
First is first: That can be done without knowing what language the other app was done, but it is very complex to put it here (and i am not an expert on such way of coding, also i hate apps that work that way).
Second: The main idea is to hook the other application, search on Google some code of that apps, that can show you a rectangular hole square of the object the mouse is passing over, that application while doing it is iconized (i do not remember the name of it).
Waht such app does: As you move the mouse over the screen it overlays a rectangular over the control that mouse is over, then if you press the key to print screen, that small region is the only thing that goes to clipboard; on of such apps i saw had an extra funcion, they can move such controls if you press cursors on keyboard, also can hide/enable/disable such control... more, it can also make controls that are invisible to be visible, etc... i saw it working on my computer, and hey, for fun it is pretty and to DeBug or get extra things on some apps is also great (make some menús to be visible and enabled and then can use such funtions).
Please, please, understand i am agaist piracy and also against using such apps to let code to be run... some apps need pay for letting some menus enabled, but they have the code there, no need to change EXE to have/use that menus; just using this kind of apps makes that limited apps to be unlimited (just enable or show hidden menus and voila).
Note: To unhide menus, mouse point is not needed to be over the app, can be anywhere and is not moved.
The idea i want to say is: Any app can move, alter any control on any other app (at least on Windows) that is running, so maybe there can be a way to show such hint.
In the past i had use such app (sorry i do not remember the name) for DeBug my own apps, so i do not need to recompile in such cases where something was wrongly hidden, also work with buttons, labels, texts, combos, memos, etc.
Now my small problem is: I just need exactly what title say, but i can not make it to work.
Must be:
Mouse position must be irrelevant (it also must be able to be outside the application)
Just when a button that has focus is pressed with keyboard (Space or Enter) or just after some code somewhere on my application, i want to show the Hint of a specific TEdit for a short period of time.
I did not get Hint to be shown; not unless mouse point is over such TEdit but i want/need mouse pointer to not be over it, neither it to jump to the TEdit.
Idea Conept for that Hint to be shown: After doing some code that changes something, show extra info associated.
Example:
A button with that loads a file using an open dialog, filename is put on a ReadOnly TEdit (so it let user copy the text, but not change it); i want extra info that i punt on .Hint of such TEdit to be shown inmediatly.
That hint use is for not overload window with a lot of fields (TLabels) for showing such file data.
Simple idea: such Hint shows TimeStamp and size of the selected file.
P.D.: Not much related (since i am trying with a normal plain text hint), but hints can also store a full HTML page and with 3rd party tools be shown as an HTMLhint, so they can show a lot info of that file (also its content, etc) in a web based format; as i say i first try with standard plain text hints.
In order to show hint programatically you need to call TApplications ActivateHint method to which you specify the position parameter.
http://docwiki.embarcadero.com/Libraries/XE3/en/Vcl.Forms.TApplication.ActivateHint
Based on position parameter Application automatically finds which controll is at that position and shows its hint.
NOTE: Position parameter screen coordinates in pixels and not your controll coordinates. So you will have to use ClientToScreen method to change your coordinates apropriately.
You can see simple example of how to use this here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/15031208/3636228
Now if you need to do this from another application then you will have to add some comunication mechanizm to these two application so that one could send a proper message to tell the other to show the hint at specific position. But this does require you to be able to change both applications.
EDIT: This works with VCL applications but I'm not sure if it would work with FireMonkey applications.
In GIMP: is there a way how to make my own custom dock (toolbar) where a could put my most used functions?
Something like this:
Create new empty dock or toolbar
Somehow set what functions will be in it
(any of the functions, no matter it has an icon or where in menus is located)
I'd like to have it so I don't have to search in menus every time I need something. I'm aware that I can make keyboard shortcuts but they are difficult to remember since I don't use Gimp every day. I'm used to this from Corel Photopaint and I think it is really useful.
Thanks for your suggestions.
In GIMP 2.8, you can only customize the dockable dialogs - by dragging then around, and in another level, customize tool presets and make use of the tags in the presets dialog to quckly access paint-modes with set brushes, gradients and painting dynamics - so, keeping the tool-presets dialog around, and appropriately using the tags can give you quick access to these settings.
You can't, however, add additional menu entries or icons to select particular plug-ins (filters) - and access those from any of the dockable dialogs. without rebuilding GIMP, you could edit the XML files at /usr/share/gimp/2.0/menus to customize your menus.
In the master branch, the unstable "GIMP 2.9" which will eventually become GIMP 2.10, there is a "search" action implemented, initiated by pressing the / character that will probably make it for the need to quickly find-out any operations wanted.
I need to show custom data. For example I need to show a contact list with name, description, photo. And ideally I would also like to show custom data there, e.g. a button to launch telephone call. The default styles do not quite do what I want, but fairly close.
Thus, as far as I can tell, TListBox could be a decent control for this if I could create custom styles? Is that possible? (Anotther problem of course is setting the values of the custom data controls.)
You should take a good look at the FMX CustomListBox example AFAIK even the example alone already seems to have exactly what you need, already set in place.
It took me about 10 minutes to produce this result straight out of the CustomListBox example with your description:
One thing that the included FMX example demonstrates perfectly is how easy it is to add any FMX control to the ListBox via the TStyleBook Layouts such as buttons, images etc... basically any visual control upon which you then implement the HitTest, again, all very detailed in the FMX Delphi example.
I am planning on using many pictureboxes as controls instead of e.g. buttons, mostly because the controls need to look like icons and not buttons. Would pictureboxes kill memory too much when compared with buttons? Is there a way to make a button appear as an icon instead of a picturebox, that is, can a button be made to look like a .png small icon image file instead of a button with no border?
Lastly, there will be several tabs available to the user via a tabcontrol, each of which has maybe 10-15 pictureboxes that can be clicked on. Is there a shortcut for addhandler if many pictureboxes are used within a tab as a replacement for a buttonbar (no longer supported in VB.NET 2010)?
The button control SUPPORTS pictures already!
Most likely too (more importantly!) the buttonis LIGHTWEIGHT and will consume less memory than pictureboxes
Use the Property sheet to assign the image(s)
You can assign a different image for the button up and down states too!!