I recently got a new development computer with again 2 monitors, but unfortunate it has windows 10.
Now I also have some tools still developed in Delphi 7 and they work but with one annoying problem.
When I start an Delphi 7 application the icon on the taskbar does not move to the second monitor.
The taskbar is setup to show icons on the taskbar of the monitor they are open. This works for all applications, except for the Delphi 7 applications.
The icon always stays on the primary monitor.
I have the source available, so I wonder is there something I have to put into the source code, or setup some property, to get this working ?
Googling this bring up lots of cases where the form does not moves to the second monitor, but I did not find anything about the icon on the taskbar.
This is because the window handle associated with the taskbar button is the window handle owned by the Application object rather than the window handle of your main form.
In later versions of Delphi you would write Application.MainFormOnTaskBar := True in your .dpr file and that would change behaviour so that the taskbar button was associated with your main form instead. I believe that MainFormOnTaskBar was introduced in Delphi 2007.
Migrating to a modern version of Delphi is the ideal way to solve the problem. If you cannot do that then you'll need to hack your way around the VCL code to ensure that the main form's window handle is the one associated with the taskbar button. That's not likely to be an easy job. Fundamentally, you are paying the price for continuing to develop with tools that are long out of date.
As Remy points out there isn't much hacking required to do the bare minimum. Change the window style of the Application window to remove the WS_EX_APPWINDOW style, and have the main form override the CreateParams method to set its owner window to NULL, i.e. Params.WndParent := 0.
I suspect that the behaviour will not be quite as smooth as you'd get with a modern VCL app. For instance, the VCL has been modified to reduce the amount of window recreation it does which is more important now that the main window is associated with the taskbar button.
Related
Within the IDE, when F12 toggles between code and form,
the forms are displayed outside the monitor borders,
and therefore not visible.
This happens after a multi monitor setup has changed,
and the forms no longer open within the available new monitor screen areas.
One way to resolve this is to use the property inspector and
set the Top/Left properties to 4 to make the forms visible.
This is however a lot of work,
especially if many forms and possibly many projects are involved.
Is there a better way to reset the form locations once and for all,
so they are all visible with the new monitor setup?
There is nothing (AFAIK) in Delphi 6 IDE that would help. But assuming you are using Windows, the help is near, (tested on Windows 7):
Right-click on taskbar and select 'Cascade windows', this affects all windows in one go.
or
Alt-Tab to the window, press Alt-Space and then M (for move). Move the window with the arrow keys. This you would have to do seperately for each window.
Close your Delphi IDE. Then, if your current project group file is xyz.groupproj, open the file xyz.dsk with an text editor. Look for section [UndockedDesigner] entry "Count" and change its value to zero.
[UndockedDesigner]
Count=0
That will force all design window positions to 0,0 on your main monitor.
I'm working on a Windows Deskband in Delphi XE2 for Windows XP, Vista and 7 (Win32 and Win64)...
I've implemented all the necessary interfaces (ITrayDeskBand, IDeskBandInfo, IDeskBand2, IDeskBand) in my code, and that all works exactly as it should (there are no warnings on Vista/7 complaining about compatibility as others have experienced).
The problem I have is that my Deskband Form appears with a non-transparent band. Also, only certain Controls are displaying (in this case TBitBtn and TImage containing a PNG). I need it to display TEdit and TComboBox objects properly too, but they won't appear at all.
I've tried enabling GlassFrame and SheetOfGlass properties on my Form, but this doesn't help one bit.
Furthermore, the Form itself is exceeding the top boundary of the Taskbar, meaning you cannot (for example) resize the Taskbar if the cursor is in-line with the top of the Taskbar immediately above my Deskband.
I believe there is something Delphi's VCL TForm type is doing behind the scenes which renders the TForm type incompatible as a Deskband container... but this is just a suspicion.
Here's a screenshot illustrating the various problems:
As you can see (above), the Deskband's Form is pale (instead of Transparent), it overlaps the top of the Taskbar (preventing resizing and Autohide triggering when the Taskbar is "hidden")
Any ideas?
UPDATE 1
Okay, I have been playing around and noticed that a totally different behaviour is observed when creating a TToolBar control to be used for the Deskband, rather than a form:
Notice there are three TToolButton controls (with their text virtually invisible due to the Glass theme)? There should also be a TEdit and TComboBox between two separators, but these refuse to display at all.
Also notice the artefacting (the repetition of actual Taskbar Icons)?
I'm not sure if this is a step in the right direction or not, but it might help you (or others) to deduce a solution!
Okay... I've finally figured this out, and it is the most absurd thing I've ever come across.
I'm posting my findings here for the benefit of others (to save you going through the nuisance I've just been through).
To get all of the controls on your Deskband Form to display and function properly, simply set the Visible property of your Form (in the IDE designer) to True.
Ridiculous, I know, but it works and is easily repeatable.
Have you seen this?
I have a little utility application (for easy load / test xml generation from CDS and/or DBGo), and I had put some buttons (the poorest button of all, TButton) to trigger some actions.
I never paid attention to appearance, because I'm the only one that uses it. So today I added a new button, and they appeared different from the others in designer - but not when running. It's just an copy and paste process (change the button name, caption and event - the rest is equal to the origin).
When I looked the other buttons have an grey gradient and round corners, the button I copied and pasted not (just a bare rectangle). When running all buttons where just bare rectangles.
So I discovered that on designer, W7 and delphi are applying themes. On running, they are obeying the Project/Options/Application/Enable runtime themes flag.
This is annoying. There's a way to make Delphi doing that obeying the project options flag on forms designer?
(Or even manually if is not possible to automate that)?
EDIT:
The toolbars on the form are from CNWizards ;-)
EDIT II:
Apart of disabling themes for the IDE executable, all buttons get themed equally if the form (or project) is reloaded. But it's really weird.
If you want to enable/disable themes in the IDE, then open the properties of bds.exe, select the 'Compatibility' tab, and make sure that the 'Disable visual themes' checkbox is unchecked/checked.
Programs that you run from the IDE will inherit the compatibility settings of the IDE.
Delphi IDE itself is an application and the way the designer draw the form is using the setting for the IDE application (delphi32.exe or bds.exe's compatibility settings) so the answer is no. The default behaviour is different between IDE versions, for eg. the opposite behaviour (not drawing themed) happened in past.
We just moved our application from a MDI container to a single document interface. Our users are used to using a "Windows" menu in the MDI parent to show windows side by side. We want to train them to right click on the Windows taskbar and use the window management functions there.
With Delphi applications we noticed that the windows shell leaves room for the hidden "Application" window. So if I only have two windows open it will arrange room for three. The Application window is not really shown but there is space left for it.
This is made worse by the fact that we have two different applications. If they only have one window open in each application and want to show them side by side windows will actually try to account for 4 windows.
So instead of seeing two windows each taking 1/2 of the screen I see two windows that take up 1/4 of the desktop and the rest of the screen is open.
I found that adding a line to hide the application window as my application starts up will fix this problem.
ShowWindow(Application.Handle, SW_HIDE);
Edit in case someone does not read
down to the answer. Based on Craig's
answer below I am setting the windows
style to WS_EX_TOOLWINDOW instead of
hiding the window.
SetWindowLong(Application.Handle, GWL_EXSTYLE,
GetWindowLong(Application.Handle, GWL_EXSTYLE) or WS_EX_TOOLWINDOW);
My (original) questions is: Is this safe (hiding the application window)? I'm wondering if I may be breaking something else by hiding the Application window. Are there any side effect I need to be aware of? Is there a better way to solve this issue?
I'm using Delphi 2007. The issues seem to be consistent across Windows XP, Vista, and 7.
Update: Some of the answers seem to think the problem is with the Application forms icon being visible. That is not the case. I already have MainFormOnTaskbar set to true.
Also if you are testing this be aware that the Delphi IDE (only tested with 2007) makes things worse. Try this. Open the Delphi IDE and two instances of notepad. Minimize the IDE but have both notepads un-minimized. Right click on choose Show Windows Side by Side. You will see each notepad take up 1/3 of the screen. Close the IDE and choose Show Windows Side by Side again and each will take up 1/2 half of the screen.
In Delphi 2007 (and above) the Application Window does not show on TaskBar at all if
Application.MainFormOnTaskbar := True;
line is in a project file (*.dpr). For example
begin
Application.Initialize;
Application.MainFormOnTaskbar := True; // <--
Application.CreateForm(TForm7, Form7);
Application.CreateForm(TForm8, Form8);
Application.Run;
end.
That is default setting for new applications, but this line is absent if you ported an application from previous Delphi version - you should add this line manually.
As long as MainFormOnTaskBar is true, you can fix the problem by adding this to your DPR:
SetWindowLong(Application.Handle, GWL_EXSTYLE,
GetWindowLong(Application.Handle, GWL_EXSTYLE) or WS_EX_TOOLWINDOW);
Later versions of Delphi automatically include the WS_EX_TOOLWINDOW flag when they create the TApplication handle.
I'm still using Delphi 7, and I've been using this technique in combination with the 'WndParent:=GetDesktopWindow' trick to get a taskbar button for each window, somewhat like Microsoft Office started doing since some version (I guess XP?)
I believe at this is the way that applications minimize to the system tray.
I have been trying to find a good-looking design using Aero in Delphi 2010. One of the obvious uses one sees, is where the glass frame is extended to include the OK/Cancel buttons at the bottom of the screen. I notice though that this doesn't look quite right in Delphi 2010 - there is a white border all around each button.
This image shows the problem: the top 3 buttons are from my app, the bottom two were taken from Paint.NET's Layer Properties dialog.
I tried various combinations of DoubleBuffered and a few combinations of placing the controls on other controls first, but the problem remains. Any ideas?
If no one has a clean solution, as a workaround use TBitBtn with DoubleBuffered = false.
It appears that the only workaround is owner-draw, or a third-party button control Check out the Glass Button by Roy Klever or, as stated in the QC entry linked below, TBitBtn with DoubleBuffered=false, which was the accepted answer above to this question.
This is a bug in Windows Aero DWM or else a bug in the windows common controls, or a bug in the way the VCL class hierachy handles common control window messages and painting when painting on glass. In short, windows common controls do not paint themselves properly on glass, or rather DWM composition (Aero) is broken. Surprise surprise.
The standard VCL button component uses the Window Class BUTTON from Windows Common Controls.
Note that TSpeedButton does not use the windows common control, and does not have this problem. however, it also does not accept focus.
It appears Embarcadero knows about this issue, it is QC # 75246, which is closed because it is really a bug in the common controls library, as Won't Fix, with the suggestion to use TBitBtn. Buttons are not alone, this is part of a group of QC reports including panels, and other common controls.
However I have a commercial TcxButton (part of developer express components) which accepts keyboard focus, and does not draw this glitch. Any code that uses the Win32 common control button control appears to have this problem. It may be possible that a low level Win32 API hacker might find a workaround for this. I am looking into it. This answer will be updated if I figure it out.
One interesting detail: TcxButton has three drawing styles, cxButton.LookAndFeel.Kind = {lfOffice11,lfFlat,lfStandard}. Selecting lfOffice11 adds this glitch back in. It looks like a strange interaction between the glass feature in aero in Vista/Win7 and the common control/xptheme button drawing code.
It may be that the only workaround is to use a completely app-drawn button control and to not use Windows common controls buttons, or any button control that relies upon the XP theme engine to draw buttons, on an aero glass pane.
Edit: July 28, someone at Embarcadero has closed the above QC Entry, which was a mistake. I am urging them to reopen it, if only to clarify if this is indeed a Windows bug in the common controls dll.
If you wish to play around, make a copy of the VCL source code for the TButton and TCustomButton classes from StdCtrls, as I have done here, modify CNCtlColorBtn, so that you force one of three things to happen - PerformEraseBackground, DrawParentBackground or inherited, and see the results. Interesting stuff.
procedure TCustomGlassButton.CNCtlColorBtn(var Message: TWMCtlColorBtn);
begin
PerformEraseBackground(Self, Message.ChildDC);
Message.Result := GetStockObject(NULL_BRUSH);
(*
with ThemeServices do
if ThemesEnabled then
begin
if (Parent <> nil) and Parent.DoubleBuffered then
PerformEraseBackground(Self, Message.ChildDC)
else
DrawParentBackground(Handle, Message.ChildDC, nil, False);
{ Return an empty brush to prevent Windows from overpainting we just have created. }
Message.Result := GetStockObject(NULL_BRUSH);
end
else
inherited;
*)
end;
Some interesting reading on Vista era glass/DWM/aero APIs (C++ developers blog)
Here I'm providing some code that makes TButton look right on Glass. Unfortunately it makes the form "click-throw", so I don't think it's a good idea. But maybe you can find a way to fix the form's "click-throw".
if you are able to use win32 api, try exploiting NM_CUSTOMDRAW notification (not ownerdraw), as i do (yes, buttons DO send it, including radio and checkboxes. For these it is best to use WM_CTLCOLORSTATIC though.). This is how it is done in C++, but the idea is the same. While my idea is good, it so happens that my buttons do DISAPPEAR once per program execution from the window, when they are customdrawn and i need to hover mouse over them so they are visible again. That's why i'm still looking for comments for this. Note that it is really difficult to reproduce disappearing buttons in one-form applications. I hovewer am experiencing this behaviour in every project.
case WM_NOTIFY:
switch(((LPNMHDR)lParam)->code){
case NM_CUSTOMDRAW:
{
NMHDR *nmh=(NMHDR*)lParam;
//these 6000 through 6004 are button identifiers assigned by me
if(nmh->idFrom >= 6000 && nmh->idFrom <= 6004){
switch(((LPNMCUSTOMDRAW)nmh)->dwDrawStage){
case CDDS_PREERASE:
//BackgroundBrush is a HBRUSH used also as window background
FillRect(((LPNMCUSTOMDRAW)nmh)->hdc, &((LPNMCUSTOMDRAW)nmh)->rc, BackgroundBrush);
break;
}
}
break;
}
break;