As per my previous question (Delphi 6 support for toolbar and menu icons with alpha channel transparency), we are updating a legacy application developed in Delphi 6 to support Windows Visual Themes by including a Manifest. This has worked well and we have the majority of controls adopting the Windows visual theme correctly.
However, we do have a problem with TDateTimePicker behaving in a slightly odd manner. We have the form colour set to white (RGB 255/255/255) and the input box for TDateTimePicker is not visible on the form until it is clicked into and has an entry in it. Please see screenshots below:
Changing the form colour to grey, we can see that the box is there when not selected, it just has no border drawn around it:
We have been unable to find a property that will change this behaviour. Can anyone shed some light on why this might be occurring, what property needs to be changed, or another method we could possibly use to resolve it?
Related
Running windows 10 21H2. Just upgraded to Delphi 11.2 (from 11.1).
Speedbuttons (with Flat=False) do not show the button rectangle at design time. It does appear at runtime.
Most/all of our VCL projects have an empty style name. I have noticed that if I set the Stylename for the button (or even the form), then it shows normally. But is this the best way of handling it? Is there a global setting somewhere that can restore "normal" behaviour?
In 11.2 the Form Designer Options have a new option Mimic the system style, which is active by default. Disabling that should solve your problem.
Form Designer Options
Everything I've found says I can't do this with Delphi 2's TMainMenu but if somebody here has managed it somehow, I'd really like to know the trick. I found code that changes the System menu font size but none that confines the change to only the application. Anyone here know how to do this or do I have to just accept Delphi 2's tiny menu font size that appears on today's large screen monitors? (Moving the app to an upgraded Delphi is not the answer I need ;-)
The only way to achieve per application custom menu fonts is with an owner drawn menu. Delphi 2 does not support owner drawn menu items directly in the VCL properties of a TMainMenu component. This support was introduced only in Delphi 4.
You could still implement an owner drawn menu, but it would involve implementing them using standard Windows API techniques, and handling the required messages on the forms which own the menus involved. It is not especially difficult but not as straightforward as the event based implementation available in Delphi 4 and later.
You can still use a TMainMenu to define your menus but in your application you would then need to programmatically set the owner draw flag on the menu items and handle the resulting messages appropriately. Doing this, you will need to handle all aspects of drawing the menu - you cannot simply set/change the font and leave the system to draw the menu items. You may also need to provide additional handling for any keyboard shortcuts you have set up.
If this is a viable approach then information on implementing owner drawn menus at the API level can be found here.
I`m using Delphi XE3. When using the custom styles (e.g. Carbon) that are available since Delphi XE2, there is a visible white flickering when moving the mouse over the borders of the TComboBoxEx control (MouseExit/Enter).
Steps to reproduce: Create a new VCL Forms app, drop a TComboBoxEx on the form, select e.g. Carbon in project options --> Application\Appearance and start the application
Is this a known problem/bug and is any solution known?
Thank you
This Border flicker issue is not the product of using Delphi VCL Styles.
(The same problem can be observed without using VCL styles)
The culprit here is the Desktop Window Manager which is an essential part of Windows Visual Styles and Themes.
The reason why you are seeing this issue and others may not, is because you have at some point changed the default Windows Theme (aero theme) or you've changed a specific Visual effect property of your selected theme.
You perhaps also have intentionally or unintentionally disabled the Desktop Window Manager since it runs as a Windows service.
To be more exact, the issue is resolved if you enable the Desktop composition feature.
This feature is only available in Aero themes(default) but not in Basic or Classic, tho sometimes it can appear to be available even when it is not.
Control Panel --> System --> Advanced System Settings --> Advanced --> Performance Settings --> Visual Effects
When desktop composition is enabled, individual windows no longer draw
directly to the screen or primary display device as they did in
previous versions of Windows. Instead, their drawing is redirected to
off-screen surfaces in video memory, which are then rendered into a
desktop image and presented on the display.
As you might have guessed, the functionality of this function is to basically act as a Buffer which in a very neat way explains the border flickering when this option is turned off.
Important Fact
Desktop composition feature can only be enabled if your current theme is an Aero theme and using Windows Visual Styles.(It is by default enabled for every Aero Theme)
Visual Styles are enabled by default in Aero Themes, you can check that it is enabled by making sure that the Use Visual Styles on Windows feature is enabled in the Performance Settings. When the Classic or Basic Themes are in effect the desktop composition feature is never in play and cannot be enabled. (Classic theme has been deprecated since Windows 8)
Sometimes in Windows 7, the Desktop composition feature can show itself in the Performance Options even when using a Basic or Classic Theme but do not be fooled, this is an internal bug.
Steps to reproduce this bug :
Start With default Windows Aero Theme
Go into Performance Settings as described above
Uncheck the Desktop composition from the list
Mouse over the border of TComboBoxEx, it should now be flickering as
you enter/leave.
But what happens if I uncheck Use Visual Styles on Windows checkbox? Why does this solve the flickering issue?
This will cause the Desktop Window Manager(DWM) to disable themes all together for all Windows Controls. What this means is that controls will be drawn using an older rendering style as oppose to using the newer Aero rendering style.
You can turn off Visual Styles for individual controls without turning it off globally with the following method SetWindowTheme(Handle, nil, nil)
This is also why the flickering issue for TComboBoxEx border is resolved when Visual Styles are disabled.
It's also worth mentioning that since Windows 8 you cannot disable Visual Styles anymore because as I said the Classic theme is deprecated.
Regarding the solution, I don't think you've got much of a choice really. Given how much freedom is left to the user when it comes to modifying the visual effects of Windows themes, this sort of thing is bound to happen. At least you can be certain that this issue does not happen on the default Windows Theme.
I have a form that correctly displays component borders most of the time.
However when I tab out of the form’s first input field, the borders of all the form’s TDBEdit/TEdit components disappear. The component’s border’s reappear when moused over.
I can reset these at runtime by looping through the form’s components and setting TDBEdit/TEdit borders (BevelInner: bvLowered, BevelOuter: bvRaised).
Also, this issue appears to have something to do with the Enable runtime themes option in the Project Options. The issue only exists when this option is enabled and regardless of the Windows Theme that is being used.
CodeGear™ Delphi® 2007 for Win32® R2 Version 11.0.2902.10471
After some additional research it appears that this is a known issue and occurs predominantly when a user is using the ALT button.
Additional information pertaining to workarounds can be found at:
http://qc.embarcadero.com/wc/qcmain.aspx?d=37403
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.