I have a TActionManager setup with various actions which are then displayed in both a TActionMainMenuBar and a TActionToolBar.
What I require is to be able to display a TComboBox as a child to the TActionToolBar. I tried creating a new TActionClientItem and changing the CommandStyle to csComboBox and assigning my TComboBox to the ContainedControl property but at runtime there is no change, ie the combo box is not shown as a child control in the TActionToolBar.
I have tried toggling and changing several properties within the TActionClientItem with no luck, I then turned to the help docs and found the following:
Use CommandStyle to change the behavior and the appearance of an action client item located on a ribbon group. CommandStyle has no effect if the action client item is not located on a ribbon group.
So I guess CommandStyle was misleading me and hence changing those properties had no effect because I am not using a ribbon control.
Due to the design of my Application I don't want to switch to other controls such as TToolBar or TCoolBar for example. Is it possible to allow child controls such as a TComboBox to be used on a TActionToolBar?
Related
I have a container control (TLayout or TPanel or TScrollbox, etc.) which can have several other nested controls inside. Is there a way in Firemonkey to know when the container becomes "active"? I mean for example:
when any of its children get focus or
user clicks any of its non-focus controls
I am asking for a kind of event-bubble. OnClick would be enough so when user clicks any nested control, the parent container is notified. Control's HitTest property would be a solution but if I set that property to False (to let the parent manages the onlick) on a TEdit, it becomes useless obviously (I can't type on it)
Edit:
A simple layout example:
Drop a TScrollBox in a form
Drop a TPanel in form and put it as child of the TScrollBox
Drop a TEdit in form an put it as child of TPanel
Ok, I can simply do a sort of Parent.Parent.Click after receive the OnClick on TEdit but imagine now several TScrollBoxes, with different level of nesting using TPanels with a bunch of different controls inside. It doesn't make sense neither adding the onclick code for each control in the tree, nor change the hierarchy of Parent.Parent.Click every time I redesign the layout adding an intermediate parent control.
Is there any way to do this in Firemonkey (either for Windows or MacOS)?
PS: I'm using Delphi 10.2.3 (Tokyo)
In the Delphi IDE, some components in Delphi have the ability to "add" properties to the child controls they contain in the property editor.
How can I achieve the same thing with my own TCustomPanel descendant?
Some more details:
What I want to achieve is the following: I have a very complex configuration dialog for an application with a large number of visual components.
I want to add to each of these components a "complexity index" (an integer) that will be used to show or hide the component based on a selection made by the user (a dropdown with "simple", "advanced" and "expert" options).
I understand that the property will actually belong to the parent panel but I need a way to display it, in the IDE, as if it was attached to the control it is related to.
The perfect exemples are the various "organizational" panels provided by Delphi: TGridPanel and TRelativePanel. Each of these have a ControlCollection (published) properties that is used to hold the actual states of the additional properties but I failed to locate how the property editor knows that it must attach the properties to the child controls.
Here is a screenshot of a TLabel placed inside a TRelativePanel with the relevant properties highlighted:
I'm attempting to create an application menu and toolbar in Delphi XE3 that looks like the following (from a program I have):
I'm able to replicate a portion of this look by doing the following:
Create a new VCL Forms application
Add a TMainMenu and insert template menus for File/Edit/etc.
Add a TCoolBar to the form
Add a TToolBar to the TCoolBar
Add a TToolButton to the TToolBar for each of File/Edit/etc. and choose the Group property
Delete the Menu property from the form (so no program menu shows)
Assign the MenuItem property for each TToolButton to the corresponding File/Edit/etc.
Add a second TToolBar to the TCoolBar beneath the first one
Here's what it looks like:
It's somewhat similar but is still missing all the style elements to modify the look of the new application menu.
My question is, does anyone know of how to achieve a similar look, perhaps with a third-party component library? It seems likely that the original developer used a third-party VCL library. I'd like the drop shadow in addition to the styled menus and TCoolBar.
I've tried Raize Components, TMS Advanced Toolbars & Menus, and am in the process of trying DevExpress VCL components. None of them seem to provide a solution, but perhaps I'm not familiar enough with them yet to figure it out.
Delphi has come with an ActionBands demo that can show you how to obtain this appearance "out of the box" for your menus using TActionMainMenuBar (and TActionToolBar). Just change the Style menu to XP Style in the demo:
The rest of your steps seem pretty well complete. For the images on the menu items and toolbar buttons, see the use of ImageList components in association with the TActions on the menu and toolbar in the demo.
Is it possible to have dockable forms in FireMonkey, as I have inspected the forms properties, and there is no such property to do that.
Is there any workaround to accomplish that?
There's nothing built in, as far as I know but it shouldn't be too difficult to add in yourself. Just bear in mind that any form can parent any control on another form:
On the child form, add any controls inside a container (e.g. a TLayout).
Create the child form.
Set the Parent property of the TLayout (etc.) to the parent form (or, more probably a container on the parent form so you can set the child TLayout's alignment to alClient).
If you want to show the placement during a drag operation, experiment with the various effec ts included.
Unlike VCL, the Firemonkey does not have a built-in dockable interface for creating dock forms. But there is a commercial component for creating a complete dockable interface in FMX. The component implements dockable forms only. So far, the docked document panels are not supported (like the visual studio IDE does) and no docked toolbars. But in general, they have all the necessary functionality, including auto-hide panels and the ability to be saved/restored in/from XML.
https://www.devmachines.com/firedocking-overview.html
On my main form I have a TPanel containing buttons that act as a toolbar. I want to clone/copy this toolbar and the buttons and their functionality to a second form.
Cloning the menu was simple using newmenu.merge(mainmenu). That was an excellent shortcut to duplicating a Tmainmenu.
But I am at a loss on how to easily duplicate my toolbar without having to manually assign the events and keep a timer to compare and track which buttons are enabled and disabled in comparison to the real mainmenu on the main form. Depending on what the application is doing the main toolbar buttons will be enabled and disabled at various times.
Any ideas here? Thanks for any suggestions or tips to make this easier.
Duplicating the controls
In the Form Designer, select the panel and press Ctrl+C to copy it and all its children to the clipboard. Go to the second form and press Ctrl+V to paste.
If you're still working on the design and want to keep it consistent between both forms, then create a TFrame and design your toolbar layout there. Then put an instance of that frame on both your forms. Changes to the frame design will be reflected in the forms.
See Working with frames in the help.
Making sure both sets of buttons are enabled consistently
Create a data module. Put a TActionList on it. Add an action to it for each button on your main form. Assign event handlers to the actions' OnUpdate events. In them, set the actions' Enabled properties. Finally, assign each button's Action property to refer to the corresponding action object. The buttons will automatically get enabled and disabled with the actions. No timer required.
Furthermore, you can handle the actions' OnExecute events, too. Clear each button's OnClick property, and then move the button's OnClick code into the corresponding action's OnExecute handler. It will automatically get called when you click the button, even though the OnClick property is empty.
When you assign the Caption or Hint property of a TAction, the corresponding properties of any associated controls also change. Likewise for images, if the control supports them. Actions can be assigned to menu items, too.
See Using action lists in the help.
Acting like a toolbar
Just use TToolbar. That's what it's for.
Or, once you're used to actions, put a TActionManager in your project and use it with TActionToolbar and TActionMainMenuBar. See Organizing actions for toolbars and menus in the help.
Are the buttons attached to actions? If so, you can use the OnUpdate event of the TActionList to specify what should and should not be enabled. If not, it isn't too much work to convert to using actions.
If you go this route to convert to using a ActionList, consider putting the ActionList in a datamodule where different units and forms could reference it.
You can Use ClipBoard Object For Copy Your Panel.
Clipboard.SetComponent(Panel1);
Clipboard.GetComponent(Form2,GroupBox1);