Getting a reference to an object inside the Delphi IDE - delphi

Question

This follows on from my answer to this Q:
Can I change the display format for strings in the watch list?
It turns out that at some point between D7 and XE3, the implementation of the IDE's Watch Window changed from using a TListView to a TVirtualStringTree.
Although I posted an update to my answer that works with XE4 by ignoring the VST and getting the watch value from the clipboard, I'd still like to be able to get the watch value from the VST if I can. I think I know how to do that
once I have a reference to the VST but the problem is that my attempt to get one fails.
Following is an MCVE of the code I'm using in my custom package. Hopefully, what it does is self-explanatory. The problem is that the code in the block
if WatchWindow.Components[i] is TVirtualStringTree then begin
[...]
end;
never executes, DESPITE the classname "TVirtualStringTree" appearing in Memo1. Obviously the component with that classname fails the "is" test. I'm guessing that the reason is that the TVirtualTreeView compiled into the IDE is a different version that the one I'm using, v.5.3.0, which is the nearest predecessor I could find to XE4.
So, my question is, is that the likely explanation, and is there anything I can do about it? I suspect if someone can flourish the version of TVirtualStringTree that was used for XE4 from a hat, that might solve my problem.
type
TOtaMenuForm = class(TForm)
Memo1: TMemo;
procedure FormCreate(Sender: TObject);
private
WatchWindow : TForm;
VST : TVirtualStringTree;
end;
procedure TOtaMenuForm.FormCreate(Sender: TObject);
var
i : Integer;
S : String;
begin
WatchWindow := Nil;
VST := Nil;
// Iterate the IDE's forms to find the Watch Window
for i := 0 to Screen.FormCount - 1 do begin
S := Screen.Forms[i].Name;
if CompareText(S, 'WatchWindow') = 0 then begin
WatchWindow := Screen.Forms[i];
Break;
end;
end;
Assert(WatchWindow <> Nil);
if WatchWindow <> Nil then begin
Memo1.Lines.Add('Looking for VST');
for i := 0 to WatchWindow.ComponentCount - 1 do begin
Memo1.Lines.Add(IntToStr(i) + ':' + WatchWindow.Components[i].ClassName);
if WatchWindow.Components[i] is TVirtualStringTree then begin
VST := TVirtualStringTree(WatchWindow.Components[i]);
Memo1.Lines.Add('found VST');
Break;
end;
end;
if VST = Nil then
Memo1.Lines.Add('VST not found');
end;
end;
Btw, I realise that solutions that depend of implementational details of IDE are likely to be fragile, but this is just for amusement (I liked the challenge of getting string data out of a component that goes out of its way to avoid storing any).

Answer 1

May be You can try to use only published properties of embedded into IDE TVirtualStringTree implementation through RTTI methods to do what you want?