I am using the csOwnerDrawFixed style to incorporate my style into a TCombobox. The problem is that I can no longer use the Text Property. I suppose it is read only. Is there a way to enable the text property?
No this is not possible. What you are observing is a simple reflection of the underlying Win32 control's behaviour.
When you select the csOwnerDrawFixed style that is mapped to the combo box CBS_OWNERDRAWFIXED style. And when a combo box has that style, then WM_SETTEXT always fails with CB_ERR, and WM_GETTEXT always returns an empty string.
The reason for this is that when you use the csOwnerDrawFixed style then the combo box does not have an associated edit control. Therefore there is nowhere for it to store window text. You only get an associated edit control if the combo box style is csDropDown or csSimple.
Related
Trying to get a new style on a ComboBox in FireMonkey (XE2).
But for some odd reason I cannot get the text of a ListBoxItem to show.
What I've tried is the following.
Create a new FireMonkey HD Application.
On the form I've added a ComboBox.
Right click on the ComboBox and select 'Edit custom style'
There I've added the following components
while the original one consist out of the following components
Now it seems to me that I need the TContent object (but I can't seem to find it in the toolpallete)
How can i bind my Text object to the strings that are placed in my ComboBox?
Any pointers are very welcome.
FireMonkey doesn't use a TText object to display the text. Instead it creates a copy of the list box item within the TContent (if I remember correctly).
As you've worked out you need to add a TContent to your form. The easy way to do this is to
go back to the form,
right click and select View as Text
Find the TStyleBook object and add a TContent at the appropriate point (the format for this should be obvious from the rest of the file).
No need to add any properties - defaults will be used the first time.
Right click, View as Form.
Go back into the style editor and edit away.
I've created a style with the Bitmap Style Designer for Delphi XE7.
I've updated the button style to white with a blue border and duplicated it to create an orange button called Button_Copy.
I've exported the style to FireMonkey, but I can't find Button_Copy to assign it to a button on my form. How do I do this?
Also, can I rename Button_Copy to e.g. OrangeButton?
In the Bitmap Style Designer, save the style as a FireMonkey style.
Add a TStyleBook to your form.
Set the StyleBook property to the stylebook.
Double-Click the StyleBook and open your style. Close and Apply.
You can now set the StyleLookup property of a button to Button_Copy and if all is well you will see your new style.
Note that your new style won't appear in the selection list for StyleLookup - the list of available values appears to be hard coded.
And, of course you can change the name - just change the StyleName property of the top level object (probably a TLayout). The normalnaming convention is to append the word 'style', e.g. OrangeButtonStyle.
Is there some easy way to customize a ComboBox from Delphi to make the dropdown button with the arrow invisible? I mean without a lot of custom-draw code.. Maybe there is some control specific windows flag to set.
If I understand you correctly, you want all the functionality of the cxDBLookupComboBox, just not the button.
Try this in the FormCreate:
cxDBLookupComboBox1.Properties.Buttons.Clear;
You can access other combo box buttons properties via non-published Buttons property just like that.
how can i make a TRibbonComboBox act like a TCombobox with Style of csDropDownList? we don't want the user to be able to edit the choices in the list.
we need to use TRibbonComboBox because we want the current selection to be visible.
Microsoft word shows a combobox where you can select an item but cannot edit the item itself.
should i consider trying a TCombobox in the ribbon? i'd expect it won't look or not work correctly.
thank you for you comments!
You can just use TRibbonComboBox.ReadOnly:
Determines whether the user can change the text of the edit control.
And furthermore:
Setting ReadOnly to true ensures that the text is not altered, while still allowing the user to select text. The selected text can then be manipulated by the application, or copied to the Clipboard.
(see documentation)
You can easily achieve a multicolumn effect in a listbox by setting the TabWidth property of TListbox. For example, http://delphi.about.com/cs/adptips2000/a/bltip1200_3.htm
I need to do the same in the drop down list of a ComboBox, but comboboxes don't publish any TabWidth property.
Any ideas?
In a comment to this answer advising you to owner-draw the list box items you say:
I'm wondering why I must do that when the required functionality already exists on a listbox
A combo box is actually composed of three native child windows - the combo box itself, an embedded edit, and a list box. You can use the GetComboBoxInfo() function to fill a COMBOBOXINFO structure (i.e. a TComboBoxInfo record) with information about the control, and it will return the 3 HWND elements in it. With that you are able to alter the appearance and behaviour of the list box. In principle.
For the list box to use the tab stops it needs to have the LBS_USETABSTOPS style flag set. Unfortunately this can't be turned on later, the list box has to be created with it. So you could use the functionality only if you were able to turn the style flag on for the list box, which is created during the CreateWindowEx() call for the combo box. AFAICS this can only be done by hooking the CreateWindowEx() call itself, identifying the internal call that creates the list box, and altering the passed style. This means runtime modification of code, and not in your executable but in a Windows DLL.
Owner-drawing the list items looks like it would be much easier.
From what I know there is not so simple way as TabWidth here but you can override Paint method and draw it yourself. Looking at listbox and combobox sources may help.