TChart quality issue - delphi

We were using Delphi 2010 with the full VCL edition of TeeChart this worked fine
We have now updated to Delphi XE 5 with the latest version of TeeChart and the quality of the charts is now worse
Please see the image here
2 bars which were seperate are now merged into 1 bar
If I make the charts wider which is not an option it looks better but still not as good as before
Please see here
Has anyone come across any issue like this?
The projects are here for Delphi XE5 and here for Delphi 2010
The search paths may need modifying
Cheers
Paul

The issue might be because of the anti-aliasing function being turned on by default in the newer versions of TChart(!).
We had the same issue with a line series graph.
After writing to the vendor (Steema) they came up with the following solution:
Chart1.Canvas := TTeeCanvas3D.Create; //Disable GDI+ to prevent smooth drawing of the graph.
I don't get why we have to switch off drawing with GDI+ as - to my knowledge - GDI+ can also be used without anti-alias.
Anyway, our graphs now behave like the previous versions of the TChart, which is what we want.

I was also hating the "new" anti-aliased charts that are blurry and slow.
It's pretty easy to fix, when you know where to search for.
Double-click on chart, then go to 3D -> Render -> select GDI instead of GDI+
If you look "behind the scenes" into DFM file you can see the change:
Crisp and fast graph (as in 2010): DefaultCanvas = 'TTeeCanvas3D'
Blurry and slow graph (as in XE5): DefaultCanvas = 'TGDIPlusCanvas'
chart settings
Hope this helps.
Some kind of a clumsy runtime workaround was found here, that is also working:
http://www.teechart.net/support/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=15078

Related

Delphi Firemonkey Scale for High DPI Windows

I thought scaling an application in FireMonkey should be easy as it is supposed to work an a Retina-Mac too. It seems there is some background magic which chooses another style than, but this doesn't seem to be the case in Windows.
In VCL there was TForm.Scaled which does the job (more or less).
For FireMonkey I found this Article by Embarcadero but it seems Embarcadero is not quite sure if this approach is useful as in XE5 the sampleproject "ControlsDemo" doesn't contain the scale-trackbar anymore. It also requires to have a root-TLayout present in all forms for which the scale factor can be set. I don't have such a element in my forms (and I'm afraid to add one as I cannot be sure if I run in another firemonkey bug than).
So how do I account for different DPI-Settings using FireMonkey?
Edit: I tried hacking TPlatFormWin and set CurrentScreenScale to 2 but it didn't work: I got black toolbars, but no scaling, but at least it used the HighRes alternative from the provided TImage.MultiResBitmap.
If anyone reads this... my experience with Windows desktop Firemonkey is that you have to take care of OS DPI setting manually and it's OK to put your controls in a top container (a TLayout) that's Scale is set according to the OS screen DPI settings (determined with some low level code).
However there are cases when you need to reverse this scaling - for example a Viewport3D must be scaled back 1/X to correctly show inside the scaled up container. Otherwise pixel level artifacts will show, image quality will be awful.
This scale up/scale back technique works nicely.
U can do something like this to change the root TLayout:
with 100 being the default
if windowsscale>0 then begin
LayoutScale.height:=ClientHeight*100/windowsscale;
LayoutScale.Width :=Clientwidth*100/windowsscale;
LayoutScale.Scale.X:=windowsscale/100;
LayoutScale.Scale.Y:=windowsscale/100;
end;

Problem with TdxComponentPrinter (Delphi)

TdxComponentPrinter is a componenet that allow me print a TPanel on a paper. But there is problem and when the panel contains TImage, the background of the image will be converted to black in the paper.
Before print :
After print (on the paper) :
I have tried different ways to solve this problem. for example i used Repaint; method of TPanel,...
but doesn't work and the background of image is still black. I don't know why!!!
Help me please.
This is a png file, which might not be supported completely in your Delphi version. Did you try to change it to a TcxImage which might be more compatible with the DevExpress printing system?
It also might be worth it to submit this issue to DevExpress if you can't fix it. They reply really quick and know more about their components then all of use here on SO :-)
If it is already a jpg then you should improve the quality of the jpg. It looks like the black parts are compression artifacts where there is a mix between white and another color. If you clean up the background of the image with a paint program it will probably look a lot better.

Ugly "disabled" images of TMainMenu

Delphi 2010, Win32 VCL. I need to create a main menu for my application with the most standard look. TMainMenu looks nice in all Windows versions, the only bad thing is when it displaying images for items with Enabled=False.
Delphi has some strange method for building that disabled images (b/w extrusion with bevels, for me it looks like spew). I want to make a patch for that procedure in VCL sources and let menu to select disabled images from the same TImageList, but I can't find it.
Is it exists at all or it is some standard windows API call? Do you know where is that procedure located?
Sure OwnerDraw style can fix all this but I want a bit faster solution.
There's a great post on Galfar's Lair blog which describes the problem, and has code for a workaround, overriding the TImageList DoDraw method.
Here's the pic (linked) showing the 'before' and 'after'.
I think this relates to pretty much all Delphi versions.
If you can provide your images as PNG you can use TPngImageList from PngComponents. It has different options to make a blended or grayscaled disabled image. The PNG format allows you to make use of alphablending.

Delphi: image with alpha blending capabilities

Is there some simple component that could display PNG 32-bit images and alpha-blend it to another image on mouse enter and on mouse leave? Or even just a simple image that can load 32-bit PNG and additionally would have Alpha parameter...
I suppose I could use some skin library (alphacontrols?) or some graphics library, but for some simple purely visual effects that would be quite an overkill and I can't seem to find a simple one that does it for me and would work on Glass surface as well...
It is not quite a component, but here is a link to a good article on how to do it yourself. Its just a few lines of code:
http://melander.dk/articles/alphasplash/
The basic TImage is capable of displaying a PNG image and alpha-blend-it to whatever is behind it. You just need to add the "pngimage" unit to the uses clause of your form. You didn't mention the version of Delphi you're on: Delphi 2010 has this unit, but I have no idea with what version of Delphi they started shipping it. For Delphi 7 I know for sure you'll need to find the open source "pngimage".
If you need to do this when the user moves in and out of your control, consider caching the state images in bitmaps: it will be faster at runtime and you can use a single TImage that shows the current image, you don't need two overlapping TIMage controls.

Looking for a simple graphical component for Delphi

I am looking for a graphical component in Delphi winch have such features:
allows to paint text in different font types, sizes and colors
allows to select previously drawn text and copy it
paints images on a given coords, gif support would be nice
its very fast in terms of CPU usage
I need this component as a main chat window. I don't want to use it as a text editor.
I've tried two solutions so far:
TVirtualStringTree
THtml
Currently I am using THtml. It performs quite nice but it is a bit to slow due to two facts:
It supports many features which are not necessary in my case
Each time I want to add some content to it, I must reload the whole content
I really don't want to go into its sources and modify them until I have no other choice. So maybe someone of you knows some nice lightweight component which I can use instead?
Take a look at TRichView. It's derived from TCustomControl so no external dependencies. It's third party commercial component, but a very good one. Skype Win client uses it.
What about a TRichEdit? Most of the things you mention should be easiliby possible with this component.
Concering the insertion of a bitmap, see this article on Delphi 3000.
Did you consider using TWebBrowser?
At least it ticks all your boxes...

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