I am currently looking for an object similar to TListBox that will display a list of other objects. I'm finding it really hard to explain so here's a picture of the sort of thing I'm looking for:
Each item needs to be able to display multiple lines of variable text, display images, be clickable, be able to host buttons on it.
Is there an object like this already? If not, how would I create one?
Presuming that you want to do this in Windows, then any XE version of Delphi has the TCategoryPanelGroup control which is pretty much what you appear to be asking for.
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On some programs there is an interesting possibility:
in case the work area is very large, there is the overall picture, which provided by the plan of all component.
Which component allows you to add this capability to my program?
I would like to implement this, at least for StringGrid and TChart.
To do this in a generic way, you have to do off-screen painting.
That is a lot of work, especially getting the details right.
JED Software once write something similar to show previews of forms in the IDE called Visual Forms and it took them a long time.
I have a Delphi XE2 Firemonkey application that I want to run on both iPad and iPhone. The iPad and iPhone real estate is different of course and I have been experimenting repositioning and resizing (visual) components according to the platform they are running on - triggered by the forms OnResize event. Started out changing the component "Margins" property with not much success (maybe that relates more to adjacent components...?) and then found the component "Position" property seems to do the job.
Question: Is the Position property the way to go? Or is there a more appropriate way using "Margins" (I seem to have read something about this somewhere, but can no longer find it). Or is there some other method, maybe not based on the OnResize event? (Yes, I am sure this is just 1 question.)
Brief details of the project - displays a costomer database record on the screen using around 30 components, mostly TLabel components, some buttons and search fields or 2 using TEdit's.
Thanks
Really depends on how differently you want to use the extra real-estate.
Do you want to display additional information, or just stretch everything out to use the space? If the latter, then you can use the Scale property.
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Replacing a component class in delphi
Does anyone have any tips for modifying the VCL components and making them so they are relatively default within the IDE? This means not necessarily descending from them, but changing functionality in places that don't seem to allow such things in a descendant object. And if they can be used in place of the standard components, that's a bonus as well.
For example, one of the things I'd like to do is an alpha blended mouseover on a TButton. I notice no OwnerDraw event and the code to modify how the button was drawn seems to not be in a place that I can override. Any suggestions, or would I have to strip TButton and all its ancestors out of the VCL code and modify it directly?
You can choose one of the following methods:
Override ReadState of your form, as explained here
Use an interposer class, as explained here and here
Assign a new WindowProc, as explained here.
You are making several questions related to developing custom V.C.L. controls.
Since, its a very extended topic, you may want to browse or search the internet about it.
As a fast question, there are several ways to develop or extend a control.
Sometimes, the same control can be developed in different ways,
other, it depends the kind of control, that you want to develop.
You also mention how to make a control, interact with the Delphi I.D.E.
Delphi controls work with packages, you can make a package with plain libraries without controls, you may want to start doing that, before making a control.
You can make a control, that doesn't interact at all, and only works by running the application, and later add interaction with the Delphi I.D.E.
In Delphi, when you develop a control and want to put it on form, while designing, internally, its like Delphi was your application, and already have your control.
If you want to change the appearance of all TButtons in your application, you can do it without modifying the VCL at all. I see no necessity to modify or even subclass a VCL control yourself, when a few hundred button components exist out there. For example, for alpha-blended mouseovers, just check out the TMS controls.
However, for do-it-yourself techniques; Method one (recommended as simple) is to simply take all the TButtons out of your application and replace it with something else. VCL component replacement (globally) is easily done via gExperts. To see how to combine a standard control appearance (how a button looks) with some overlaid elements drawn in Delphi code, see TBitBtn as a sample. Rather than subclassing TButton or TCustomButton, I recommend you examine TBitBtn sources, and start from it.
Method two (not recommended as simple) is to start using a skinning system which can draw a completely different appearance over standard controls.
I need a way to have a label (or something like it) print sideways. I would really like it to work at design time if at all possible.
Is there any controls / mechanisms that anyone knows of to do this? (Not .net controls please)
You would probably get better results by searching the Delphi ThirdPartyTools forum archives using CodeNewsFast ( http://www.codenewsfast.com ) full text search, or by posting question on that forum directly.
Here's one label control that does rotated text, I think many controls are enabled to do this now, in one way or another:
http://cc.embarcadero.com/Item.aspx?id=18645
Here's link to another freeware label component, from a guy that's always provided good quality stuff:
http://www.scalabium.com/anglelbl.htm
I haven't used Delphi in a few years and I don't remember exactly, but I think many of the third party component sets (e.g., DevEx, TMS) had rotation as one of the properties for labels on their edit controls back even five or more years ago.
Here's link with info on nitty gritty details on how to roll-your-own rotated text:
http://delphi.about.com/cs/adptips2003/a/bltip0703.htm
I wonder how difficult it would be to be able to have a custom background or be able to draw on the datamodule canvas somehow so that the relationships of all the datasets can be nicely represented with arrows and stuff. Way back in Delphi 7 or so I seem to remember some sort of datamodule designer which has disappeared (I always found it annoying anyway).
Does anyone know if this is possible through some sort of IDE plugin or something?
TDataModule is a direct descendant of TComponent, and as such, it doens't have a Canvas or any such painting provisioned in it. As is, there is no way to draw or paint on it.
It is conceivable that you could create a descendent that has a TCanvas, but you'd have to really hack into the IDE to get it to be drawn on at design-time. It is an interesting idea, however.
There used to be a "Diagram" tab on the designer for Datamodules. It did have the ability to put notes, boxes with text, and data relations. It was not very understood or used, and the feature was dropped, I guess. (Before my time at CodeGear...)
Or, you may change the datamodule to a form. Leave it visible during development, for testing, documentation and debugging; and turn it it invisible for production. On the form you may put a visio viewer component and some datagrids, accessed thru a tab rack, for quick browsing of the data.
I believe that some way to organize the components in visible groups on
screen could be nice... I have a report DM which have tons of datasets,
dataset providers and Rave DataSources (circa 40 components)....
If I could create some groups to differentiate which is used in
what report.
But this in DM designer itself, not on a separate drawing space...