Disable Theming on specific controls? - delphi

I know you can use SetWindowTheme found in uxTheme.pas to disable/enable the theming on controls, like this for example:
SetWindowTheme(Button1.Handle, nil, nil);
This works on quite a few of the controls, however it will not work on some controls such as TBitBtn or TSpeedButton. I think this must be because TBitBtn and TSpeedButton are not Windows controls, but custom ones?
There may well be other controls that also won't work, so I was hoping someone could share a solution or alternative to achieve this?
I want some of the controls to have no theming at all, eg they will show as classic themed whilst the rest of the controls will not be affected.
Thanks.

Your analysis is correct. SetWindowTheme works for window controls but TSpeedButton and TBitBtn are non-winowed controls.
In XE, from my quick scan, it seems that most controls call Themes.ThemeControl to determine whether or not to draw themed. So the simple solution is to replace that routine with logic that you control. Since it does not provide any extension points, you need to hook it. Like this:
procedure PatchCode(Address: Pointer; const NewCode; Size: Integer);
var
OldProtect: DWORD;
begin
if VirtualProtect(Address, Size, PAGE_EXECUTE_READWRITE, OldProtect) then
begin
Move(NewCode, Address^, Size);
FlushInstructionCache(GetCurrentProcess, Address, Size);
VirtualProtect(Address, Size, OldProtect, #OldProtect);
end;
end;
type
PInstruction = ^TInstruction;
TInstruction = packed record
Opcode: Byte;
Offset: Integer;
end;
procedure RedirectProcedure(OldAddress, NewAddress: Pointer);
var
NewCode: TInstruction;
begin
NewCode.Opcode := $E9;//jump relative
NewCode.Offset := NativeInt(NewAddress)-NativeInt(OldAddress)-SizeOf(NewCode);
PatchCode(OldAddress, NewCode, SizeOf(NewCode));
end;
function MyThemeControl(AControl: TControl): Boolean;
begin
Result := False;
if AControl = nil then exit;
if AControl is TSpeedButton then exit;
if AControl is TBitBtn then exit;
Result := (not (csDesigning in AControl.ComponentState) and ThemeServices.ThemesEnabled) or
((csDesigning in AControl.ComponentState) and (AControl.Parent <> nil) and
(ThemeServices.ThemesEnabled and not UnthemedDesigner(AControl.Parent)));
end;
initialization
RedirectProcedure(#Themes.ThemeControl, #MyThemeControl);
As it stands, this will not work with runtime packages, but it's easy enough to extend the code to work with packages.

If you look at the source code for TBitBtn (in particular, TBitBtn.DrawItem), you see that it is drawn manually in the Delphi source code. It uses the Windows visual themes API to draw the button (ThemeServices.Draw*) in the current theme, if themes are enabled. If not, it uses the old-style Windows API functions to draw controls, such as Rectangle and DrawFrameControl. I think you have to alter the source code of the control in order to circumvent this behaviour.

Related

How to create a non visual component without any icon on the form?

I would like to create a non visual component (like TTimer for example) that I can drop on the form and that I can set up directly from the Object Inspector, but I don't want to see its icon on the form (it'd just obstruct anything). For example TFloatAnimation works like this but I don't understand how.
The GExperts library (http://www.gexperts.org/) has a plug-in which can toggle the visibility
of non-visual components on a form, and it is apparently not Delphi-version-specific but it is
not exactly trivial.
The method which does this is
procedure THideNonVisualCompsExpert.ToggleNonVisualVisible(Form: TCustomForm);
const
NonVisualClassName = 'TContainer';
var
VisibleState: Boolean;
FormHandle: THandle;
CompHandle: THandle;
WindowClass: string;
FirstCompFound: Boolean;
WinControl: TWinControl;
ChildControl: TWinControl;
i: Integer;
begin
Assert(Assigned(Form));
Assert(Form.Handle > 0);
FirstCompFound := False;
WinControl := Form;
if InheritsFromClass(WinControl.ClassType, 'TWinControlForm') then
begin
for i := WinControl.ComponentCount - 1 downto 0 do
begin
if WinControl.Controls[i] is TWinControl then
begin
ChildControl := WinControl.Controls[i] as TWinControl;
if InheritsFromClass(ChildControl.ClassType, 'TCustomFrame') then
begin
WinControl := ChildControl;
Break;
end;
end;
end;
end;
FormHandle := GetWindow(WinControl.Handle, GW_CHILD);
CompHandle := GetWindow(FormHandle, GW_HWNDLAST);
VisibleState := False;
GxOtaClearSelectionOnCurrentForm;
while (CompHandle <> 0) do
begin
WindowClass := GetWindowClassName(CompHandle);
if AnsiSameText(WindowClass, NonVisualClassName) then
begin
if not FirstCompFound then
begin
VisibleState := not IsWindowVisible(CompHandle);
FirstCompFound := True;
end;
if VisibleState then
ShowWindow(CompHandle, SW_SHOW)
else
ShowWindow(CompHandle, SW_HIDE);
end;
CompHandle := GetWindow(CompHandle, GW_HWNDPREV);
end;
end;
in the unit GX_HideNonVisualComps.Pas.
As written, it toggles the visibility of all the non-visual components on the
target form, but looking at the code of the ToggleNonVisualVisible method it looks like it
ought to be possible (but I have not tried) to adapt it to operate on a selected component class and
force instances of the class to a non-visible state. Once you have done that, you would probably
need to experiment with how and when to invoke the method at design-time; if I was doing it, I would probably start
with somewhere like the target component's Loaded method.
(I would feel more comfortable posting this "answer" as a comment but obviously it would be too long)
I have thought about this. A Non Visual Component does not do any painting, in a Windows environment (like the IDE) it has no Window, and therefore cannot influence how the IDE chooses to render it.
One approach would be to derive from TWinControl, making your component a Visual Component, and then to ensure that it is not drawn. Try setting the positioning properties to be non-published, and when you are parented, always set your position outside the parent window. This means that your control is always clipped and never painted.
I haven't tried this, but I can see no reason why it wouldn't work.
You can also use this approach to have an apparently non visual component that renders information in the IDE at designtime, but not at runtime.

FastReport 4 and VCL Styles bugs

Some background info. I work at a very small company who has recently upgraded Delphi from version 6 (!!!) to Rad Studio XE5 and things have certainly changed a lot in 10+ years. Most things seems to have been improved in the IDE and framework, but we're having big problems with the new VCL Styles feature. It's just very buggy and not up to par with the quality we were used to from Borland back in the day. We have done lots of tweaks and work arounds to get things working but one issue is really bugging me at the moment and it has to do with the preview form in FastReport 4.
The toolbar gets a white border around it.
Controls in the print dialog and others are misaligned or wrongly positioned
We really want to use VCL Styles to give our software a new fresh look, so we hope there is a solution to these problems.
Steps to reproduce the issues:
Create a new VCL Forms Application
Check a VCL Style in Project > Options > Application > Appearance, e.g. Sapphire Kamri.
Add a TfrxReport report Component to the form
Double click the component frxReport1 and add a Page Header band just to have some content
Add a TButton and in OnClick event, call frxReport1.ShowReport();
Run the program and click on the button. In the preview form you now see that the toolbar is surrounded by a white border which looks weird.
Click the leftmost print button to bring up the print dialog and you can see how the group boxes and cancel button is positioned outside of the client area.
Do you have any solutions or suggestions to solve the issues?
Edit: RRUZ gave a good answer, but there were some side effects to his solution to problem #1 so I decided to simplify the code and just paint the border around the toolbar manually. Like this:
procedure TToolBarStyleHookEx.PaintNC(Canvas: TCanvas);
begin
if TToolBar(Control).BorderWidth>0 then
begin
Canvas.Pen.Width := 4;
Canvas.Pen.Color := StyleServices.GetStyleColor(scWindow);
Canvas.Brush.Style := bsClear;
Canvas.Rectangle(2,2,Control.Width-2,Control.Height-1);
end;
inherited;
end;
Effectively both issues it seems VCL Styles bugs.
1) Q: The toolbar gets a white border around it.
A: The TToolBarStyleHook Style hook in not handling the BorderWidth property. so you must create a new style hook and override the PaintNC to overcome this issue.
type
TToolBarStyleHookEx = class(TToolBarStyleHook)
protected
procedure PaintNC(Canvas: TCanvas); override;
end;
{ TToolBarStyleHookEx }
procedure TToolBarStyleHookEx.PaintNC(Canvas: TCanvas);
var
Details: TThemedElementDetails;
LStyle: TCustomStyleServices;
R: TRect;
begin
if TToolBar(Control).BorderWidth>0 then
begin
LStyle := StyleServices;
R := Rect(0, 0, Control.Width, Control.Height);
Details.Element := teToolBar;
Details.Part := 0;
Details.State := 0;
if LStyle.HasTransparentParts(Details) then
LStyle.DrawParentBackground(Handle, Canvas.Handle, Details, False);
LStyle.DrawElement(Canvas.Handle, Details, R);
end;
inherited;
end;
and register like so
initialization
TCustomStyleEngine.RegisterStyleHook(TToolBar, TToolBarStyleHookEx);
2) Q : Controls in the print dialog and others are misaligned or wrongly positioned
A: It seems a issue related with the TFormStyleHook, you had 3 alternatives.
1) you can edit the frxPrintDialog unit and increase the width of the form.
2) you can patch the form style hook.
3) You can change the width of the print dialog in run-time.
Check this code which changes the width of the dialog in run-time using a HCBT_ACTIVATE hook
var
hhk: HHOOK;
function CBT_FUNC(nCode: Integer; wParam: WPARAM; lParam: LPARAM): LRESULT; stdcall;
const
ClassNameBufferSize = 1024;
var
hWindow: HWND;
RetVal : Integer;
ClassNameBuffer: Array[0..ClassNameBufferSize-1] of Char;
i : integer;
begin
Result := CallNextHookEx(hhk, nCode, wParam, lParam);
if nCode<0 then exit;
case nCode of
HCBT_ACTIVATE:
begin
hWindow := HWND(wParam);
if (hWindow>0) then
begin
RetVal := GetClassName(wParam, ClassNameBuffer, SizeOf(ClassNameBuffer));
if (RetVal>0) and SameText(ClassNameBuffer, 'TfrxPrintDialog') then
for i:= 0 to Screen.FormCount-1 do
if (SameText(Screen.Forms[i].ClassName, 'TfrxPrintDialog')) and (Screen.Forms[i].Width<=563) then
Screen.Forms[i].Width:=Screen.Forms[i].Width+8;
end;
end;
end;
end;
Procedure InitHook();
var
dwThreadID : DWORD;
begin
dwThreadID := GetCurrentThreadId;
hhk := SetWindowsHookEx(WH_CBT, #CBT_FUNC, hInstance, dwThreadID);
if hhk=0 then RaiseLastOSError;
end;
Procedure KillHook();
begin
if (hhk <> 0) then
UnhookWindowsHookEx(hhk);
end;
initialization
InitHook();
finalization
KillHook();
After of apply both fixes this will be the result
Note: please report these issues to the QC page of Embarcadero.

How to add persistence to the Delphi Docking example

Although I realise that in addition to the included Delphi docking demo there are other and better docking libraries available such as the Developer Express Library and the JVCL Docking Library, but for a specific demonstration project I am restricted to use only the Delphi built-in capability (despite some of the noted flaws).
My question relates to adding persistence to the docking state. I see from examining Controls.pas that TDockTree is the default dock manager and it has Stream I/O routines. Digging around on SO and in various forums though I cant see how anyone has called these routines. I've tried loading and saving to a file from the relevant Create and OnDrop events but I'm stabbing in the dark. I am happy saving and restoring form sizes and states but am struggling with the concepts of what I should be saving. Would any kind person give me a starting place?
I'm using Delphi XE3, so all (?) things are possible!
Many thanks.
I'm using Toolbar 2000 from J. Russels. It is providing panels, toolwindow's and toolbar's.
That one provides functions like TBRegSavePositions and TBRegSavePositions to store the user customization into registry.
Loading a "view" get's easily done by on code line:
TBRegLoadPositions(self, HKEY_CURRENT_USER, c_BaseUserRegKey);
in this case self is my form.
You can load and save your docking configuration with the LoadFromStream and SaveToStream methods by storing the data in a string.
Therefore, the following methods are required:
save the current docking configuration to a string
load the current docking configuration from a string
Here is some code to do this:
function GetDockString(const AManager: IDockManager): AnsiString;
var
LStream: TMemoryStream;
begin
LStream := TMemoryStream.Create();
try
AManager.SaveToStream(LStream);
SetLength(Result, 2 * LStream.Size);
BinToHex(LStream.Memory, PAnsiChar(Result), LStream.Size);
finally
FreeAndNil(LStream);
end;
end;
procedure ReadDockString(const ADockString: AnsiString; const AManager: IDockManager);
var
LStream: TMemoryStream;
begin
LStream := TMemoryStream.Create();
try
LStream.Size := Length(ADockString) div 2;
HexToBin(PAnsiChar(ADockString), LStream.Memory, LStream.Size);
LStream.Position := 0;
AManager.LoadFromStream(LStream);
finally
FreeAndNil(LStream);
end;
end;
I've used such methods in an application to create dockable windows, but the vcl provides only a very basic user experience. You can do something about it, but it is hard to test and debug - I already spent too much time to use and override TCustDockDragObject and TCaptionedTabDockTree, so I would recommend using a docking framework.
Here is a minimal example which creates two forms and reads a docking configuration.
TForm1 = class(TForm)
procedure FormCreate(Sender: TObject);
procedure FormDblClick(Sender: TObject);
private
FPanel: TPanel;
end;
Implementation:
procedure TForm1.FormCreate(Sender: TObject);
var
LWindow: TForm;
const
LDockExample = '0000080000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000100000000000000000B0000004368696C6457696E646F77FFFFFFFF';
begin
FPanel := TPanel.Create(Self);
FPanel.Align := alTop;
FPanel.Height := 300;
FPanel.DockSite := true;
FPanel.Parent := Self;
LWindow := TForm.CreateNew(Self);
LWindow.Name := 'ChildWindow';
LWindow.DragKind := dkDock;
LWindow.BoundsRect:=Rect(10, 10, 400, 400);
LWindow.Color := clGreen;
LWindow.Show;
ReadDockString(LDockExample, FPanel.DockManager);
end;
procedure TForm1.FormDblClick(Sender: TObject);
begin
ShowMessage(GetDockString(FPanel.DockManager));
end;

How can I get the tooltips of notification-area icons?

I can enumerate the applications (handle,pid,path) with icons in the notification area, and I can control the position of the icons, but I can't get the tooltip.
How can I enumerate systray icons including the tooltips?
The shell provides no facility for inspecting notification icons that don't belong to your program. (And it provides no way of enumerating even the icons that do belong to your program; you're expected to already know about those.)
I used to use a program that hijacked some or all of the icons and optionally displayed them in its own window instead of in the area near the clock, so it must have been able to get a list of all the icons. It was TraySaver, by Mike Lin. The source is available if you wish to see how his hack worked.
You can also take a look at the answers to a previous question that asked about controlling the position of icons in the notification area.
You should take a look at the madKernal package of madshis component collection. It has some interfaces for working with trayicons. Beware, though:
With madKernel you can manage tray icons (see API "Shell_NotifyIcon") of any application. This kind of functionality is totally undocumented, but works well from win95 to winXP.
The ITrayIcon-interface has properties for hint, icon, position and more.
Here is my method tested with windows xp and delphi 2010 if you are using a version of delphi wich doesn't support unicode make shure you convert the strings read to ansi
uses CommCtrl;
function TForm1.GetIconsCount: Integer;
begin
Result := SendMessage(FindTrayToolbar, TB_BUTTONCOUNT, 0, 0);
end;
procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
begin
ListTips;
end;
function TForm1.FindTrayToolbar: HWND;
begin
Result := FindWindow('Shell_TrayWND', nil);
Result := FindWindowEx(Result, 0, 'TrayNotifyWnd', nil);
Result := FindWindowEx(Result, 0, 'SysPager', nil);
Result := FindWindowEx(Result, 0, 'ToolbarWindow32', nil);
end;
procedure TForm1.ListTips;
var
dwTray: DWORD;
wndTray: HWND;
hTray: THandle;
remoteTray: Pointer;
tdata: TTBBUTTON;
i: Integer;
btsread:DWORD;
str:Pchar;
begin
wndTray := FindTrayToolbar;
GetWindowThreadProcessId(wndTray, #dwTray);
hTray := OpenProcess(PROCESS_ALL_ACCESS, false, dwTray);
if hTray <> 0 then
begin
remoteTray := VirtualAllocEx(hTray, nil, Sizeof(tdata), MEM_COMMIT,
PAGE_READWRITE);
for i := 0 to GetIconsCount - 1 do
begin
SendMessage(FindTrayToolbar,TB_GETBUTTON,wparam(i),lparam(remotetray));
ReadProcessMemory(hTray,remotetray,#tdata,sizeof(tdata),btsread);
GetMem(str,255);
ReadProcessMemory(hTray,Ptr(tdata.iString),str,255,btsread);
ListBox1.Items.Add(str);
end;
end
else ShowMessage('Could not locate tray icons');
end;
end.

Make dialogs compatible with "large fonts". [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
How do I make my GUI behave well when Windows font scaling is greater than 100%
(4 answers)
Closed 8 years ago.
Which do you think are best practices for making a windows dialog compatible both with standard fonts (96 dpi) and "large fonts" setting (120 dpi) so that objects don't overlap or get cut off?
BTW: Just in case it's relevant, I'm interested in doing this for Delphi dialogs.
Thanks in advance!
In general one should use layout managers for this purpose. That what they are designed for.
Delphi (did not work with it for a long time) does not have such managers but is able to handle different dpi ever since. You have to use the autosize propery of the components to ensure that they have the right size for the text they display. To prevent overlapping of components arrange them on the form using the alignment and anchor properties. Eventually you have to group components in containers to achieve a proper layout.
There's a pretty good article in the D2007 help file, under "Considerations When Dynamically Resizing Forms and Controls" (note that the URL is to the help file itself, and not a web page as such).
The same topic, under the same name, can be found in the D2010 help file (same caveat about the URL as above), or on the docwiki.
It also is worthwhile (at least a little bit) to examine TForm.Scaled and TForm.ScaleBy.
This is how I try to deal with Delphi VCL's pixels regardless of Window's font size setting.
unit App.Screen;
interface
uses Controls;
type
TAppScreen = class(TObject)
private
FDefaultPixelsPerInch: integer;
FPixelsPerInch: integer;
function GetPixelsPerInch: integer;
procedure SetPixelsPerInch(const Value: integer);
public
procedure AfterConstruction; override;
function DefaultPixelsPerInch: integer;
function InAcceptableRange(const aPPI: integer): boolean;
procedure ScaleControl(const aControl: TWinControl);
property PixelsPerInch: integer read GetPixelsPerInch write SetPixelsPerInch;
end;
TAppScreenHelper = class helper for TAppScreen
private
class var FInstance: TAppScreen;
class function GetInstance: TAppScreen; static;
public
class procedure Setup;
class procedure TearDown;
class property Instance: TAppScreen read GetInstance;
end;
implementation
uses
TypInfo, Windows, SysUtils, Forms, Graphics;
type
TScreenEx = class(TScreen)
published
property PixelsPerInch;
end;
TScreenHelper = class helper for TScreen
public
procedure SetPixelsPerInch(Value: integer);
end;
procedure TScreenHelper.SetPixelsPerInch(Value: integer);
begin
PInteger(Integer(Self) + (Integer(GetPropInfo(TScreenEx, 'PixelsPerInch').GetProc) and $00FFFFFF))^ := Value;
end;
procedure TAppScreen.AfterConstruction;
begin
inherited;
FDefaultPixelsPerInch := Screen.PixelsPerInch;
FPixelsPerInch := FDefaultPixelsPerInch;
end;
function TAppScreen.DefaultPixelsPerInch: integer;
begin
Result := FDefaultPixelsPerInch;
end;
function TAppScreen.GetPixelsPerInch: integer;
begin
Result := FPixelsPerInch;
end;
function TAppScreen.InAcceptableRange(const aPPI: integer): boolean;
begin
if DefaultPixelsPerInch > aPPI then
Result := DefaultPixelsPerInch * 0.55 < aPPI
else if DefaultPixelsPerInch < aPPI then
Result := DefaultPixelsPerInch * 1.55 > aPPI
else
Result := True;
end;
procedure TAppScreen.ScaleControl(const aControl: TWinControl);
begin
aControl.ScaleBy(PixelsPerInch, DefaultPixelsPerInch);
end;
procedure TAppScreen.SetPixelsPerInch(const Value: integer);
begin
FPixelsPerInch := Value;
Screen.SetPixelsPerInch(FPixelsPerInch);
end;
class function TAppScreenHelper.GetInstance: TAppScreen;
begin
if FInstance = nil then
FInstance := TAppScreen.Create;
Result := FInstance;
end;
class procedure TAppScreenHelper.Setup;
begin
TAppScreen.Instance;
end;
class procedure TAppScreenHelper.TearDown;
begin
FInstance.Free;
FInstance := nil;
end;
initialization
TAppScreen.Setup;
finalization
TAppScreen.TearDown;
end.
Try the following to test the effects of different pixels value:
TAppScreen.Instance.PixelsPerInch := 120;
TAppScreen.Instance.PixelsPerInch := 96;
TAppScreen.Instance.PixelsPerInch := 150;
You should change the PixelsPerInch before instantiate TForm's descendant including Delphi's VCL dialogs.
Never put a control and its describing label side by side, always put the label on top of it.
But apart from that? Maybe:
Leave enough space to the right and bottom of labels so they will not overlap with other controls when large fonts are used.
I have never tried using TLabeledEdit in that scenario, maybe they do that automatically?
There are purported commercial solutions (Developer Express VCL Layout Manager). But I do not trust any of them. I suspect that Embarcadero should address this as a critical weakness in the current UI component set (VCL).
I think that the third-party component set might be your fastest solution right now. It's commercial but not hugely expensive.
http://www.devexpress.com/products/VCL/ExLayoutControl/

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