XP Style Glyph annoyance in ActionBars - delphi

I dont like to ask too many questions in relation to the appearance of components, but these days appearance in Applications seems just as important.
Anyway, please see the below images:
Both are using the TActionManager and TActionMainMenuBar to create my main menu. The menu in the left of the image is using the Platform Default Style, the menu on the right is using the XP style defined by my TActionManager.
Notice how when the left menu is highlighted, the glyph remains the same which is perfect.
Now look at the XP style menu on the right, the glyph draws a drop shadow, pops out slightly and you can see the transparency makes the glyph appear slightly odd.
I want to enable the XP style for my UI, but the way the glyphs are painted I do not like. I also want to change my TToolbar to a TActionToolBar and apply the same XP style, but this will render the glyphs the same too.
How can I make the XP style menu defined in the TActionManager, not render the glyphs like this?
Thanks.
EDIT
This is now the result, having applied some of the techniques from the answers below:
Craig.

Here is some sample code that overrides the XP STYLE, creating a derived class that you can tweak as you like. First step here is to substitute your own derived menu item class, and change its DrawGlyph code, as David told you. I figured you could maybe use some sample code.
This is just a quick demo. It doesn't draw a box around checked items with glyphs, so this custom style is not compatible with Checked items, unless they have no glyphs. You would have to figure out how you want to draw the checked-glyph items (Where I wrote the DrawGlyphFrame would be a good place to add something to draw a checked-state rectangle around a glyph if the Action.Checked property is set).
unit MyActionControlStyle;
// Using this unit: Add it to your project. In your project set your
// style at runtime, add the unit to your uses clause and then set the style
// in that form's formcreate event:
// ActionManager1.Style := MyActionControlStyle.MyStyle;
interface
uses Forms,
Types,
Controls,
XPActnCtrls,
XPStyleActnCtrls,
ActnMan,
ActnList,
ActnMenus,
ActnCtrls;
type
TMyStyleMenuItem = class(TXPStyleMenuItem)
protected
procedure DrawGlyph(const Location: TPoint); override;
// procedure DrawGlyphFrame(const Location:TPoint);
end;
TMyStyleMenuButton = class(TXPStyleMenuButton)
end;
TMyStyleActionBars = class(TXPStyleActionBars)
// override the stuff that I want different than XP Style:
function GetControlClass(ActionBar: TCustomActionBar;
AnItem: TActionClientItem): TCustomActionControlClass; override;
end;
var
MyStyle:TMyStyleActionBars;
implementation
uses ToolWin, Classes, Windows, Graphics, GraphUtil, ImgList;
{ TMyStyleActionBars }
function TMyStyleActionBars.GetControlClass(ActionBar: TCustomActionBar;
AnItem: TActionClientItem): TCustomActionControlClass;
begin
if ActionBar is TCustomActionPopupMenu then
Result := TMyStyleMenuItem
else
if ActionBar is TCustomActionMainMenuBar then
Result := TMyStyleMenuButton
else
Result := inherited GetControlClass(ActionBar,AnItem);
end;
{ TMyStyleMenuItem }
procedure TMyStyleMenuItem.DrawGlyph(const Location: TPoint);
var
ImageList: TCustomImageList;
DrawEnabled: Boolean;
begin
// DrawGlyphFrame(Location);
if not HasGlyph and IsChecked then
begin
Canvas.Pen.Color := ActionBar.ColorMap.FontColor;
DrawCheck(Canvas, Point((TextBounds.Left - 5) div 2, Height div 2), 2);
end;
if not HasGlyph then exit;
if Assigned(Action) then
ImageList := ActionClient.Action.ActionList.Images
else
ImageList := ActionClient.OwningCollection.ActionManager.Images;
if not Assigned(ImageList) then exit;
DrawEnabled := Enabled and (ActionClient.ImageIndex <> -1) or
(csDesigning in ComponentState);
ImageList.Draw(Canvas, Location.X, Location.Y, ActionClient.ImageIndex,
dsTransparent, itImage, DrawEnabled);
end;
initialization
MyStyle := TMyStyleActionBars.Create;
RegisterActnBarStyle(MyStyle);
finalization
UnregisterActnBarStyle(MyStyle);
MyStyle.Free;
end.

This is done by design in the VCL code. The pertinent code is TXPStyleMenuItem.DrawGlyph() in XPActnCtrls.pas.
The easiest way to change the behaviour is to register your own version of the XP action bar style based on TXPStyleActionBars. There are plenty of hooks that would allow you to override TXPStyleMenuItem.DrawGlyph().

Related

Adding label to custom component as a child

I have a custom component TCard = class(TGraphicControl) I would like for when its created it would have a label inside it's area ex (top := 5 ) (left :=5) and it would always put a TLabel on that TCard at that spot when created.
type
TCard = class(TGraphicControl)
private
FLPower:TLabel;
procedure SetLPower(value:TLabel);
protected
procedure Paint; override;
public
property LPower: TLabel read FLpower write SetLPower;
...
constructor Tcard.Create(AOwner: Tcomponent);
begin
inherited Create(AOwner);
FLPower := TLabel.Create(self);
end
procedure TCard.SetLPower(value: TLabel);
begin
FLPower.Assign(value);
end;
procedure Tcard.Paint;
begin
FLPower.Left := 5;
FLPower.Top := 5;
end;
I know what i have is not right, but i wanted to show something. Also if it helps, i plan in future to beable to do TCard.LPower.Caption := inttostr(somenumber); So if you can work that in then bonuse .. if not i can figure that out later..but wanted to give a heads up incase something you suggest would not work due to that.
Thanks
glen
A TGraphicControl cannot be used as a parent control and so you cannot adopt this approach.
A label is essentially something very simple. It's just text. You have chosen to use TGraphicControl so that implies that you are going to implement a Paint method.
So, instead of creating a label control, add a Text property of type string to your control. Then, in the Paint method, draw the text to the paint canvas. When the Text property is modified, invalidate your control so that it can be repainted.
In any case, doing it this way is the right way to do it. Adding extra controls just to draw text is over the top. You've picked the lightest weight control which is fine. Paint your card's background, and then paint any text that is required. Job done.

Changing font color using TColorBox

Delphi v7
I have yet another remedial question.
Using a TColorBox I would like to change the font color in each of 4 RichEdit controls. I am using an OnClick event of the color box.
This procedure works fine for one rich edit control.
procedure TForm1.cmbFColorClick(Sender: TObject);
begin
reProc.SelAttributes.Color := cmbFColor.Selected;
end;
If I try to write the same code for each of the richedit controls it will change the font color in all of the richedit control at the same time.
Example: I select and change the text color on one richedit control, then I change the text color on a different control the text color on both richedit controls is changed at the same time.
Example
procedure TForm1.cmbFColorClick(Sender: TObject);
begin
reProc.SelAttributes.Color := cmbFColor.Selected;
reApp.SelAttributes.Color := cmbFColor.Selected;
reServ.SelAttributes.Color := cmbFColor.Selected;
end;
This procedure does not work at all
procedure TForm1.cmbFColorClick(Sender: TObject);
begin
if ActiveControl is TDBRichEdit then
with ActiveControl as TDBRichEdit do
SelAttributes.Color := cmbFColor.Selected;
end;
Is there a way I can change the text color on all of the richedit controls without affecting any of the other controls?
i think the active control is your TColorBox not the richeditboxes, because only one control can be the active control. If i remember right, this control which have the focus.
So you have to implement a procedure like this.
and you have remember by code, which was the last, active richedit.
procedure changeColor(edit : Trichedit) ;
begin
procedure changeColor(edit:Trichedit);
begin
edit.SelAttributes.Color := cmbFColor.Selected;
end;
Kind Regards
Problem solved. In a PageControl OnChange event I set the RichEdit SelLength to "0" for each rich edit control.
Thank you for your help. It gave me the idea.
I'm piecing things together from this question, your last question, the comments to those questions, and your answers to those questions.
What you are trying to do is modify SelAttributes.Color for a single rich edit control. The problem is working out which rich edit control to operate on.
Let us suppose you had the following function available:
function ActiveRichEdit: TRichEdit;
Then you could simply write:
ActiveRichEdit.SelAttributes.Color := NewColor;
Or, if there was a possibility that there was no rich edit control active:
if ActiveRichEdit<>nil then
ActiveRichEdit.SelAttributes.Color := NewColor;
So, how do we implement ActiveRichEdit? Well, it seems that you have a control with multiple pages, each containing a distinct rich edit. That sounds very much like a page control to me.
I'm going to assume that your page control is called PageControl, and the tab sheets called TabSheet1, TabSheet2 etc., and rich edit controls are named RichEdit1, RichEdit2 etc. But if your names are different then you'll need to adapt this code.
function TForm1.ActiveRichEdit: TRichEdit;
begin
if PageControl.ActivePage=TabSheet1 then
Result := RichEdit1
else if PageControl.ActivePage=TabSheet2 then
Result := RichEdit2
else if PageControl.ActivePage=TabSheet3 then
Result := RichEdit3
// etc. etc.
else
Result := nil;
end;
Now, there are other ways to do this. You could make an array of rich edit references that could be indexed by PageControl.ActivePageIndex. And there are indeed yet more possible solutions.
But the key is to use the ActivePage or ActivePageIndex properties of the page control to work out which rich edit control to operate on.

How can I remove the or change the "horizontal separator" in a Category Panel control?

I've been playing around with the Category Panel Control inside Delphi 2010. I've been able to modify the colors and get them working they way I'd like. However, there's a silver colored "horizontal separator" (I don't know what else to call it) between each panel heading.
How can I change the appearance of this "horizontal separator" or remove it all together?
A look at the source of T(Custom)CategoryPanel reveals a method DrawCollapsedPanel. It unconditionally draws the separator. DrawCollapsedPanel is called from DrawHeader and the only condition checked is whether the panel is collapsed.
More importantly though, DrawCollapsedPanel is virtual, so you can either create your own descendant or use an interceptor class:
TCategoryPanel = class(ExtCtrls.TCategoryPanel)
protected
procedure DrawCollapsedPanel(ACanvas: TCanvas); override;
function GetCollapsedHeight: Integer; override;
end;
If you put this in a separate unit, all you need to do then is include it AFTER the ExtCtrls unit wherever you want a category panel with your own behaviour.
To please David :-)
procedure TCategoryPanel.DrawCollapsedPanel(ACanvas: TCanvas);
begin
// Don't call inherited, we do not want the default separator.
// And don't draw anything you don't want.
end;
and we need to override GetCollapsedHeight as well, as that determines the room available for whatever you want to draw under the Header in a collapsed state:
function TCategoryPanel.GetCollapsedHeight: Integer;
begin
// As we don't want anything under here,
// don't call inherited and just return the HeaderHeight.
// (Instead of HeaderHeight + 6;
Result := HeaderHeight;
end;
Screenshot:

TLinkLabel background on a TPageControl

I am trying to use a TLinkLabel on a TPageControl, and I can't find a way to make it use it's parent's background.
// Image removed because the website doesn't exist any more
// and I can't find it anywhere... Sorry.
As you can see, the parent tab sheet's lovely gradient is not preserved behind the link text.
I would like the functionality of having multiple links in a flowing block of text (the functionality that TLinkLabel provides) and have the background of the parent showing behind the text.
TLinkLabel does not have a ParentBackground property. I have tried creating a derived class that adds csParentBackground to the control style, to no avail:
TMyLinkLabel = class (TLinkLabel)
public
constructor Create(AOwner: TComponent); override;
end;
...
constructor TMyLinkLabel.Create(AOwner: TComponent);
begin
inherited;
ControlStyle := ControlStyle - [csOpaque] + [csParentBackground]
end;
Anyone have any ideas?
Nat, you are nearly there with your changes to the ControlStyle of the TLinkLabel. What you have to do in addition is to make sure that the parent of the standard Windows static control (that's what the TLinkLabel is) handles the WM_CTLCOLORSTATIC message correctly.
The VCL has a nice redirection mechanism to let controls handle messages that are sent as notifications to their parent windows for themselves. Making use of this a completely self-contained transparent link label can be created:
type
TTransparentLinkLabel = class(TLinkLabel)
private
procedure CNCtlColorStatic(var AMsg: TWMCtlColorStatic);
message CN_CTLCOLORSTATIC;
public
constructor Create(AOwner: TComponent); override;
end;
constructor TTransparentLinkLabel.Create(AOwner: TComponent);
begin
inherited;
ControlStyle := ControlStyle - [csOpaque] + [csParentBackground];
end;
procedure TTransparentLinkLabel.CNCtlColorStatic(var AMsg: TWMCtlColorStatic);
begin
SetBkMode(AMsg.ChildDC, TRANSPARENT);
AMsg.Result := GetStockObject(NULL_BRUSH);
end;
Normally I hate it when people offer a third-party component as an answer, but I'll mention the TMS THTMLabel as an alternative for what you want to do. It has the Transparent property of the TLabel, and allows you to use HTML as the caption, and so you can do multiple links as per your example.
The csParentBackground and csOpaque styles both require cooperation from other parts of the control's code. Merely setting them wouldn't have much effect; if it did, then the control would probably have a public Transparent property already.
You can look at TCustomLabel.Paint to see how it respects the csOpaque style. It checks for that style by reading its Transparent property before it paints its background:
if not Transparent then
begin
Canvas.Brush.Color := Self.Color;
Canvas.Brush.Style := bsSolid;
FillRect(ClientRect);
end;
The csParentBackground style has no effect on TCustomLabel because that style only affects windowed controls; TCustomLabel descends from TGraphicControl, not TWinControl.
I don't have TLinkLabel, so I can't look at its source code to find out what it would need to change. If it's a TGraphicControl descendant, then it would need to include code like I showed above from TCustomLabel. If it descends from TWinControl, then I'd adapt code from TCustomStaticText instead. That's a little more complicated; it calls DrawParentBackground in response to the cn_CtlColorStatic notification message. It also doesn't paint itself in Delphi code. The control is a wrapper for the Win32 "static" control type.
TLinkLabel evidently paints its background unconditionally. To fix this, you'll need to override the Paint method. Removing functionality (background-painting, in this case) is hard to do with the traditional way of overriding virtual methods because you won't be able to call the inherited method to get all the text painted. Instead, You'll probably have to copy and paste the base class's implementation and then add the conditional parts in the middle somewhere.
One way I can think of is to create helper class under implementation
type
TLinkLabelHelper = class helper for TLinkLabel
public
procedure Add(const aBGColor: TColor; const S: string);
end;
procedure TLinkLabelHelper.Add(const aBGColor: TColor; const S: string);
begin
Color := aBGColor;
Caption := S;
end;
Then, I create a public
procedure AfterConstruction; override;
procedure Form_A.AfterConstruction;
begin
inherited;
LinkLabel1.Add(Self.Color, 'Hello World');
end;
Hope this works.
My advice: use simple TLabel. TLabel has a property named Transparent - this is what you need. Set your TLabels cursor to crHandPoint (AFAIR this is the link cursor), set font to blue underline, and write OnClick event handler, that will open web browser to navigate to the pointed url.
You can even have one default event handler.
procedure OnClickOnMyLinkTLabels(Sender : TObject);
var
Address : string;
begin
if NOT (Sender is TLabel) then Exit;
Address := (Sender as TLabel).Caption;
ShellExecute(self.WindowHandle,'open',PChar(Address),nil,nil, SW_SHOWNORMAL);
end;
Edit:
If you do not want to have address in your caption, you can use Tag property to retrieve address and set caption to whatever you want:
procedure OnClickOnMyLinkTLabels(Sender : TObject);
var
Address : string;
begin
if NOT (Sender is TLabel) then Exit;
Address := GetAddresByTag( (Sender as TLabel).Tag );
ShellExecute(self.WindowHandle,'open',PChar(Address),nil,nil, SW_SHOWNORMAL);
end;
How you will implement GetAddresByTag is your choice. The most simple one is use an array of strings:
//in your form defintion
private
FAddresses : array of string;
function GetAddresByTag(id : integer): string;
begin
if (i<Low(FAddresses)) OR (I> High(FAddresses)) then
raise EXception.Create('wrong id sent!');
Result:= FAddresses[id];
end;
If your text is static, then you can still do this using labels. Lay out your entire text block INCLUDING the words you want as links. Set the label as transparent. Next, drop separate label components (also set to transparent) that will be the link. Change the color to clNavy, font style to fsunderline and the cursor to crHand. Then position the label OVER the existing text. Then write a onClick handler for each "link" label to perform your hot link.
While this is not optimal, it does work as long as you don't want to bold the text and are willing to keep the text the same font size. Of course this doesn't work so well if the block is dynamic, as you would have to calculate the position of the link labels in code, which is fairly complicated if you are using wordwrap. If not, you can use the canvas.textwidth and canvas.textheight methods to determine the necessary offset positions for your link labels.

Making a TPageControl flat in Delphi 7

I don't know whether this question can be answered here, but I hope it will.
I wrote a simple text editor in Delphi 7 that serves as my primary IDE for writing C code under Windows. I run Windows in a VM and I needed something light.
In any case, it uses a TpageControl that gets a new tab whenever you open or create a new file. Pretty standard.
Now, the TPageControl under Delphi has no flat property.
NO I don't mean setting the tab style to tsButtons or tsFlatButtons
the borders cannot be set to "none" and it looks pretty bad when you add a text editor into the tab control.
Is there any way to make a TpageControl flat?
EDIT:
On an open source PageControl that supports flat here's what I found:
procedure TCustomTabExtControl.WndProc(var Message: TMessage);
begin
if(Message.Msg=TCM_ADJUSTRECT) and (FFlat) then
begin
Inherited WndProc(Message);
Case TAbPosition of
tpTop : begin
PRect(Message.LParam)^.Left:=0;
PRect(Message.LParam)^.Right:=ClientWidth;
PRect(Message.LParam)^.Top:=PRect(Message.LParam)^.Top-4;
PRect(Message.LParam)^.Bottom:=ClientHeight;
end;
tpLeft : begin
PRect(Message.LParam)^.Top:=0;
PRect(Message.LParam)^.Right:=ClientWidth;
PRect(Message.LParam)^.Left:=PRect(Message.LParam)^.Left-4;
PRect(Message.LParam)^.Bottom:=ClientHeight;
end;
tpBottom : begin
PRect(Message.LParam)^.Left:=0;
PRect(Message.LParam)^.Right:=ClientWidth;
PRect(Message.LParam)^.Bottom:=PRect(Message.LParam)^.Bottom-4;
PRect(Message.LParam)^.Top:=0;
end;
tpRight : begin
PRect(Message.LParam)^.Top:=0;
PRect(Message.LParam)^.Left:=0;
PRect(Message.LParam)^.Right:=PRect(Message.LParam)^.Right-4;
PRect(Message.LParam)^.Bottom:=ClientHeight;
end;
end;
end else Inherited WndProc(Message);
end;
The thing is when I tried something similar on the main application it won't work. It won't even compile.
When the tabs are drawn as buttons, no border is drawn around the display area, so set the Style property to tsButtons or tsFlatButtons. (For non-VCL programmers, this is equivalent to including the tcs_Buttons window style on the tab control.)
An alternative is to use a TNotebook. It holds pages, but it doesn't do any painting at all. You'd have to provide the tabs yourself, such as by setting the tab control's height equal to the height of the tabs, or by using a TTabSet. (TTabSet is available in Delphi 2005; I'm not sure about Delphi 7.)
Regarding the code you found, it would be helpful if you indicated why it doesn't compile, or if you gave a link to where you found it, since I suppose the compilation error was because it refers to fields or properties of the custom class rather than the stock one. Here's what you can try to put it in your own code, without having to write a custom control.
Make two new declarations in your form like this:
FOldTabProc: TWndMethod;
procedure TabWndProc(var Msg: TMessage);
In the form's OnCreate event handler, assign that method to the page control's WindowProc property:
FOldTabProc := PageControl1.WindowProc;
PageControl1.WindowProc := TabWndProc;
Now implement that method and handle the tcm_AdjustRect messsage:
procedure TForm1.TabWndProc(var Msg: TMessage);
begin
FOldTabProc(Msg);
if Msg.Msg = tcm_AdjustRect then begin
case PageControl1.TabPosition of
tpTop: begin
PRect(Msg.LParam)^.Left := 0;
PRect(Msg.LParam)^.Right := PageControl1.ClientWidth;
Dec(PRect(Msg.LParam)^.Top, 4);
PRect(Msg.LParam)^.Bottom := PageControl1.ClientHeight;
end;
end;
end;
end;
You can fill in the other three cases if you need them. Tcm_AdjustRect is a message identifier declared in the CommCtrl unit. If you don't have that message in that unit, declare it yourself; its value is 4904.
I suspect this doesn't stop the control from drawing its borders. Rather, it causes the contained TTabSheet to grow a little bigger and cover up the borders.
I'm using Delphi XE8 and the following seems to do the trick:
ATabControl.Tabs.Clear;
ATabControl.Style := TTabStyle.tsFlatButtons;
ATabControl.Brush.Color := clWhite;
You could always use a commercial solution. I would strongly recommend Raize components, which support flat TPageControls with tabs. The component set is very easy to work with, and supports numerous visual enhancements which in my opinion give a better feel to any application.
(source: raize.com)
Drop two TPageControls, one with tabs as Tabs, with a global height equal to the tabs, and one with flatbuttons and Tabvisible properties set to false, which would be aligned under the first one. Then make sure the tab change on the first TPagecontrol makes the tabs also change in the second one.

Resources