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Posts Tagged ‘trick’

How to Focus the Next Control After Pressing Enter

December 15th, 1999 m3Rlin 1 comment

By default the focus is passed to the next control by pressing the Tab key. Well, sometimes (when filling out forms) you may want to pass to the next control after pressing Enter. Well, here’s the code: For TEdit controls only:
Select all the TEdit controls you want to include (using the Shift key), then select the Object Inspector, choose the Events tab and double click the OnKeyPress event. This way all the selected TEdit controls will use the same code. In the code editor write this code:

if Key = #13 then begin
  Perform(WM_NEXTDLGCTL, 0, 0);
  Key := #0; { Eat the key }
end;

For all the controls on the form:
This method will work for all controls because the form will take care of the event. All you have to do is set the form’s KeyPreview property to True and add this code to your form’s KeyUp event:

if (Key = VK_RETURN) and (Shift = []) then
  Perform(WM_NEXTDLGCTL, 0, 0);

How to Convert Delphi Forms to Text

December 15th, 1999 m3Rlin No comments

You shouldn’t have too much problem opening a Delphi 4 form in Delphi 2 but you won’t have luck opening a 32 bit or C++ Builder form in Delphi 1. The only way is to save the file in text form. Delphi 5 can do this automatically but in all the previous versions you have to do this all by yourself, form by form.
This is a full featured program that will do all the work for you. The source is dumped into Public Domain.

(* DfmToTxt 1.0
**
** Author: Jacob Dybala (m3Rlin). Public Domain
**   <m3rlin@programmer.net>
**
** Created : January 2 2000
** Modified: April 12 2000
*)
program DfmToTxt; 

{$apptype console} { Generate console application }
{$debuginfo off}
{$localsymbols off}
{$optimizations on}
{$rangechecks off} 

uses
  Classes, SysUtils; 

var
  sNewFileName: string;
  strInput, strOutput: TStream;
begin
  { Initialize streams }
  strInput := nil;
  strOutput := nil; 

  { Get commandline parameters }
  if (ParamCount > 2) or (ParamCount = 0) then begin
    WriteLn('DfmToTxt 1.0');
    WriteLn('By Jacob Dybala (m3Rlin). Public Domain.');
    WriteLn;
    WriteLn('Usage: DfmToTxt <input /> <output></output>');
    Exit;
  end else if not FileExists(ParamStr(1)) then begin
    WriteLn(Format('Error: %s can not be found.', [sNewFileName]));
    Exit;
  end if ExtractFileExt(ParamStr(1) <> '.dfm') then begin
    WriteLn('Error: Input file must be a .dfm (Delphi Form) file');
    Exit;
end; 

if ParamCount = 1 then begin
  sNewFileName := ParamStr(1);
  sNewFileName := ChangeFileExt(sNewFileName, '.txt');
end else begin
  sNewFileName := ParamStr(2);
  if FileExists(sNewFileName) then begin
    WriteLn(Format('Error: A file named %s already exists.', [sNewFileName]));
    Exit;
  end;
end; 

{ Main code }
try
  try
    strInput := TFileStream.Create(ParamStr(1), fmOpenRead);
    strOutput := TFileStream.Create(sNewFileName, fmCreate);
  expect
    Write('Error: Failed creating ');
    WriteLn(sNewFileName);
    Exit;
  end;
  ObjectResourceToText(strInput, strOutput);
  finally
    strInput.Free;
    strOutput.Free;
  end;
end;