Applying Theme or Style to a Delphi Application

-
Delphi provides functionality to apply Themes and Styles at runtime to a Delphi application. Once we apply a Style to application it will apply to all default VCL components provided by Delphi IDE only. So note that it may not be applied to some third-party components.

 In this blog let’s see how to apply Styles to Delphi application at RunTime.
So let’s first create a Delphi Project by selecting File -> New -> VCL Form Application and save the project. Save the default form as MainForm. Now to apply styles and themes first we have to choose the themes we want to apply in our application at runtime. So select Project -> Options -> Appearance -> Then select Custom Styles as per required.


Project file will be look like as follow and here we have added 'Amakrits' style as default style on application loading.

 program Project1;
uses
  Vcl.Forms,
  FormMain in 'FormMain.pas' {MainForm},
  Vcl.Themes,
  Vcl.Styles;
{$R *.res}
begin
  Application.Initialize;
  Application.MainFormOnTaskbar := True;
  TStyleManager.TrySetStyle('Amakrits');
  Application.CreateForm(TMainForm, MainForm);
  Application.Run;
end.
Then we are creating menus in Main Form under Style menu on Form create. So first I added a TMainmenu component to main form and added a menu item named StyleMenu. And also added some Standard controls to the same for to check the style effect.

Then I added following form create event code.

 unit FormMain;

 interface

 uses
  Winapi.Windows, Winapi.Messages, System.SysUtils, System.Variants,         
  System.Classes, Vcl.Graphics, Vcl.Controls, Vcl.Forms, Vcl.Dialogs, Vcl.Menus,
  Vcl.CheckLst, Vcl.Mask, Vcl.Buttons, Vcl.ExtCtrls, Vcl.StdCtrls,
  Vcl.ComCtrls, Vcl.ButtonGroup, Vcl.Samples.Spin, Vcl.ColorGrd,
  Vcl.Samples.Gauges,
  Vcl.Themes,
  Vcl.Styles;
type
  TMainForm = class(TForm)
    MainMenu1: TMainMenu;
    StyleMenu: TMenuItem;
    Label1: TLabel;
    Edit1: TEdit;
    Memo1: TMemo;
    Button1: TButton;
    CheckBox1: TCheckBox;
    RadioButton1: TRadioButton;
    ListBox1: TListBox;
    ComboBox1: TComboBox;
    GroupBox1: TGroupBox;
    RadioGroup1: TRadioGroup;
    Panel1: TPanel;
    BitBtn1: TBitBtn;
    MaskEdit1: TMaskEdit;
    CheckListBox1: TCheckListBox;
    LabeledEdit1: TLabeledEdit;
    ColorBox1: TColorBox;
    CategoryPanelGroup1: TCategoryPanelGroup;
    CategoryPanel1: TCategoryPanel;
    CategoryPanel2: TCategoryPanel;
    CategoryPanel3: TCategoryPanel;
    ButtonGroup1: TButtonGroup;
    PageControl1: TPageControl;
    TabSheet1: TTabSheet;
    TabSheet2: TTabSheet;
    TabSheet3: TTabSheet;
    ProgressBar1: TProgressBar;
    TrackBar1: TTrackBar;
    TreeView1: TTreeView;
    ListView1: TListView;
    Gauge1: TGauge;
    ColorGrid1: TColorGrid;
    SpinEdit1: TSpinEdit;
    procedure FormCreate(Sender: TObject);
    procedure StyleClick(Sender: TObject);
  private
    { Private declarations }
  public
    { Public declarations }
  end;
var
  MainForm: TMainForm;

 implementation
{$R *.dfm}

 procedure TMainForm.FormCreate(Sender: TObject);
var
  Style: String;
  Item: TMenuItem;
begin
  //Add child menu items based on available styles.
  for Style in TStyleManager.StyleNames do
  begin
    Item := TMenuItem.Create(StyleMenu);
    Item.Caption := Style;
    Item.OnClick := StyleClick;
    if TStyleManager.ActiveStyle.Name = Style then
      Item.Checked := true;
    StyleMenu.Add(Item);
  end;
end;

 procedure TMainForm.StyleClick(Sender: TObject);
var
  StyleName: String;
  i: Integer;
begin
  //get style name
  StyleName := StringReplace(TMenuItem(Sender).Caption, '&', '',
    [rfReplaceAll, rfIgnoreCase]);
  //set active style
  TStyleManager.SetStyle(StyleName);
  //check the currently selected menu item
  (Sender as TMenuItem).Checked := true;
  //uncheck all other style menu items
  for I := 0 to StyleMenu.Count -1 do begin
    if not StyleMenu.Items[i].Equals(Sender) then
      StyleMenu.Items[i].Checked := false;
  end;
end;
end.

 Now run the application and you will see default 'Amakrits' style is applied.


Now select a Style from StyleMenu at top left corner of form. Then you will see the changed style effect. Here I selected ‘Cyan Night’.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

ShellExecute in Delphi

-
ShellExecute in Delphi – Launch external applications. ShellExecute is Delphi Windows API function that is mostly used for launch external applications from our Delphi application. This function is linked to the ShellExecute Windows  API function. The function returns an integer that corresponds to an error code which is very useful when we need to show some status  if the function worked  or not . By using ShellExecute we can also do following operations.... Can print documents from within my program, without explicitly starting the application  that created the document, such as: print a Word-document without starting Word. Can open browser with a local HTML page Can surf to a site i.e. open an external URL link from a Delphi application Can send mails thorugh outlook Syntax of Windows API function HINSTANCE ShellExecute(   _In_opt_        HWND hwnd,   _In_opt_        LPCTSTR lpOperation,   _In_              LPCTSTR lpFile,   _In_opt_        LPC
Read more

MS Excel Automation in Delphi

-
In this blog I will describe how to read and write data from and to an Excel file. Sometime in our application we use Excel for reporting purpose, for data import / export purpose and for other works. So here I will explain how to access an Excel file and use for data read / write. For this Excel 2003 or later should have installed in our system. First use Excel2000 unit to uses clause. This unit comes with Delphi installation it self. You can get the unit in installed path C:\Program Files (x86)\Embarcadero\RAD Studio\10.0\OCX\Servers Uses    Excel2000; Before proceed I would mention an important word  LCID which is required at most places. So what it LCID? LCID = In Microsoft Excel, the LCID indicates the currency symbol to be used when this is an xlListDataTypeCurrency type.  Returns 0 (which is the Language Neutral LCID) when no locale is set for the data type of the column. We can get LCID in Delphi by using  GetUserDefaultLCID  function.. privat
Read more

Drawing Shapes in Delphi

-
Image
Believe me, drawing shapes in Delphi is so easy. To develop a software like CAD, Paint, CorelDraw Delphi provides large number of classes and members that supports to draw shapes on a form or on a graphic control. In Delphi, we draw shapes on canvas of a form or graphic controls. Canvas is an area of form where we can draw shapes, lines and can fill colors on shapes. In Delphi, every form or graphic controls have Canvas property which provides TCanvas object that can be used to draw shapes. TPen object is used to draw lines and we can set size, color of lines. TBrush object is used to set color and style to fill the shapes. Most frequently used classes for drawing shapes are TCanvas , TBitmap, TGraphics, TPen, TBrush TCanvas Use TCanvas as a drawing surface for objects that draw an image of themselves TBitmap   Bitmap is a powerful graphics object used to create, manipulate (scale, scroll, rotate, and paint), and store images in memory and as files on a disk.  TGraphics TGr
Read more