forum.vdsworld.com

PGWARE · **Web Host** Joined: 29 Dec 2001 Posts: 1562

New dll release today.

This dll adds a new Office XP style popup menu into Visual DialogScript. You can now create/show professional looking popup menus within your application/taskicon's. These popup menus support disabling/enabling items, checked/unchecked (radio style as well), glyph images - ability to load from dsr resource as well as from exe resources (vds 5 only), you can also create UNLIMITED sub-menu's.

Very easy to use and similar to the VDS - DIALOG POPUP command. The dll is sharware - $20 US one time fee.

DOWNLOAD HERE

jules · Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2003 9:21 am Post subject:

Nice work. I've written a lot of tray icon apps so this will be a very nice addition to them.

Just one question: does this DLL depend on some Microsoft DLL being installed on the user's system? I'm just wondering it it would still work when run on, say, a bog standard Win95 machine that has never had MS Office or IE6 installed.

PGWARE · **Web Host** Joined: 29 Dec 2001 Posts: 1562

Hi Jules,
The dll is independent of MS Office. The component simulates the look of office menus by using the owner-drawn method. I currently use this component for two of my products which are used on Windows 95 - 2003 machines.

PGWARE · **Web Host** Joined: 29 Dec 2001 Posts: 1562

Here's the component; since I know you use Delphi Smile

you may find this component useful:

http://www.shagrouni.com

XPMenu

jules · Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2003 4:36 pm Post subject:

Thanx. I'll probably use it in my one Delphi systray app. But it's worth 20 bux to have a ready-to-go VDS version. I've just got tiime to play with it now I've got my VDS-based mail server running as a service under WinXP. (Thanx CodeScript for bringing XYNTService to my attention.)

jwfv · Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2003 4:45 pm Post subject:

Those popups look really professional. I am starting on a tray icon app, and will definitely use those.

This may have already been answered elsewhere, but I'll ask anyway: Is there any way to get that look in a dropdown menu on the app itself? Or can your .dll somehow be used for that?

PGWARE · **Web Host** Joined: 29 Dec 2001 Posts: 1562

Currently menu's aren't implemented and I'm not sure if they will be. However you can get the 'menu look' and here is how:

Drop several bitbtn's down on your form and size them so they are roughly about the size of a menu. The bitbtn's will act as the menu. Then leave the image blank (or you can use your own custom image) and set a caption on the bitbtn. Now on the CLICK event of the bitbtn you can drop down the popup right below the bitbtn. This makes it appear like a menu.

The side-effects to this are hotkeys/shortcuts won't work that you set in the popup because they are assigned to a popup only and not to the entire form. (You could set a HOTKEY in VDS 5 and check if your application is the active one before acting on it).

Otherwise more or less this will simulate a menu, you will likely need more code to make it simulate a menu exactly though, for instance mouseover effects, etc on menus.

jwfv · Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2003 7:23 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the reply - interesting solution. Maybe more than I want to bargain for now, though. But good to know.

PGWARE · **Web Host** Joined: 29 Dec 2001 Posts: 1562

It's really not as hard as it sounds, I'll try to put together an example which shows how easy it is to do the basics of menu simulation.

SnarlingSheep · Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2003 5:27 pm Post subject:

You might want to check out the discussion on custom popup menus..just to give you an idea of how you could draw yours.
http://forum.vdsworld.com/viewtopic.php?p=263#263

CodeScript · Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2003 6:34 pm Post subject:

PGWARE · **Web Host** Joined: 29 Dec 2001 Posts: 1562

Updated VDSPOPUP 1.9.18.2003.

- Added ability to load ico's as glyphs.
- Added example which simulates menus
- Reduced overall size by 5-6 kb.

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD

jwfv · Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2003 1:10 pm Post subject:

Very cool - I like the menu examples.

I continue to be impressed with VDS. I have many small apps that I have written for use in our finance office, and am completing a large application (>4000 lines) for use in our branch offices.

I've read in some posts how VDS isn't a real "programming language" and I know it has its limitations, BUT every time I need to do something, it seems that VDS can do it. Or else it can manipulate some component behind the scenes to do it, while presenting a professional-looking interface for the user.

VDSPopup is a great addition.

jules · Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2003 1:47 pm Post subject:

Excellent indeed.

I wanted to be able to load menu glyphs from program icons, etc. which you can do directly with the VDS BIT... dialog elements. So I've added a new command ICOTOBMP which will be in the VDS 5 update. It uses the capability already in VDS to load any ICO, EXE or DLL file and read any icon within it, and produce a 32x32 or 16x16 bitmap as a BMP file.

I'm thinking about a way that would allow you to use VDSPOPUP as a pull-down menu that wouldn't require faking the menu using a BITBTN.

PGWARE · **Web Host** Joined: 29 Dec 2001 Posts: 1562

I looked into adding a menubar to replace VDS's but this causes many problems - most of which deal with focusing. A menubar itself parent property can't be set so you have to place it on another control and then set the parent of it to the vdsform.

However this causes alot of issue, once on the vds form the menu of course won't accept hotkeys unless the menu is in focus. Also when the menu isn't in focus you have to click once on the menu to focus it and then click again to select any menu item (requires two clicks to activate a menu - which is bad ui).

I'll keep looking for a solution to this menu issue though. Another idea and test I did was used the DESIGN style with dialog create. This caused real menu labels to generate an event when it was clicked. I then used the api GetMenuItemInfo to get the rect position of the menu that was clicked and displayed the popup under it. This worked okay too but still not perfect and then the issue appears that the menu bar isn't really 'office' style but the popup portion is.

Currently the best solution I would think is using a bitmap that simulates the office look, on click it would display another bitmap which is highlited, also this highlited bitmap would appear on a mouseover.