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How to create a roll-up form Turn on/off line numbers in source code. Switch to Orginial background IDE or DSP color Comment or reply to this aritlce/tip for discussion. Bookmark this article to my favorite article(s). Print this article
28-Oct-02
Category
VCL-Forms
Language
Delphi 2.x
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Publisher:
DSP, Administrator
Reference URL:
DKB
			Author: Jonas Bilinkevicius

How can I create a form that will roll up? That is, a form that when clicked will 
reduce its height to nothing but the title bar?

Answer:

1   unit testmain;
2   
3   interface
4   
5   uses
6     Windows, Messages, SysUtils, Classes, Graphics, Controls, Forms, Dialogs,
7     ExtCtrls, StdCtrls, Buttons, ShellAPI;
8   
9   type
10    TForm1 = class(TForm)
11      procedure FormCreate(Sender: TObject);
12    private
13      { Private declarations }
14      FOldHeight: Integer;
15      procedure WMNCRButtonDown(var Msg: TWMNCRButtonDown);
16        message WM_NCRBUTTONDOWN;
17    public
18      { Public declarations }
19    end;
20  
21  var
22    Form1: TForm1;
23  
24  implementation
25  
26  {$R *.DFM}
27  
28  procedure TForm1.FormCreate(Sender: TObject);
29  begin
30    FOldHeight := ClientHeight;
31  end;
32  
33  procedure TForm1.WMNCRButtonDown(var Msg: TWMNCRButtonDown);
34  var
35    I: Integer;
36  begin
37    if (Msg.HitTest = HTCAPTION) then
38      if (ClientHeight = 0) then
39      begin
40        I := 0;
41        while (I < FOldHeight) do
42        begin
43          I := I + 40;
44          if (I > FOldHeight) then
45            I := FOldHeight;
46          ClientHeight := I;
47          Application.ProcessMessages;
48        end;
49      end
50      else
51      begin
52        FOldHeight := ClientHeight;
53        I := ClientHeight;
54        while (I > 0) do
55        begin
56          I := I - 40;
57          if (I < 0) then
58            I := 0;
59          ClientHeight := I;
60          Application.ProcessMessages;
61        end;
62      end;
63  end;
64  
65  end.


First, by way of synopsis, the roll-up/down occurs in response to a 
WM_NCRBUTTONDOWN message firing off and the WMNCRButtonDown procedure handling the 
message, telling the window to roll up/down depending upon the height of the client 
area. WM_NCRBUTTONDOWN fires whenever the right mouse button is clicked in a 
"non-client" area, such as a border, menu or, for our purposes, the caption bar of 
a form. (The client area of a window is the area within the border where most of 
the interesting activity usually occurs. In general, the Windows API restricts 
application code to drawing only within the client area.)

Delphi encapsulates the WM_NCRBUTTONDOWN in a TWMNCRButtonDown type, which is 
actually an assignment from a TWMNCHitMessage type that has the following structure:

66  type
67    TWMNCHitMessage = record
68      Msg: Cardinal;
69      HitTest: Integer;
70      XCursor: SmallInt;
71      YCursor: SmallInt;
72      Result: Longint;
73    end;


It's easy to create message wrappers in Delphi to deal with messages that aren't 
handled by an object by default. Since a right-click on the title bar of a form 
isn't handled by default, I had to create a wrapper. The procedure procedure 
WMNCRButtonDown(var Msg : TWMNCRButtonDown); message WM_NCRBUTTONDOWN; is the 
wrapper I created. All that goes on in the procedure is the following:

In order to make this work, I had to create a variable called FOldHeight and set 
its value at FormCreate whenever the form was to be rolled up. FOldHeight is used 
as a place for the form to remember what size it was before it was re-sized to 0. 
When a form is to be rolled up, FOldHeight is immediately set to the current 
ClientHeight, which means you can interactively set the form's size, and the 
function will always return the form's ClientHeight to what it was before you 
rolled it up.

So what use is this? Well, sometimes I don't want to iconize a window; I just want to get it out of the way so I can see what's underneath. Having the capability to roll a form up to its title bar makes it a lot easier to see underneath a window without iconizing it, then having to Alt-tab back to it. (If you are familiar with the Macintosh platform, the System 7.5 environment offers a very similar facility called a "window shade," and makes a roll-up sound when the shade goes up.)

			
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