Hi all,
Man did we have a nasty north-eastern Sunday and Monday here in
Pa! Ten inches of snow, no cable, internet, or electric in most places
for close to 48 hrs., and wind so high that it knocked over a tree near
my place that had been there for more than 200 years...as well as taking
the electric service right off the side of my neighbor's house!
Anyway....
Before I changed over to CodeGear 2007, which I really like and
believe will put them on the map the way Borland should have done long
ago, and installed it on Vista, which I believe will be okay once they
work all the glitches out, I was working on an XP/D2005 application that
made use of a Form split into two sides via a Raize TSplitter with a
listbox on the left and a Listview on the right.
Depending upon the user option selected, this form might appear
at startup or not, but in either case, the listbox would alphabetically
display a list of user defined categories, each one allowing for
sub-categories, making it appear much like a file-manager's directory
panel. When a category was finally selected, the listview would then
display all the user defined applications, files, connections,
favorites, etc, no matter where they may actually reside on the system
and/or network, via shortcut versions of their actual icons along with
auto-displaying names that again the user would define. When one of
these shortcuts were double-clicked, it's target would be opened as per
default or edited settings.
This was the main part of this app which I'd been using in
various versions since Win98, and had also put out in a business-orient
version to some local companies for trials. It was my intention to put
it out as shareware until I heard Vista was going to include a category
handling system of its own! So I waited to see what it actually would
be like, and luckily I don't believe it comes anywhere near what my app
can provide, as the Targeting part I described is merely a hint of what
MY shortcut icons can provide!
Anyway, I'm getting ready to do a final and complete re-write
from scratch due to the fact my code on my system was eaten by a virus
while I was away with my system left on and my security subscriptions
ran out. That was bad enough, but then I found that even with new
drivers, Vista will not correctly read the backups I had on CD-RW!
And as the visual system for this app as I described it is
actually getting a bit dated, I figured this would be the best time to
change things around a bit. And what I'd REALLY like this part of the
interface to look like, is much as one of the side panels in CodeGear,
where a panel can slide out from the left or right edge of the screen
and lock there all the time if wanted. It would have the same type of
controls the IDE side panels have which allow the user control over it's
appearance.
I've looked thru all the components and MSDN but haven't found
anything like what I'm looking for except as used as a component on a
form. It's very possible I missed something along the way, but the only
thing I've been able to come up with is a hack using a back form...and
that doesn't look or behave exactly the way I would like either!
So if anyone has an idea that might work, please let me know.
Thanx in advance!
from Robert Meek dba "Tangentals Design"
e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Freelance Windows Programming for XP and Vista
Also proud to be a Moderator of the "Delphi-List" at elists.org
"Reality cannot be explained...only enjoyed or endured as your current
perspective allows!"
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