Author: Tomas Rutkauskas

Is the ItemID a unique number for a node on the tree at hand only? Apparently this 
ID is not a true handle like for Windows that changes from time to time. I can run 
two instances of the same treeview object and the root node always has a number 
5704360 and the second node always has the 5704400. These item IDs are cast to 
integers. I am trying to create an Outline editor, using a memo and a treeview and 
save the data in the memo to a stream along with some sort of unique identifier in 
order to be able to move nodes around without loosing a nodes assignment to a block 
of memo data. I thought about adding the itemid to the front of the block of data 
and remove it from the data while streaming the data back into the memo. Am I going 
in the wrong direction or what?

Answer:

I tend towards maintaining my own Ids and TreeNodes in a list:

1   TMemoSource = class(TPersisent)
2   private
3     FId: Integer;
4     FNode: TTreeNode;
5     FStrings: TStringList;
6     function GetStrings: TStrings;
7     procedure SetStrings(Value: TStrings);
8   public
9     property Id: Integer read FId write FId;
10    property Node: TTreeNode read FNode write FNode;
11    property Strings: TStrings read GetStrings write SetStrings;
12  end;
13  
14  TMemoSources = class(TList)
15  private
16    FNextId: Integer; {FNextId needs to be saved/initialised on application close/ 
17  run}
18    function Get(Index: Integer): TMemoSource;
19    procedure Put(Index: Integer; Item: TMemoSource);
20  public
21    function AddItem: TMemoSource;
22    property NextId: Integer read FNextId write FNextId;
23    property Items[Index: Integer]: TMemoSource read Get write Put;
24  end;
25  
26  function TMemoSources.AddItem: TAMemoSource;
27  var
28    Item: TMemoSource;
29  begin
30    Item := TMemoSource.Create;
31    Inc(FNextId);
32    Item.Id := FNextId;
33    inherited Add(Item);
34    Result := Item;
35  end;
36  
37  //I'll let you fill in the other class methods ...
38  
39  //Example of using:
40  
41  procedure TForm1.AddMemoToTree(ANode: TTreeNode; AMemo: TMemo);
42  var
43    Ms: TMemoSource;
44  begin
45    Ms := MemoSources1.AddItem;
46    Ms.Strings.Assign(AMemo.Lines);
47    Ms.Node := TreeView1.Items.AddChildObject(ANode, 'Memo' + IntToStr(Ms.Id), Ms);
48  end;


I find the biggest advantage of maintaining a list is you can hunt the list by Id or Node rather than the treeview. The list approach also lends itself to dynamically adding and deleting nodes to the treeview in the OnExpanding and OnCollapsing events remembering to set Ms.Node := nil if you delete a treenode and don't delete the corresponding memosource.