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How to Drag controls and forms the easy way 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
07-Jul-03
Category
VCL-Forms
Language
Delphi 3.x
Views
196
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Publisher:
DSP, Administrator
Reference URL:
DKB
			Author: Felipe Machado

This article shows a technique to drag a form without caption other than responding 
to NC_HITTEST messages. This technique can also be used to accomplish the dragging 
of Windowed controls inside the form.

Answer:

The code bellow was created when I was writting a component to allow the dragging 
of forms without captions. First I found code using the NC_HITTEST message, but the 
technique presented here offers a lot of other possibilities since it can be 
applied to any windowed control (not only forms), and will allow you to move them 
on the form with only 2 or 3 lines of code. 

It consists of sendind a WM_SYSCOMMAND message to the desired window (remember that 
all windowed controls are considered windows on the Windows OS :-) with the correct 
parameters set, and the window will behave as if the user had started dragging the 
window by clicking on its caption (this works even with windows without captions, 
like text boxes.) 

The funny part was that this parameter for the WM_SYSCOMMAND message isn't 
documented (it isn't on my Windows SDK help). I've discovered it while debugging an 
application. I've put a handler for the WM_SYSCOMMAND message and was showing on 
the screen all the values for its parameters and to my surprise, when I started to 
drag the form the value $F012 poped-up. Then I tried to send it to the form and it 
didn't worked. After a while I figure out how to do it correctly and the code for 
this follows: 

Put the code bellow on the OnMouseDown handler for any form: 
1   
2   procedure TForm1.FormMouseDown(Sender: TObject;
3     Button: TMouseButton; Shift: TShiftState; X, Y: Integer);
4   begin
5     if Button = mbLeft then
6     begin
7       ReleaseCapture;
8       Perform(WM_SYSCOMMAND, $F012, 0);
9     end;
10  end;


You can also put this code on the OnMouseDown of a single panel or a group of 
panels, effectively creating a new drag point for the form. When the user tries to 
drag the panel you send the message above to the form and a dragging operation will 
start. It is easier to accomplish this with this method than using the NC_HITTEST 
message: 
11  
12  procedure TForm1.Panel1MouseDown(Sender: TObject;
13    Button: TMouseButton; Shift: TShiftState; X, Y: Integer);
14  begin
15    if Button = mbLeft then
16    begin
17      ReleaseCapture;
18      Perform(WM_SYSCOMMAND, $F012, 0);
19    end;
20  end;
21  
22  //If you write 
23  
24  Panel1.Perform(WM_SYSCOMMAND, $F012, 0)


the panel will start moving inside the form as if it was itself a form. When you 
release the mouse it will stay were you left it (no additional code required). 

This code can be much useful sometimes, but it is very very simple. Hope you liked 
it. 

I played a bit with the code modifying the $F000 Part. 

$F000 (Center cursor on the form) 
$F001 (Resize from left) 
$F002 (Resize from right) 
$F003 (Resize from up) 
$F004 (Lock the bottom right corner of the form, the up left corner move for 
resize) 
$F005 (Same from bottom left corner) 
$F006 (Lock up right and left border, resize other) 
$F007 (Lock up and right border, resize other border) 
$F008 (Lock left and up border and resize other) 
$F009 (Drag from anywhere) 
$F010 (Put cursor centered at the upper order) 
$F020 (Auto-Minimize Form) 
$F030 (Auto-Maximize Form) 
$F040 (Stop! You don't want that, it will lock all mouse click and make 
you reboot) 
$F148 (Activate ScreenSaver) 
$F13E (Activate StartButton) 

			
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