ABC Version 5 Release Notes

Enhanced Components in Release 5.3.2:

Added a new DataFieldCaption property. This allows a second field in the Datasource to supply a text caption to be drawn on top of the image.

Published the following caption formatting properties: Alignment, CaptionStyle, BiDiMode, ParentBiDiMode, Font, ParentFont, Layout and WordWrap.

Added methods to automatically scroll forward through all the images in a dataset:

procedure Play(Loop: Boolean); if Loop is true, the scrolling continues indefinitely, looping back to the beginning of the dataset.

procedure Stop; can be called to stop the animation.

Added an OnAnimateNext event. This occurs before scrolling to each record in the dataset and has a parameter to stop scrolling.

Note: the EffectPause value can be adjusted for the duration each image should remain before scrolling to the next record.

Note: the DataField property can be connected to a blob field or to a string field containing a file name to be loaded. 

Added a published FilePath string property which can be a path prefix for the string field containing the file name.

abcDBEffectsImage can be configured to load BMP, ICO, WMF, JPG, GIF and TIFF data automatically from blob fields. (GIF and TIFF formats require external TGraphic classes).

Replaced the Kind property with DateTimeKind to allow dates and times to be edited in one control. Type TabcDateTimeKind = (adkDate, adkTime, adkDateTime);

Changed the data field updating to only update the date or time part (or both parts) of a TDateTimeField based on the DateTimeKind property, so that multiple edit controls can be connected for date and time portions of the field.

Added several new public methods to assist when creating, editing or deleting pages and list items at runtime:

procedure TabcButtonPage.Move(Down: Boolean); moves a page down or up in the abc ButtonBar. 

procedure TabcButtonListItem. Move(Down: Boolean); moves an item down or up in the abc ButtonList.

function TabcButtonList.AddItem(ACaption: string; AImageIndex: Integer; DoEdit: Boolean): TabcButtonListItem; appends a new item to the  abcButtonList. The DoEdit parameter invokes the inplace editor.

function TabcButtonBar.AddPage(ACaption: string; DoEdit, AppendPage: Boolean): TabcButtonPage; adds a new page to the abcButtonBar.

function TabcButtonBar.AddPageWithList(ACaption: string; DoEdit, AppendPage: Boolean): TabcButtonList; adds a new page and buttonlist to the abcButtonBar.

function TabcButtonBar.RemoveActivePage(Confirm: Boolean): Boolean; optionally displays a confirmation dialog and then deletes the active page of the abcButtonBar. Returns true if a page was deleted.

function TabcButtonList.RemoveActiveItem(Confirm: Boolean): Boolean; optionally displays a confirmation dialog and then deletes the active item of the abcButtonList. Returns true if an item was deleted.

Added left and top alignment of visible toolbars on the popup edit dialog.

Added property OnActivate: TNotifyEvent. This occurs whenever the Active property changes to True.

Added property OnDeactivate: TNotifyEvent. This occurs whenever the Active property changes to False.

Added property OnEdited: TNotifyEvent. This occurs after the filter has been edited using the popup dialog (and the user clicked Ok in the dialog).

Changed the Edit method from a procedure to a function with a boolean result.

Added a new method ShowDefaultTopic.

Added a new method EditDefaultTopic, to edit the DefaultTopic.

Added new methods to support custom help topics, other than form class names:

  ShowHelpTopic(const HelpTopic: string);

  EditHelpTopic(const HelpTopic: string);

Changed the use of the DefaultTopic property to show the default topic when ReadOnly=True and showing help and there is no help text stored for the active form. Previously it was only used when there was no active form.

Bugs Fixed in Release 5.3.2:

Transition Effects used in TabcEffectsImage, TabcDBEffectsImage, TabcAnimationFrame, TabcPage and TabcFormPanel

Fixed alignment and sizing of some transition effects on the canvas; the following effects were changed: atfZoomIn, atfPourDown, atfPourRight, atfShape..., atfWipeClockwise, atfWipeAntiClockwise.

Fixed a bug causing a small memory leak with some effects.

Completed stress testing of transition effects and multiple thread interactions in a high performance graphics application. Modified the design for some runtime canvas locking, thread interaction and API call parameter issues.

TabcEffectsImage

Removed a blank item in the list used in the Delphi IDE EffectSelection editor dialog.

Fixed a transparent color masking problem with WMF files.

TabcAnimationFrame and TabcFormPanel

Fixed a bug not showing forms correctly when Transition.NoRedraw=True and Transition.Enabled=False.

TabcQuadSplit and other splitter components

Fixed bug causing proportional sizing (SplitHPercent, SplitHScaled; and SplitVPercent, SplitVScaled) to fail under some conditions when a form is loaded.

TabcDBRichEdit

Fixed bugs where Clear and OpenFile methods did not edit the underlying data field, causing changes not to be saved.

TabcCurrencyLabel

Fixed a typo in the string constants, "forteen" should be "fourteen".

TabcDBFixedGrid

Fixed a bug in Delphi 4 and 5 where fixed columns font color and titles are not painted correctly.

TabcMenuToolbar, TabcPopupMenu

Fixed a bug in auto line reduction causing menus to size incorrectly and to hide items at the bottom of the menu.

Fixed a rare bug where top level menu items were not disabled/enabled correctly when an OLE control modal dialog is shown and then closed.

Fixed code to initiate actions for top level menu items correctly during OnIdle.

Changed menu mouse interaction to only allow the left mouse button to select a menu item.

Changed help context processing and F1 key handling to always return a valid helpcontext for the nearest active TMenuItem and made the helpcontext mouse-sensitive on dropdown menus.

TabcDBEffectsImage

Fixed a bug loading graphic streams from blob fields. This effected the image transparency.

TabcDBDateTimePicker

Fixed a bug where the default date was not saved in a new record.

Fixed a display formatting problem in time fields.

TabcDBAutoEdit and TabcnpBlobEdit

Fixed a bug in the graphic field editor SaveAs action, causing graphic field data to be saved to a file with database (Paradox) graphic header information embedded, resulting in an invalid graphic file.

TabcButtonList

Fixed a bug where the active item was not redrawn after a popup menu is shown and the mouse moves off the 
item.

TabcShapeForm

Fixed a bug causing a memory leak on Windows 9x.

TabcDBEditWin

Fixed a bug causing controls not to be created when loading a form in the IDE that uses a datasource from an inherited form.

TabcDBHelpManager

Fixed a bug when editing help, the Save or Delete action would not work unless ReadOnly = False.

TabcNavPanel, TabcNavToolbar

Changed designtime editing of Datasource and AutoDatasource, so that setting one property clears the other.

TabcnpDatasourceEdit

This component automatically set its parent NavPanel or NavToolbar AutoDatasource property to true. The behaviour is now changed to just display a warning at designtime only, without actually changing the parent's property.

TabcnpFilterExpression

Fixed a bug loading the Active and Filter properties at runtime.

TabcnpEmptyTable, TabcnpFilterActive, TabcnpRange, TabcnpFindKey, TabcnpQueryParams, TabcnpSQLStartTrans, TabcnpSQLCommit, TabcnpSQLRollback

Fixed a bug causing an access violation at designtime when the parent NavPanel.Datasource is assigned and one of these components is added to the NavPanel.

ABC 5 Demo Program

Modified this application to run when the BDE is not installed. Previously it would terminate with Runtime Error 217 due to an initialization error checking the installed BDE version. The application now runs with a warning and the database demos are disabled.

Apollo Dataset adapter classes in unit abcdaap

Fixed a bug in variant arrays of parameters, which caused the FindKey and FindNearest methods to fail.

Enhanced Components in Release 5.3.1:

Transition effects have been redesigned to run in separate threads instead of in the main application thread. This improves the user interface response while transition effects are painting.

Added a new published property EffectPause: Word. This allows you to add a delay after a transition completes painting, and before the OnEffectEnd event occurs. The delay is in milliseconds and it occurs in the transition drawing thread, not the main application.

The ProcessMessages property used with transition effects is no longer required and has been removed.

The units abcufxa.pas and abcufxb.pas are no longer used. All transition effects are merged into one thread class in the abcufx.pas unit.

Transition Effects used in TabcAnimationFrame, TabcPage and TabcFormPanel

As with TabcEffectsImage, transition effects have been redesigned to run in separate threads instead of in the main application thread. These transitions are typically used in a synchronous mode, where other actions are needed on completion. They now automatically process messages while waiting for the thread to complete. The ProcessMessages property has been removed.

The transition effects capture of form and control images has been improved significantly. The utility functions in unit abcutilf.pas include a rewritten version of abcGetControlBitmap to work with most windows common controls, toolbars, richedit, scrollbars etc. There is also a new utility function abcCopyWindowFromDesktop which can be used to capture an image on screen.

TabcButtonBar, TabcButtonPage

Added a ButtonColor property to allow buttons to change from the default clBtnFace color.

Added a new boolean property ButtonEnabled to TabcButtonPage. This allows individual buttons on TabcButtonBar to be visible but disabled. Set this property to False to disable the button for the page. The disabled button is drawn grayed and cannot be selected or edited when disabled.

TabcButtonList

Added a new boolean property to list items. TabcButtonListItem.Enabled allows individual button items to be disabled. The default is to enable all items. Disabled items are drawn grayed and cannot be clicked, selected or edited. If the list item is linked to a TAction, the enabled property is also linked.

Added a new property GroupIndex: integer. This allows multiple button lists within the same parent control, or on the same abcButtonBar to only have one selected item. The GroupIndex only applies if it is non-zero and the Options property of the ButtonList includes [ablKeepSelected]. To use this property, set all the abcButtonLists to have the same non-zero GroupIndex and the ablKeepSelected value in the Options property.

Added a new property ScrollButtonStyle. TabcScrollButtonStyle = (asbDefault, asbFlat, asbRect). This allows flat style scroll buttons to be drawn in the button list.

Added a new Options value, ablHideCaptions. Adding this value to Options draws the buttons with the icon only and no caption.

Added a published property ItemSpace: Byte; This allows the vertical space between items to be changed. The default is 5 pixels.

Changed the updating of ActiveIndex and SelectedIndex properties to stop subsequent index changes while events are processing.

TabcMainMenu

Added functions to support manual merging of two or more main menus. The target menu must be connected to an abcMenuToolbar before merging. 

procedure Merge(Menu: TMainMenu); adds Menu items to the target, inserting them in GroupIndex order. The Menu argument must be a TMainMenu or descendant TabcMainMenu. Multiple menus can be merged by calling Merge for each menu. If the Menu argument is nil, all merged menus are removed.

procedure Unmerge(Menu: TMainMenu); removes Menu items from the target.

Note these functions are not required for merging MDI children - the active MDI child's menu is merged automatically.

TabcMenuToolbar

Added AutoLineReduction and AutoHotkeys features.

TabcAnimationFrame, TabcButtonBar

Added performance enhancements to skip animation delays when loading the control.

TabcPage used in TabcAnimationFrame

Added public FreeForm method to set the Form to nil and also free it.

TabcPicSpeedBtn, TabcToolbarButton and DB Navigator Buttons

Added a performance tuning option to reduce the use of GDI resources. This feature is most useful for applications running on Windows 95 or 98.

The options is set using a new global variable ABC_GLYPHS_SAVE_GDI: Boolean = False; in unit abcutilg.pas.

When this variable is set to true, abc graphic buttons will reduce GDI resource use by freeing image handles when not needed for creating button glyphs. Using this option, GDI resource use can be dramatically reduced, however there is a slight runtime performance decrease when changing button states. This option only affects buttons using a Picture or Bitmap property.  For Windows NT and 2000 development, use of the ImageList property is recommended.

To use this option you should set the global variable in the initialization section of one of your units, or in the project dpr file before any forms are created.

TabcCheckListBox

Added properties to change the painting of the selected item. 

property ShowSelectedItem: Boolean; default True; highlights the text and background color of selected items.

property ShowFocusRect: Boolean; default True; draws a focus rect around the selected item.

Setting both properties to false allows selected items to be drawn the same as unselected items.

TabcDBDateTimePicker

Changed default display formatting to make a zero datetime blank, instead of "12/30/1899".

Changed the default dropdown behaviour to make a zero date calendar page to Today, instead of December 1899. 

Added the DefaultDate property to specify a different calendar default to show for zero dates. (A DefaultDate value of zero is interpreted as Today).

Added several new properties to allow custom display formatting of dates and times:

The DateFormatString and DateFormatZero properties are used to define custom display formats for non-zero and zero values. 

When DateFormatString is empty, the default dfShort or dfLong or dtkTime format is set, using the Delphi date and time formatting variables in  SysUtils.

When DateFormatZero is empty, zero dates are displayed as blank.

The OnFormatDate event can also be used to inspect the display value and to supply a custom formatting string.

Refer to the latest Microsoft SDK documentation for complete description of formatting strings. The following is an extract from the SDK:

Date and time format elements will be replaced by the actual date and time. They are defined by the following groups of characters:

"d" The one- or two-digit day. 
"dd" The two-digit day. Single-digit day values are preceded by a zero. 
"ddd" The three-character weekday abbreviation. 
"dddd" The full weekday name. 
"h" The one- or two-digit hour in 12-hour format. 
"hh" The two-digit hour in 12-hour format. Single-digit values are preceded by a zero. 
"H" The one- or two-digit hour in 24-hour format. 
"HH" The two-digit hour in 24-hour format. Single-digit values are preceded by a zero. 
"m" The one- or two-digit minute. 
"mm" The two-digit minute. Single-digit values are preceded by a zero. 
"M" The one- or two-digit month number. 
"MM" The two-digit month number. Single-digit values are preceded by a zero. 
"MMM" The three-character month abbreviation. 
"MMMM" The full month name. 
"t" The one-letter AM/PM abbreviation (that is, AM is displayed as "A"). 
"tt" The two-letter AM/PM abbreviation (that is, AM is displayed as "AM"). 
"yy" The last two digits of the year (that is, 1996 would be displayed as "96"). 
"yyyy" The full year (that is, 1996 would be displayed as "1996"). 

To make the information more readable, you can add body text to the format string by enclosing it in single quotes. Spaces and punctuation marks do not need to be quoted. 

Note: Nonformat characters that are not delimited by single quotes will result in unpredictable display.

For example, to display the current date with the format "Today is: 04:22:31 Tuesday Mar 23, 1996", the format string is "'Today is: 'hh':'m':'s dddd MMM dd', 'yyyy". To include a single quote in your body text, use two consecutive single quotes. For example, "'Don''t forget' MMM dd',' yyyy" produces output that looks like: Don't forget Mar 23, 1996. It is not necessary to use quotes with the comma, so "'Don''t forget' MMM dd, yyyy" is also valid, and produces the same output.

Enhanced the behaviour of the arrow keys. They now activate an item (i.e. raised, like mouseover) instead of selecting it (lowered). They now wrap in a loop from the last item to the first item.

Added Enter and Space key handling to click the active item. This causes the active item to be selected. The OnSelectItem and OnClick events will occur.

Added Esc key handling to clear the selected item (when ablKeepSelected is included in Options). The OnUnselectItem event occurs.

Bugs Fixed in Release 5.3.1:

Dataset Adapter Classes

Modified code that selects a dataset adapter class to support descendant dataset classes as well as the registered dataset class.

TabcDBTreeView

Fixed bug in Options.adtClearOnCollapse - this option value did not function at all.

TabcBusy

Fixed bug causing form sizing errors with large text messages and using the autosize feature.

TabcnpInsert

Fixed bug causing the button not to be disabled when the dataset state changes to dsInsert (i.e. when the button is clicked).

TabcnpIndexCombo

Fixed bug causing an access violation under some conditions when populating the index items, and when switching between datasets.

TabcQuadSplit and other splitter components

Fixed bug causing proportional sizing (SplitHPercent, SplitHScaled; and SplitVPercent, SplitVScaled) to fail under some conditions when a form is loaded.

TabcMenuToolbar

Fixed bugs in key processing for arrow keys and Alt+arrow keys, also for selecting MDI children from the Window menu. Improved response of F1 key. Improved speed when loading.

Changed drawing for maximized MDI children to not show the child system menu when the child BorderIcons does not include biSystemMenu. Also show the correct icon for different child forms.

Changed Hints to show on disabled menu items.

Fixed bug moving mouse over disabled menu items.

Fixed bug where MainMenu property could not be changed at runtime.

Fixed bug when the menu is on a docked form or a subform, where arrow key or mouse move does not automatically drop down the next menu.

TabcMainMenu

TabcPopupMenu and TabcMenuToolbar

TabcPopupMenu

TabcMenuImages

TabcToolbar

TabcButtonList

TabcButtonBar

TabcButtonPage

TabcPage used in TabcAnimationFrame

TabcRichEdit

Resource leaks

TabcTransitionEffect type

All Setup Programs

Release 5.3.0

Enhanced Components in Release 5.2.2:

Set this option to show a focus rectangle around the button on the active page, whenever the ButtonBar or a child has focus.

This is not a default value; the default options are [abbAnimate, abbHotTrack, abbDragTrack, abbInPlaceEdit].

Enhanced the behaviour of the arrow keys. They now activate an item (i.e. raised, like mouseover) instead of selecting it (lowered). They now wrap in a loop from the last item to the first item.

Added Enter and Space key handling to click the active item. This causes the active item to be selected. The OnSelectItem and OnClick events will occur.

Added Esc key handling to clear the selected item (when ablKeepSelected is included in Options). The OnUnselectItem event occurs.

Bugs Fixed in Release 5.2.2:

Enhanced Components in Release 5.2.1:

Property DrawMethod: TabcGradientDrawMethod = (agdDraw, agdStretch, agdWinAPI). Value agdDraw implements drawing using Windows graphics commands. Value agdStretch uses the agdDraw method internally and draws using StretchBlt from a small internal buffer. agdWinAPI draws using the windows GradientFill command. If the platform is not Windows 98 or 2000, this defaults to the agdDraw method.

The default value is agdDraw.

Property DrawBuffered: Boolean. If true, the gradient fill is cached in an internal buffer. Initial drawing or resizing the gradient fill is slower. Redrawing at the same size is often faster and can reduce screen flicker. If you are using DrawDirections ddRLDiagonal or ddCenter and the agdDraw method, it is recommended you set DrawBuffered to true. This property is always true for DrawMethod agdStretch.

The default value is False.

Performance Optimisation: We found in testing that performance depended on the operating system, video card, color depth, size of the gradient fill, the draw direction and draw steps. In most cases DrawMethod=agdDraw and DrawBuffered=False gives best performance, especially using draw direction ddVertical. When using DrawMethod=agdDraw, the draw directions ddCenter and ddRLDiagonal will cause the screen to flicker unless DrawBuffered=True.

The default display of the dialog is now modeless, so it can display while the application main form continues to load. The dialog can be controlled by two new properties: StayOnTop: boolean (defaults to True), and ShowModal: boolean (defaults to False).

Added an optional progress bar and message at the bottom of the Welcome dialog, to use with the modeless display. To display the progress bar, set the ShowProgress property to True. The progress message is set by the CaptionProgress property. To adjust the divisions of the progress bar, use the ProgressMax, ProgressMin, ProgressPos and ProgressStep properties. The following public methods can also be used to adjust the progress position and message while the dialog is showing: procedure StepBy(Delta: integer); procedure StepIt; procedure StepByMsg(Delta: integer; Msg: string); procedure StepItMsg(Delta: integer; Msg: string);

Note the progress bar cannot be adjusted when ShowModal=True.

Bugs Fixed in Release 5.2.1:

Enhanced Components in Release 5.2.0:

Bugs Fixed in Release 5.2.0:

New Components in Release 5.1.0:

Enhanced Components in Release 5.1.0:

Added new public methods to synchronize data updates with tree view display. The new methods are:

function SelectNodeContaining(aBookmark: TBookmarkStr; aTreeLevel: integer): Boolean;
function LocateNodeWithBookmark(aBookmark: TBookmarkStr; aTreeLevel: integer): TTreeNode;
function AddNodeWithBookmark(aBookmark: TBookmarkStr; aTreeLevel: integer): TTreeNode;
function UpdateNodeWithBookmark(oldBookmark, newBookmark: TBookmarkStr; aTreeLevel: integer): Boolean;
function DeleteNodeWithBookmark(aBookmark: TBookmarkStr; aTreeLevel: integer): Boolean;

Added two new demo programs to illustrate methods of synchronizing tree view data with table updates. These are in the \demo\dbtree directory. There are two demos - one for Paradox and one for other databases.

Note these methods do not seem to work with Paradox tables, because the Paradox table bookmarks change after any add/change/delete on the table. For Paradox, the tree level must be reloaded after update. See the demo programs for details.

The Transparent property has been enhanced to support partialy transparent images, using the bottom left pixel of the picture to determine the transparent color.

New public properties and methods have been added to allow you to change the EffectSelection list elements at runtime:

procedure AddSelectedEffect(Effect: TabcTransitionEffect);
procedure RemoveSelectedEffect(Effect: TabcTransitionEffect);
function IsEffectSelected(Effect: TabcTransitionEffect): Boolean;
property EffectSelCount: Integer;
property EffectSel[Index: Integer]: TabcTransitionEffect;

Added a new event OnDblClickItem to detect double clicks on items in the list.

Changed the registration of forms with the NavPanelNotifier so that forms containing a NavPanel or NavToolbar are automatically registered. This default can be turned off using the new RegisterForm property.

Bugs Fixed in Release 5.1.0:

Fixed a bug causing the DlgLeft property not to be set.

Fixed bug aligning child controls on a TButtonPage using their anchors property. This caused some controls to disappear at runtime.

Removed a bug in TabcButtonList setting its Align property to alNone when not in a TabcButtonBar.

Fixed a bug causing menu sizing problems with invisible items in a menu.

Corrected the Fullsize property default to allow menu toolbars to be less than full width (note - this property is ignored on MDI menus, due to the right aligned MDI buttons).

Enhanced Components in Release 5.0.3:

\BTNBAR shows how to add pages, button lists and items to a TabcButtonBar at runtime.

\DSAPPEXC shows how to use the TabcDSAppException component, use the Delphi Interbase components and ABC Dataset Adapter class.

\MDITABS demonstrates the TabcMDITabs component.

\TITLEGRD demonstrates the TabcTitleGradient component.

Bugs Fixed in Release 5.0.3:

Enhanced Components in Release 5.0.2: