Hi,

is there any template like dialog having multiple steps the user switches with "next"/"previous"/"finish"-buttons?

Sth. like installer programs do for asking the user a lot of information: what to install, where to, accept licence, some config data, etc.

Maybe a source on LCCR or an example program has such code, I don't want to invent the world anew. ;)

TIA,
Marc

2015-08-16 11:33 GMT-03:00 Marc Santhoff :

https://code.google.com/p/luipack/source/browse/#svn%2Ftrunk%2Fluicontrols%2Fdemos%2Fwizard

The API is a bit cumbersome but works. Plan to improve the interface

Luiz
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I've done it (for a database connection) using a notebook with tabs at the top. The only significant complexity was due to having the buttons on each page since it meant that I had to fudge the default as I progressed through the sequence.

Wow, very elaborated code. It's what I need, the only thing is it has itself and another package installed in the IDE. I'll try to use it dynamically wihtout installation, but that will take a while.

The API is a bit cumbersome but works. Plan to improve the interface

I cannot comment on that, yet.

Thank you!

Me too, back in the 90ies, using Delphi 1 or 2. That's why I hoped there may be a somewhat general implementation for such generic use case. Like the one Luiz made - but I have to try it, learn how to use it first.

Marc

Marc Santhoff wrote

Me too, back in the 90ies, using Delphi 1 or 2.

In fpGUI I simply use a PageControl and set TabPosition = None. In Delphi 5-7 and Kylix I used to do similar, but can't remember what exact control I used... might have been PageControl too.

Regards,
- Graeme -

A TPageControl is also what I use to get a multi-step dialog.

Set "ShowTabs" to false and make each step a page in the pagecontrol. The Form's OnShow Handler should set the initial tab index e.g.

PageControl1.TabIndex := 0;

Place the forward/back buttons outside of the pagecontrol and make the body of each button's "OnClick" handler a case statement e.g.

case PageControl1.TabIndex of
0: begin
       {validate}
      PageControl1.TabIndex := 1;
    end;
1: begin
       {validate}
      PageControl1.TabIndex := 2;
    end;
   ...
end;

The final step should set the ModalResult.

Use each page's "OnShow" handler to set button captions, if they need to change e.g. to change "Next" to "Finish" on the final tab,

Regards

Tony

Thanks Tony, that is exactly what I did in my Delphi/Kylix days.

Regards,
- Graeme -

Thank you all, I know it is somewhat trivial looking code and it actually is somehow. But one has to watch the state not only for dialog pages but each and every input field, check consistency, and so on.

Plus it's a recurring task (like reading directory entries into a container - Delphi has a class for, lazarus not). It would have been nice if there were a template or the like.

And there is, Luiz made it. ;)

Have fun,
Marc

Marc Santhoff wrote

Delphi has a class for, lazarus not

I honestly don't see the point of a dedicated "wizard" class, when the PageControl already does exactly what is needed. Like I said, it worked just fine as far back as the D5..D7 and Kylix days. Maybe the later Delphi staff simply didn't know about the ShowTabs property. ;-) But I guess Lazarus will eventually get such a class too - being a VCL clone and all.

Regards,
- Graeme -

Marc Santhoff wrote

Plus it's a recurring task (like reading directory entries into a container - Delphi has a class for, lazarus not). It would have been nice if there were a template or the like.

Care to elaborate on that (in a new thread)?

Bart

I would tend to agree - but perhaps what is missing from Lazarus is some better template forms. For example, Delphi always had a dialog box template and it is very frustrating when you need to build your own each time. True, it does have the ProjTemplates package to help you do this - and I do now have my own dialog box template - but this is buggy and not ideal for the novice user (memo to self, file that bug report on ProjTemplates failing to use your .lfm on form creation, plus the enhancement request for a template hierarchy).

Along with a standard dialog box template, Lazarus could certainly do
with a "wizard" frame template using a TPageControl.

Tony

Currently not, to be honest. I could not do much but discuss that topic.

To summarize on the wizard dialog:

- it sems to be a not-so-often occuring use case
- if asked about, a lot of programmers step forward telling "I've done it like this ..."
- if made flexible and useful for mostly any case the code is getting huge fast - see Luiz's implmentation

Regarding a TDirectory class I think the properties are the same. The difference is it's a very commen use case to read directories and files into acontainer.

And last but not least: it has to be taken into account that searching code and learning howto use it often takes as much time as to write something simple but working yourself.

With the caveat there that that can benefit from having frames support. Obviously that's not such an issue now, but I've still got a few programs knocking around which due to e.g. slightly dodgy database code I've not yet ported to the versions of Lazarus and FPC where this became reliable.

You say that delphi has a class that does this.
Can you point me to the right place in Embarcaderos's DocWiki where this class is described?
This way we might start a cleanroom implementation for this.

B.t.w. You know that we have FindAllFiles procedure and a TFileSearcher class in LazFileUtils?

Bart

No, sorry. While searching the web I found some Delphi code snippets showing the use of a class named TDirectory, that's all. I personally do not own or use Delphi (> Version 2).

B.t.w. You know that we have FindAllFiles procedure and a TFileSearcher class in LazFileUtils?

No, I did not. I'll have a deep look.

Thanks,
Marc

Marc Santhoff wrote

Regarding a TDirectory class I think the properties are the same. The difference is it's a very commen use case to read directories and files into acontainer.

Also take a look inside tiOPF's tiUtils.pas unit. There are lots of gems in there.

https://github.com/graemeg/tiopf/blob/tiopf2/Core/tiUtils.pas#L216

  // Copy all the directories, starting at AStartDir to the StringList
ADirList
  procedure tiDirectoryTreeToStringList(const AStartDir: string; const
ADirList: TStringList; ARecurse: boolean);
  // Copy all the files, from the directory AStartDir, matching the
wildcard AWildCard
  // to the stringList slResult
  procedure tiFilesToStringList(const AStartDir, AWildCard: string;
const AResults : TStringList; const ARecurse : boolean);

Regards,
- Graeme -

the reference you need is
http://docwiki.embarcadero.com/Libraries/XE7/en/System.IOUtils

Steve wrote

the reference you need is http://docwiki.embarcadero.com/Libraries/XE7/en/System.IOUtils

Thanks, that looks to me as it should go int fpc's RTL? You could ask on fpc list (maybe it's already there in trunk?).

Bart

I think this might help. I wrote a trivial custom graphic step control. It is in my Cross.Codebot package.

http://codebot.org/snapshops/step-pick.jpg

property Steps: TStrings;
property StepIndex: Integer;
property OnStepClick: TStepEvent;
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2015-08-20 19:54 GMT-03:00 Anthony Walter :

Nice.

Looking for the Cross.Codebot availability

Luiz
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