Almediadev Support 81 Posted September 23, 2019 StyleControls VCL v. 4.53 just released! http://www.almdev.com StyleControls VCL is a powerful, stable package of components, which uses Classic drawing, system Themes, GDI+ and VCL Styles. This package contains the unique solutions to extend standard VCL controls and also has many unique, advanced controls to create applications with Fluent UI design. Also with this package you can really improve applying and using of VCL Styles in your application. Share this post Link to post
Gary Mugford 12 Posted September 23, 2019 I've looked at your product several times over the years. But being mostly D7 programming into a Windows 7 environment, I let the urge pass. NOW, I'm stuck re-doing a project that is the hodge-podge result of about 35 years of programming starting in the era of DOS and Paradox 1.11i. We now face the Win 10 apocalypse that broke BDE almost completely. The result, well now I am looking at homogenizing things moving forward. I like the TMS and JV sets of components and I have a variety of other ones that I dip into (DevExpress, Woll2Woll, etc) as the case may be. But what I don't see on your list of compatible component sets are NextSuite and ESB controls. There are others that are more single use than most. What is the ... compatibility with what to you are third-party components, while vitally necessary to me?? If they aren't compatible and WON'T be moving forward, what is their look on one of your themed forms?? And dialogs. I use the JSDialog's with D7 and then their more-or-less descendent NG dialog pack from LMD in DXE7. Do they stand out (which I'm NOT against), or get themed too?? I'm aware you have your own controls. But I KNOW the options and coding of the others. The learning curve and versatility vs. the Known. It's a big thing. The pricing is quite reasonable. The time might not be. So, you see I'm fence-sitting willing to teeter or totter depending on what you say. Thanks for taking the time. GM Share this post Link to post
Almediadev Support 81 Posted September 24, 2019 (edited) 8 hours ago, Gary Mugford said: I've looked at your product several times over the years. But being mostly D7 programming into a Windows 7 environment, I let the urge pass. NOW, I'm stuck re-doing a project that is the hodge-podge result of about 35 years of programming starting in the era of DOS and Paradox 1.11i. We now face the Win 10 apocalypse that broke BDE almost completely. The result, well now I am looking at homogenizing things moving forward. I like the TMS and JV sets of components and I have a variety of other ones that I dip into (DevExpress, Woll2Woll, etc) as the case may be. But what I don't see on your list of compatible component sets are NextSuite and ESB controls. There are others that are more single use than most. What is the ... compatibility with what to you are third-party components, while vitally necessary to me?? If they aren't compatible and WON'T be moving forward, what is their look on one of your themed forms?? And dialogs. I use the JSDialog's with D7 and then their more-or-less descendent NG dialog pack from LMD in DXE7. Do they stand out (which I'm NOT against), or get themed too?? I'm aware you have your own controls. But I KNOW the options and coding of the others. The learning curve and versatility vs. the Known. It's a big thing. The pricing is quite reasonable. The time might not be. So, you see I'm fence-sitting willing to teeter or totter depending on what you say. Thanks for taking the time. GM Thank you for interest in our products. Main goal of StyleControls today is creating modern UI core using latest system features, UI trends and all the innovations in Delphi. We also develop based on the wishes of our customers, the experience of custom UI development service. Also, of course, StyleControls can be used with any third-party controls. If you a want to use native Delphi's VCL Styles, please, look at this page: https://delphistyles.com/vcl/tlist.html. You can see that most of popular third-party controls have support of VCL Styles and all of them can looks in one style without any additional line of code - just enable style. Edited September 24, 2019 by Almediadev Support Share this post Link to post
Gary Mugford 12 Posted September 24, 2019 Almediadev Support, Thanks for the reply. I DID look at your third party list as I mentioned in my comment and saw a large proportion of my libraries there, but not all. (By the way, the link included above doesn't lead anywhere). That said, the question remains, what does the presence of say a NextSuite tabbed notebook look like on a page of your otherwise themed form WITH controls that are themed? Does the parentage of it being the NextSuite control mean the theming doesn't apply, or do the controls theme regardless of ownership? As for the dialogs, I'm curious, but they are not a show stopper for me. In fact, having dialogs that STAND OUT from the background would be something good rather than not good. Frankly, the overall look isn't something I'm overly sensitive to. What I AM sensitive to is that the default Windows 10 'theme' is horrible. The white window title bar header is beyond useless against a sea of windows with white from edge to edge. In the old days, I had control of things. A simple GREEN for active window and RED for inactive windows made screen recognition easy. But through aero and glass and all that, Windows became something that almost beggared being run full screen. Which I hate as I remote in to see all my apps being run full-screen. I run multiple monitors with maybe a half-dozen windows open at any given time, usually more, and some of them over-lapping. Title bars that instantly show me active status help immensely. What I particularly like about your StyleControls is control over the title bar. One last question if I may. I have a project I'm updating from D7 to XE7. On the form, I have a lot of controls where I've manually set the colour, the font specs and various other visual bits (transparency, alignment, etc.) Now I have the form ready for the addition of your StyleControl, which I assume is a non-visual control. On it, I pick one of your themes. What happens next? Do all the defaults I have NOT adjusted switch to the theme, but the ones I manually set stay the same? Or does everything switch over? e.g. If I have the font.color set to clNavyBlue, but the theme I've set it all to is orange and black, does the font colour still stay blue or does it switch to black (or orange) in my example? Does the theming over-ride Transparent? Thanks, GM Share this post Link to post
timfrost 78 Posted September 24, 2019 I agree with your view of Windows 10 default colours, but it is simple to get rid of the default white title bar, so that at least you can find the active window: Settings / Colours / Accent Colour Share this post Link to post
Gary Mugford 12 Posted September 24, 2019 Tim, And then the drones set it back. Or to something worse. And they obsess over themes. PLUS, Teamviewer (I'm housebound and haven't been to the office in eight years and counting), which I use for remote access, takes the colour out to speed communications and I have to take that option due to the small pipe at my main customer. I'm hoping styleControls overrides that for me, while maintaining the rest of the windows I'm NOT interested in being useless white. Ack! More whining. If they give me the thumbs up that I can pile a NextSuite TabControl notebook on top of a themed form with nifty title bar and then on the pages of the notebook I can use MY choice of components and they'll get themed, then I have my hot plastic STARING at me from a shelf on my desk. GM Share this post Link to post
Almediadev Support 81 Posted September 25, 2019 (edited) 21 hours ago, Gary Mugford said: Almediadev Support, Thanks for the reply. I DID look at your third party list as I mentioned in my comment and saw a large proportion of my libraries there, but not all. (By the way, the link included above doesn't lead anywhere). That said, the question remains, what does the presence of say a NextSuite tabbed notebook look like on a page of your otherwise themed form WITH controls that are themed? Does the parentage of it being the NextSuite control mean the theming doesn't apply, or do the controls theme regardless of ownership? As for the dialogs, I'm curious, but they are not a show stopper for me. In fact, having dialogs that STAND OUT from the background would be something good rather than not good. Frankly, the overall look isn't something I'm overly sensitive to. What I AM sensitive to is that the default Windows 10 'theme' is horrible. The white window title bar header is beyond useless against a sea of windows with white from edge to edge. In the old days, I had control of things. A simple GREEN for active window and RED for inactive windows made screen recognition easy. But through aero and glass and all that, Windows became something that almost beggared being run full screen. Which I hate as I remote in to see all my apps being run full-screen. I run multiple monitors with maybe a half-dozen windows open at any given time, usually more, and some of them over-lapping. Title bars that instantly show me active status help immensely. What I particularly like about your StyleControls is control over the title bar. One last question if I may. I have a project I'm updating from D7 to XE7. On the form, I have a lot of controls where I've manually set the colour, the font specs and various other visual bits (transparency, alignment, etc.) Now I have the form ready for the addition of your StyleControl, which I assume is a non-visual control. On it, I pick one of your themes. What happens next? Do all the defaults I have NOT adjusted switch to the theme, but the ones I manually set stay the same? Or does everything switch over? e.g. If I have the font.color set to clNavyBlue, but the theme I've set it all to is orange and black, does the font colour still stay blue or does it switch to black (or orange) in my example? Does the theming over-ride Transparent? Thanks, GM Fixed link: https://delphistyles.com/vcl/tlist.html VCL Styles is a build-in Delphi solution. NextSuite has support of them, but you can write to BergSoft with this question for more details. StyleControls VCL with TscStyledForm component improves default solution and also you can add buttons and tab in styled NC area of the form. About Colors adjustment of controls and VCL Styles.... All controls has a StyleElements property to adjust colors and elements from style. For example, if you disable seFont value then font color stays as you adjusted (seClient - background color). But this is individually for each control, because it must has a support of it (all controls from StyleControls VCL have support of StyleElements property, for example). Edited September 25, 2019 by Almediadev Support Share this post Link to post