http://www.clickresponse.net/

It’s not that I want to … I *have* to avoid things that are too time consuming. Running my own business eats up most of my time anyway.

StackOverflow’s a great place for Delphi programmers. I’ve got lots of great answers there, and have helped many people myself. For me, it’s the social network for programmers. But, if you want to avoid things too “time consuming”, then you’ll do well to avoid StackOverflow. It can be addictive.

Glad I could help. I was dealing with the same problem as you just a few weeks ago and remembered where I found the solution. Speaking of: I’m not on StackOverflow, so I would appreciate if you could add the reference to the thread. Thanks.

The Delphi Pool: yeah, that was an old project of mine. Although it was very successful (1 million+ page views) I had to stop it because it was too time consuming. Pity, really.

I remember it now.

I found an active link to the thread you’re talking about: http://groups.google.com/group/borland.public.delphi.objectpascal/browse_thread/thread/51219ca2accbc1b5/55a68169b70198fe?pli=1

Peter’s reply to Tom Below in that thread is also interesting: “… and it didn’t work (well, did and didn’t)”. I’m not quite sure what that means, but I’ll try the ideas in that discussion tonight.

Sorry, I just saw that the above link timed out. Here’s the original text:

> Does anyone understand when and how action lists fire?
> An application I’m working on (developed by others, so my intimate knowledge
> is limited) uses action lists as a methodology of invoking Fx key actions on
> various frames. This app has only the main form descending from the Tform
> class, everything else is something of the frame variety. Each module of
> the app has it’s own frame on which one or more other frames and panels
> live. Each module (frame) has an action list, a pop-up menu list and/or a
> number of toolbuttons.
> The problem arises when I want to do something different for, say.. the ‘F6′
> key, in one module than in another. If I start in one of the inner modules
> and press F6, the proper event fires most of the time. If I start in
> another module and press F6, the proper thing for that frame happens again.
> If I go back to the first module I tried and press F6 again, the action from
> the other module fires. This behavior occurs usually, but not all the time.
> Sometimes after a series of the above errors, the behavior starts acting as
> I would expect.

Tom,

key handling in Delphi is fairly complex. The sequence of events as they
relate to your question are:

- user hits a key, a keydown message is placed into the message queue
- Application.ProcessMessage gets it from the queue, feeds it through a
number of Application methods, one of these is IsKeyMsg.
- IsKeyMsg sends the key down as a CN_KEYDOWN message to the control
with focus.
- TwinControl.CNKeyDown calls TwinControl.IsMenuKey
- after checking the popup menu of the control (if any) for the shortcut
without success IsMenuKey locates the controls parent form and calls its
IsShortcut method.
- Tcustomform.IsShortcut first checks the forms menu, if any. If not
finding a matching shortcut it then walks over the action lists registered
with the form and calls each lists IsShortcut method, which in turn walks
over the actions in the list looking for a shortcut.
- If nobody wanted the key as shortcut yet a CM_APPKEYDOWN message is send to
the Application window for the key, TApplication.WndProc handles this by
calling the main forms IsShortCut (if the window is enabled only, not when
a modal form is up). Note that this means that the main forms IsShortcut
will be called twice if the active control is on the main form and the
key is not a shortcut!

The critical part for you is the sequence in which TCustomform.IsShortcut
walks over the action lists. A TFrame will add its TActionlist to the parent
forms actionlists list when the parent is assigned to its Parent property (see
TCustomFrame.SetParent) and remove it when the Parent changes or the
actionlist is destroyed. As far as i see the sequence of the actionlists does
not change afterwards. So if you have several enabled frames on your form
their action lists will be queried in the sequence the frames were added to
the form, so the form containing the active control may not be the first to be
queried.

What this boils down to is this: if you have colliding shortcuts that may act
differently on different frames on your form then you need to override the
forms IsShortcut method and take steps there to make sure the frame the active
control is on gets first crack at the shortcut. Something like this:

Function TMyform.IsShortcut( var Message: TWMKey): Boolean; { override }
Var
ctrl: TWinControl;
comp: TComponent;
i: Integer;
Begin
ctrl := ActiveControl;
If ctrl Nil Then Begin
Repeat
ctrl := ctrl.Parent
Until (ctrl = nil) or (ctrl Is TCustomframe);
If ctrl nil Then Begin
For i:= 0 To ctrl.componentcount-1 Do Begin
comp:= ctrl.Components[i];
If comp Is TCustomActionList Then Begin
result := TCustomActionList(comp).IsShortcut( message );
If result Then
Exit;
End;
End;
End;
End;
inherited;
End;

Untested!

For performance reason you may want to make sure the actionlist on each frame
is the first item created (set it to first in the designers createorder menu)
and you may also want to assume only one action list will be on a frame and
Exit the for loop once you found it, regardless of Result.

Regarding your shortcut problem, here’s a link that might be helpful:
http://www.codenewsfast.com/isapi/isapi.dll/article?id=9361D893&article=2318724

There are similar issues when using TFrame, by the way.

Regards
Uwe

Thanks you both Louis and Avast!

Got the copy and am off to discover new ideas. Just looked at the last Alpha release.
WoW! how time flies…
Herb…

At least with Behold, you’ll be able to let it say what you want it to say. The default tag is just that, a “default” that you can override. Once editing is included in version 2, you’ll be able to add your own custom tags, and add a _GNDR tag if you want.

(1) Release the beta without some features it used to have (which you recommend I don’t do),
(2) Take the time to get the current bad bug out and then add the missing features, but with no trial available in the meantime, or
(3) Work to get the last alpha running again on my new machine with Delphi 2009 with minimal changes. This will take a few weeks and is a step backwards, but it may relieve the pressure I’m feeling about not having that trial download available.

I would not want Behold to be thought of as “crippled”, so I’m now ruling out #1.

I’ll give one more kick at getting the virtual view problems out, and if I can’t do that quickly, then I’ll probably go to number 2 to give me more time.

This would be crippling the program too much. I have waited this long, some more time won’t matter any. I don’t see anyone badgering you to release a crippled beta. Take the time and preserve your integrity and sanity.
Herb…

Nearly there……..whats the betting you release it while I am away 1st week of September

Anyway,it will be going on my laptop,when the full version of Windows 7 is out,at present the evualation copy is in use,,I like it

Dave

Herb…

So it’s much harder to implement than just rewriting like the other two. I’d have to evaluate the other packages, learn how they work, and then twiddle everthing so that the Everything Report in PDF will look exactly the same as in the program.I can’t see this being less than a couple of months work - and you know how overly optimistic I am at my time estimates.

But thanks for mentioning this. What I will do it move it up on my priority list. I still want to get to Version 2 as quickly as possible, with of course Version 1 first. Once there, I’ll reevaluate all priorities, and the ones my users like you have mentioned will get preference.

But sorry. No I won’t be adding PDF export until at least Version 2.

Just a question of taking on a opportunity while in the re-write phase of export commands.

Herb…

Also, I recently found out that on Vista 64-bit the windows system32 directory is for 64 bit DLLs and the sysWOW64 directory is for 32 bit DLLs. Sort of the opposite of what the names indicate. That may also, without my knowing, have caused some of my problems.

And it isn’t just a simple copy and paste for me. There are a lot of files, especially when you’ve got WordPress and bbPress both integrated into the site. And I will be adding other tools, such as phpList for my Behold News Newsletter when I start it up again.

One option would be to duplicate the database and pages in a private place on the site and play with that. But that’s really no different than doing it on my own machine, is it?

Uwe

Not that I want to prevent you from optimizing Behold, though…

Keep up the good work!
Uwe

The current version expires at the beginning of April, and I’m working hard to ensure that the replacement will be the beta, whether or not I’ve got all of it functioning again. The beta phase can fix all that and get Behold to 1.0.

If nothing else, Behold has been available to the world for what is now 4 years. I have been told that it’s really not an “alpha” and should always have been called a “beta” because it has been released - even though I’ve given it very little marketing other than word of mouse. By releasing it early, I’ve got great feedback and input and extra motivation to help push Behold along.

This has led to incremental changes of what I consider most important at the time, which essentially has been my methodology. My experience has shown that just “doing the next action item, the next thing on your list” works for the multitude of small things you want to do, but not for big ever-expanding projects.

There is no visible end of this infinite road. And it keeps changing directions while you walk on it. What I need to do is get to a few important milestones: what I call beta, then Version 1, and then Version 2 with editing. I hoped I would have been there long ago, but I still find myself walking. The journey so far has been very enjoyable, and the milestones up ahead look even better. Stay tuned.

I like your To Do list identifying the 3 types of items (wants, needs and bug fixes) since you at least identify the type of work. No software is ever “done” and eventually some of these items will need to be pushed in the “maintenance” phase or post release so that you can get your product out there! (or at least remove the script that has your deadline always 1 month away!)

Consider this a motivational boost to get the Beta version out!

Those programs add some useful features, but they also become a new external system you need to learn and commit to. In my experience, unless you’ve got an extremely simple and convenient system, it will end up not being used. Outlook works for many people, but somehow its task list, as simple as it is, has not caught on.

If I’m in Outlook and it works for me, all I want to do is implement its already integrated task list and customize it for GTD. No switching of tools or synching is required, because Outlook integrates your email with your address book with your calendar with your tasks.

Thanks Stephen, I’ll check out his latest book.

-Stephen

Chris

But I do realize that unless I add this virtualization, Behold will always be limited. So it’s not an option for me. It’s a necessity.