Question

How to determine MDI active form

Asked by: zebada

I have an MDI main form with a panel (left aligned) that contains various controls: i.e. TMemo, TCombobox, TTreeView and TButton.
The child forms have different combinations of TMemo, TStringGrid and/or TEdit controls (depending on the type of child form).

The application has a number of TActions set up, one of which is "actPaste" which has the hotkey Ctrl+V assigned to it.

Say the user clicks in a TMemo on the parent MID form and then presses Ctrl+V.
How can the code that implements the paste action determine whether to paste the clipboard text into the TMemo on the main MDI form or into the TMemo on the topmost child form?
There doesn't seem to be anyway to know which form has focus (out of the parent and the topmost child) and therfor there seems no way to know which control should receive the clipboard data.

Paul


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Asked On
2004-08-08 at 18:36:46ID21086499
Tags

active

,

form

Topic

Delphi Programming

Participating Experts
4
Points
500
Comments
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Answers

 

by: LRHGuyPosted on 2004-08-08 at 21:26:52ID: 11749896

You can use the global Screen variable...

Screen.ActiveForm   <-- always the form with the focus
Screen.ActiveControl  <-- the control on the form with the focus...

 

by: aruanaPosted on 2004-08-08 at 21:36:50ID: 11749934

The active property of a form will tell you which one is in focus.

at the main form, run a loop:

for n:=0 to (MainForm.MDIChildCount-1)
begin
  If MainForm.MDIChildren[n].Active then
  begin
    // do your thing here
  end;
end;

or you can use a while loop or what ever is suitable to your code.

 

by: kretzschmarPosted on 2004-08-08 at 23:18:57ID: 11750232

look at the activeMDIChild-property of your mdiForm (mainForm)

meikl ;-)

 

by: zebadaPosted on 2004-08-08 at 23:57:09ID: 11750346

LRHGuy: I did a quick test of your suggestion - it appears to work and do what I need. I need to test it some more tonight...

aruana: The problem is not which child form is active, but which form out of the parent and the "active" child is active.

Kretzschmar: I did try that but the activeMDIchild always returns the topmost child (as expected) even when a control in the main/parent form has focus.

Paul

 

by: Ivanov_GPosted on 2004-08-09 at 00:49:02ID: 11750516

var
  frm    : TForm;
begin
  frm := Self.ActiveMDIChild
  // do whatever you want with FRM

 

by: zebadaPosted on 2004-08-09 at 01:16:06ID: 11750614

Ivanov: The problem is not "how to get the active child form".
The problem is: how do I tell which form the active control is on, the "active child form" or the "parent MDI form"?

Check out the suggestion by LRHGuy, it appears to work well - I'm just doing some final testing...

Paul

 

by: Ivanov_GPosted on 2004-08-09 at 01:30:09ID: 11750672

if you have the active control, you can always check who is its Owner and Parent...

procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
var
  str    : String;
begin
  str := Screen.ActiveControl.Owner.ClassName;
  ShowMessage(str);
end;

 

by: zebadaPosted on 2004-08-09 at 01:37:11ID: 11750703

Yes that is correct, that is what PRHGuy already said.
Thanks
Paul

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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