Right click for what's this help

Just an idea :

What about assigning code to the mousedown event of the form (or spmething) :

 Cycling through all the components on  the form, looking at their position on the form and determining if x,y position of mouse click is on their control. If show show your yellow box.

Regards, ZiF.

Thats fine, but how do I get the help window to appear (like the what's this help)

Hi Jason

How are you currently getting the help to appear when the user clicks the what's this button?  Wouldn't the code be the same?

JB

Agree, I thought you already had this code to let the help appear. Are am I misinterpreting something?

Hi JasonC,

The Delphi informant of April (I look it up) has a source code of the What's this help...

Regards, ZiF.

Have you tried to use the THintWindow component to show the What's This help?

This was posted by Zif awile back

function RevealHint (Control: TControl): THintWindow;
{----------------------------------------------------------------}
{ Pops up Hint window for the specified Control, and returns a   }
{ reference to the hint object so it may subsequently be removed }
{ with RemoveHint (see below).                                   }
{----------------------------------------------------------------}
 var
   ShortHint: string;
   AShortHint: array[0..255] of Char;
   HintPos: TPoint;
   HintBox: TRect;
 begin
   { Create the window: }
   Result := THintWindow.Create(Control);

   { Get first half of hint up to '|': }
   ShortHint := GetShortHint(Control.Hint);

   { Calculate Hint Window position & size: }
   HintPos := Control.ClientOrigin;
   Inc(HintPos.Y, Control.Height + 6);    <<<< See note below
   HintBox := Bounds(0, 0, Screen.Width, 0);
   DrawText(Result.Canvas.Handle,
       StrPCopy(AShortHint, ShortHint), -1, HintBox,
       DT_CALCRECT or DT_LEFT or DT_WORDBREAK or DT_NOPREFIX);
   OffsetRect(HintBox, HintPos.X, HintPos.Y);
   Inc(HintBox.Right, 6);
   Inc(HintBox.Bottom, 2);

   { Now show the window: }
   Result.ActivateHint(HintBox, ShortHint);
 end; {RevealHint}

 procedure RemoveHint (var Hint: THintWindow);
{----------------------------------------------------------------}
{ Releases the window handle of a Hint previously popped up with }
{ RevealHint.                                                    }
{----------------------------------------------------------------}
 begin
   Hint.ReleaseHandle;
   Hint.Free;
   Hint := nil;
 end; {RemoveHint}

OK , maybe I have my wires crossed, the button that appears next to the close and minimize, maximize buttons (I think the whats this button). When this is clicked an arrow appers and then I click on another control on the form. Now this opens a small window that displays help in the form of a hint but gets its information from the specified help file and context ID.

is that what you want of what your doing???

This is what is happening now, but I have to go to the whats this button, I want to be able to right click on the control and have the same help popping up, without going to the 'whats this' help button.

What about using the MouseDown, check if button=mbRight.  If so, do something like:

Function TForm1.ShowHelp(Sender: TObject);
begin
   Application.helpContext(TWinControl(Sender).HelpContext);
end;

in the MouseDown event do,

...
If button=mbRight then
   ShowHelp(Sender);


Tell each of your controls to use this common function for the mousedown event.

I havent tried this, but I think it is where I would start.

Hope this works :)

Stuart.

Thanks Stuart but we are not quite there yet, this will bring up the help in the standard help window, now all I need is it to come up in the window like the 'whats's this' button.
Now Zif, you said something about the code for the what's this button in the April Delphi informant, could you share? I don't get the informant.

Thanks in advance

JasonC,

I'm not going to be in the office today, but I guess it isn't what you wanted, because you don't want to click on the what's this button. But I think they have there code placed here  : http://www.informant.com (see the delphi samples).

Regards Zif.