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#119: How can I register a custom component editor?

Today I want to show how you can register a custom component editor in Delphi IDE.

For example, you wrote some own component and want to add some menu items which will be shown in design-time popupmenu. You can assign a lot of useful "shortcut" methods there.

For example, for any export/import component I assigned two menu items: About and Execute, for report components I defined three menu items: About, Preview and Print.

Such method is very useful for components. For example, for standard TPageControl you can can in one click to add a new page or navigate by pages (Next/Prev).

For this feature you must write and register a component editor for your component:

type
  TyourNewComponentEditor = class(TComponentEditor)
    procedure ExecuteVerb(Index: Integer); override;
    function GetVerb(Index: Integer): string; override;
    function GetVerbCount: Integer; override;
  end;

where

function TyourNewComponentEditor.GetVerbCount: Integer;
begin
  {total number of your newest items in popup menu}
  Result := 2;
end;

function TyourNewComponentEditor.GetVerb(Index: Integer): string;
begin
  {names for each item}
  case Index of
    0: Result := 'Item1...';
    1: Result := 'Item2...';
  end;
end;

procedure TyourNewComponentEditor.ExecuteVerb(Index: Integer);
begin
  {actions for each item}
  with (Component as TyourNewComponent) do
    case Index of
      0: MethodForItem1;
      1: MethodForItem2;
    end
end;

and to register it:

procedure Register;
begin
  RegisterComponentEditor(TyourNewComponent, TyourNewComponentEditor);
end;

It's all:-)

Published: April 25, 2001

See also

	SMImport suite
	Paradox to MS Access converter
	ABA Document Convert
	ExcelFile Viewer
	ABA Spreadsheet Convert
	Fast Document Viewer
	DBISAM Password Recovery
	SMDBGrid
	ABA Database Convert
	Paradox to Text converter

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