TLMDComboBox color property

MR Soft Tmi

LMD-Tools 2018.1 (31-03-2018)

TLMDComboBox color property does not do anything. Is it "as designed", since help page is also empty?

Rafael Maricca (LMD)

Like for almost all LMD controls Color property has no effect when any kind of tyles or themes is active (see property ThemeMode).

Set ThemeMode to ttmNone and Color property can be used.

MR Soft Tmi

Ok, for other components like TLMDEdit, TLMDMemo, TLMDSpinEdit etc. color property works even if THemeMode is tmPlatform. Setting it to tmNone for TLMDComboBox makes it look like from different planet compared to other TLMD components. But color works now. This behaviour makes it useless.

Eugene Balabuev (LMD)

I've made attempt to provide a possibility to use Color feature in TLMDComboBox. Very soon there will be next minor release.

MR Soft Tmi

LMD Tools 2018.5 has changes to TLMDComboBox, but they do not fix this issue properly. Below is a picture of TLMDComboBox, TLMDSpinEdit and TLMDCalendarEdit. All have ParentColor:=true and Enabled:=false set. LMDComboBox does not have font as others, there is white area around the text and dropdown arrow is blue.

Eugene Balabuev (LMD)

White area around the text is inherited from standard combo-box (try it to compare). It can't be changed. As about blue drop-down arrow - I cannot reproduce it.

At my side it look so: https://imgur.com/wHCvoGL

MR Soft Tmi

Image below shows inconsistent behavior for components. Blue drop-down arrow is visible during design time for TLMDComboBox, also the white area. When all components are disabled and ParentColor set to true, TLMDComboBox is again different. TLMDComboBoxExt has dropdown like enabled.

Eugene Balabuev (LMD)

Which OS version you use? And how standard VCL TComboBox behaves in this case?

MR Soft Tmi

Win 7 64 bit, no issues with standard VCL components. Compiler is Delphi 7, Build 8.1

Eugene Balabuev (LMD)

But, what about white area? Can you make screenshot, in which both LMD and standard combo-boxes will be shown? And the difference between them.

Because, on my previous picture (https://imgur.com/wHCvoGL) there were no visual differences between LMD and standard combo-boxes.

MR Soft Tmi

Here is my picture of standard combo and LMB combo

Eugene Balabuev (LMD)

Hm, it seems you have some specific OS settings. Why standard combo boxes have old style 3D borders (they are not themed actually)?

MR Soft Tmi

No, there is no specific OS settings, D7 does not have them

Rafael Maricca (LMD)

>>No, there is no specific OS settings, D7 does not have them<<

If you don't use manifest file to enable themes in D7, then disable theme support for LMDComboBox (as mentioned above, ThemeMode = ttmNone). LMD Controls (like standard VCL controls in later Delphi versions) support themes by default (ttmPlatform setting, unlike standard VCL controls even without need of manifest). 

After that you can see the old Win31 look and it behaves like VCL ComboBox in Delphi 7 without manifest.

MR Soft Tmi

Ok. I still not understand this. Other LMD components work, but LMDComboBox behaves differently. Setting ThemeMode=ttmNone would indeed make LMDComboBox look like "old" style, but I am only trying to make ParentColor to work. Look very weird when form has many different LMD components and LMDComboBox is not like others. If you say that this is not a bug, then I need to find a better package.

Rafael Maricca (LMD)

Please mention next time your IDE etc. at first place, because your problem described in first message is not a problem in later Delphi releases (VCL supports Color property even for themed controls. E.g. in current 10.2 release you can set Color property in themed/styled mode even for TComboBox). 

As mentioned before TLMDComboBox uses same ancestor as TComboBox, so it behaves in themed scenarios like this control (which is a behaviour which we won't change) - thus TLMDComboBoxExt exists which does not have such color limitations.

So reading all messages - your only problem is that disabled (dropdown) button in TLMDComboBoxExt does not look like as you expect? This is s.th. we can change. If you mean s.th. else - please let us know.