Show hints for items in a ListBox? 1

[corsair2]

Hi Folks

I'm using a listbox on a form which is likely to have items too long to display in the listbox. Unfortunately, I'm not able to make the listbox larger.
Does anyone know how I can provide my users with the type of hints found in, for example, Windows Explorer, where the hint appears when the mouse is held over an item displaying the full name when it is not fully visible in the window?

 

[Stretchwickster]

The following process will show hints for list box items that are too wide to be shown. It won't show hints for those items that are within the width of the listbox.

1) Set the ListBox's ShowHint property to true.

2) Declare the following routine as a private procedure of the form (you'll need to include ComCtrls in your uses list in order to recognise a TListItem):

procedure TForm1.AppShowHint(var HintStr: string; var CanShow: Boolean;
          var HintInfo: THintInfo); 
{displays the full length of hidden text in TListBox as a hint}
var 
  LBIndex, i, ColLeft, ColRight, Col : integer;
  LI : TListItem;
  ColText : string;
  TN : TTreeNode;
  TextRect : TRect;
begin
  CanShow := false;
  with HintInfo do begin
    if (HintControl is TListBox) then
      with TListBox(HintControl) do begin
        LBIndex := ItemAtPos(CursorPos, true);
        if LBIndex > -1 then begin   // listbox item under mouse
          {test width and show hint if necessary}
          if Canvas.TextWidth(Items[LBIndex]) > Width then begin
            HintPos := ClientToScreen(Point(-1, (ItemHeight * (LBIndex - TopIndex)) - 3));
            HintStr := Items[LBIndex];
            ReshowTimeOut := 500;
            HideTimeOut := 2500;
            CanShow := true;
          end; {Canvas.TextWidth(Items[LBI]) > Width}
        end; {if LBI > -1}
      end; 
  end;
end;

3) Then put this code into the form's create method:

  Application.OnShowHint := AppShowHint;

Reference:

http://www.undu.com/Articles/000928e.html

Hope this helps!

Clive

http://www.kucu.co.uk

Ex nihilo, nihil fit (Out of nothing, nothing comes)