Question

I have 12 shapes

Shape1
Shape2
.....
Shape12

and I have 12 labels

Label13
Label14
......
Label24

I was wondering if there is a way to write such a function, that on mouse enter on a shape would assign corresponding label to a different label, for example Label25:

Label25 :=  
OnMouseEnter
shape1 -> label13
shape2 -> label14
...
shape12 -> label24

So if the mouse entered Shape1, Label25 would become equal to Label13, and if mouse entered Shape2, Label25 would become equal to Label14 and continue till if mouse entered Shape12 Label25 would become equal to Label24.

I know I can write

label25 := labelxx 

on each of the mouse enter events. But thought there could be an easier way as the name of the label and shape correspond, where label # is 12 more then the shape # everytime.

After adding the suggested, I added this

procedure TFZone1Mod7.ChangeText(sender: TObject);
var
  ShapeOrderNo: integer;
  FoundComponent: TComponent;
begin
  if TryStrToInt(copy(TShape(Sender).Name,6,MaxInt),ShapeOrderNo) then
    begin
      FoundComponent := FindComponent('label'+inttostr(ShapeOrderNo+12));
      if (FoundComponent is TLabel) then
            Label25.Caption := TLabel(FoundComponent).Caption
      else
          showmessage('not found');
    end;
  showmessage('failed try');

end;

procedure TFZone1Mod7.Shape1MouseEnter(Sender: TObject);
begin
    changetext(self);
end;

end.

but everytime its ran i get failed try.
Am i sending the info wrong?

Answer 1

I don’t like this kind of a design, but well, you can use the common event handler for all your shapes and use the FindComponent function to find a component by name there. You might then write comething like this (please note that it’s untested, written just in browser):

var
  ShapeOrderNo: Integer;
  FoundComponent: TComponent;
begin
  // first try to convert a text behind "Shape", what should be a shape's order 
  // and if it's convertable to integer, then...
  if TryStrToInt(Copy(TShape(Sender).Name, 6, MaxInt), ShapeOrderNo) then
  begin
    // try to find a component with the name "label" + found shape order number
    // incremented by 12
    FoundComponent := FindComponent('label' + IntToStr(ShapeOrderNo + 12));
    // if the component is found, or to be more specific, if it's TLabel, then...
    if (FoundComponent is TLabel) then
      TLabel(FoundComponent).Caption := 'Hello from ' + TShape(Sender).Name;
  end;
end;