Question

Is there a way to suspend all anchored controls on a form from moving or resizing themselves temporarily? i.e.:

procedure ScaleFormBy(AForm: TForm; n, d: Integer); begin     AForm.SuspendAnchors();     try        AForm.ScaleBy(n, d);     finally        AForm.ResumeAnchors();     end; end; 

I need to do this because I’m calling

AForm.ScaleBy(m, d); 

Which does not handle anchored controls properly. (it pushes left+right or top+bottom anchored controls off the edge of the form.

Note: I want to disable Anchors, not Alignment.

Answer 1

Guy had a good idea, but it didn’t handle child control (i.e. TPanel, TPageControl, etc)

Here’s a variant that uses recursion. Also, notice that i don’t actually disable anchors – turn out that ScaleBy doesn’t work with no anchors either.

So now you can scale a form using:

procedure ScaleFormBy(AForm: TForm; M, D: Integer); var    StoredAnchors: TAnchorsArray; begin    StoredAnchors := DisableAnchors(AForm);    try        AForm.ScaleBy(M, D);    finally        EnableAnchors(AForm, StoredAnchors);    end; end; 

With the support library functions:

TAnchorsArray = array of TAnchors;  function DisableAnchors(ParentControl: TWinControl): TAnchorsArray; var    StartingIndex: Integer; begin    StartingIndex := 0;    DisableAnchors_Core(ParentControl, Result, StartingIndex); end;  procedure EnableAnchors(ParentControl: TWinControl; aAnchorStorage: TAnchorsArray); var    StartingIndex: Integer; begin    StartingIndex := 0;    EnableAnchors_Core(ParentControl, aAnchorStorage, StartingIndex); end;  procedure DisableAnchors_Core(ParentControl: TWinControl; var aAnchorStorage: TAnchorsArray; var StartingIndex: Integer); var    iCounter: integer;    ChildControl: TControl; begin    if (StartingIndex+ParentControl.ControlCount+1) > (Length(aAnchorStorage)) then       SetLength(aAnchorStorage, StartingIndex+ParentControl.ControlCount+1);     for iCounter := 0 to ParentControl.ControlCount - 1 do    begin       ChildControl := ParentControl.Controls[iCounter];       aAnchorStorage[StartingIndex] := ChildControl.Anchors;        if ([akLeft, akRight ] * ChildControl.Anchors) = [akLeft, akRight] then          ChildControl.Anchors := ChildControl.Anchors - [akRight];        if ([akTop, akBottom] * ChildControl.Anchors) = [akTop, akBottom] then          ChildControl.Anchors := ChildControl.Anchors - [akBottom];        Inc(StartingIndex);    end;     //Add children    for iCounter := 0 to ParentControl.ControlCount - 1 do    begin       ChildControl := ParentControl.Controls[iCounter];       if ChildControl is TWinControl then          DisableAnchors_Core(TWinControl(ChildControl), aAnchorStorage, StartingIndex);    end; end;  procedure EnableAnchors_Core(ParentControl: TWinControl; aAnchorStorage: TAnchorsArray; var StartingIndex: Integer); var    iCounter: integer;    ChildControl: TControl; begin    for iCounter := 0 to ParentControl.ControlCount - 1 do    begin       ChildControl := ParentControl.Controls[iCounter];       ChildControl.Anchors := aAnchorStorage[StartingIndex];        Inc(StartingIndex);    end;     //Restore children    for iCounter := 0 to ParentControl.ControlCount - 1 do    begin       ChildControl := ParentControl.Controls[iCounter];       if ChildControl is TWinControl then          EnableAnchors_Core(TWinControl(ChildControl), aAnchorStorage, StartingIndex);    end; end;   end;