Tag Archives: tcombobox

Delayed Close Programmatically Dropped TComboBox (If Mouse NOT Over Combo and Combo’s List) Using Multi Threading

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The Combo Box Windows control (aka TComboBox in Delphi) is one of the most frequently used user interface elements along with buttons and edits in Windows applications. TComboBox control represents an edit box with a scrollable drop-down list attached to it. Users can select an item from the list or type directly into the edit box. When the Style property is set to csDropDownList the combo allows to display a list of predefined items a user can select from the combo’s drop down list.

I’ve had a request from a user of my application: can the selection list be dropped down and then closed if no selection has been made in some period of time? Well, the user is asking. So, certainly it can!

The task to drop combo’s list is super easy: just set DroppedDown property to true (this sends CB_SHOWDROPDOWN to the combo). Then wait – but do not block the main thread !! – so some multithreading needed. Ok, use Delphi’s PPL. Finally, once the wait period is over, close the combo’s list – but, let’s say, only if the user is not hovering the mouse over combo’s items!

Looks pretty straightforward.
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Implementing SelectDelay for TComboBox – Postpone Event Handler Execution in Delphi

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Delphi’s TComboBox combines an edit box with a scrollable list – with the Style property defining the display style of the combo. When set to csDropDownList there’s no edit box – users can only pick from the predefined items displayed by the list. If you need to react, when the selection changes, you will write code for the OnSelect event.

Now, presume our combo is a kind of a filter selector – when the selection changes you need to update some other UI control. For example, combo lists invoices and selecting one (item from its list) displays the selected invoice items in some grid control.

Depending on the number of invoice items, where they are stored, how you fetch them, and so on – the actual code to (fetch items and) refresh the UI might take longer time – whatever longer means. If you scroll quickly through the combo items – OnSelect will get fired for each visited item in the list and your application might appear irresponsible, lagging and slow.
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