TEdit

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A TEdit is a control with a single line of editable text. It is available from the Standard tab of the Component Palette.

Usage

You can add to your form a TEdit input box add by clicking on it at the Standard component palette and place it on your form with one click. You can now edit this single-line text box at run time.

Want you this text elsewhere have, you can read this text, like every other String.

For example, you have a TEdit Edit1 on your form placed, you can use myString: = Edit1.Text;. To change the shown Text in Edit1, you can use Edit1.Text := myString;.

If you want to display another text instead of the default text (e.g. Edit1) in a TEdit Edit1 at the start of your application, you can proceed as follows:

• Select the TEdit on your form with one click.
• Go to the properties tab in the Object Inspector.
• Select the property Text and change it in the next input box.
• In the same way, you can select the property Name and give the TEdit a better name.

Password input

You can also easily use a TEdit to enter passwords. It is then instead of actually entered Char a PasswordChar displayed.

Little Example:

• Create a new GUI application with a TEdit Edit1 and a TButton Button1 on the form.
• In the Object Inspector set the property PasswordChar of Edit1 to a " * ".
• In the event handler of OnClick of Button1 show the entered password: ShowMessage(Edit1.Text);

Requested Features

Embedding Button/Other Controls in TEdit

It's a WinAPI feature to allow embedding any sort of control into a TEdit.

Considerations.

• The feature is not supported by all Widgetsets natively. For example: for Gtk2/Gtk3 it's not possible, as GtkEntry is not derived from a container. The SpinEdit control is a special kind of control in Gtk2. (This is the main reason on why TSpinEdit has its own WS class).

• The placement of an embedded control (or controls) cannot be set by Left or Top properties (as normally happens). Instead the "Align" property should be used.

button1.Parent:=edit1;
button1.Width:=20;
button1.Align:=alRight;
button1.Constraints.MaxHeight:=18; //edit1.Height;

• The "text" entry field must be limited by some TEdit property

OR this should be done automatically by the widgetset.

Without such a limitation, the entered text goes "underneath" the embedded button.

If using pure WinAPI, this can be achieved by using an EM_SETMARGINS message:

Uses
  Windows, ...

...

  SendMessage(Edit1.Handle, EM_SETMARGINS, EC_LEFTMARGIN or EC_RIGHTMARGIN, MakeLParam(0, button1.Width))

The Delphi VCL does provide a Margins property, but it is not mapped to EM_SETMARGINS and has a different meaning in the VCL.

See also

• TEdit doc
• TMemo - A multiline text edit box
• TLabeledEdit - An edit field like a TEdit with a label
• TMaskEdit - An edit field with an edit mask
• TSpinEdit - An edit field for integers defined numbers range limits
• TFloatSpinEdit - An edit field for tiles floating-point numbers with defined numbers range limits
• TEditButton - An edit field like a TEdit with an attached button as a TSpeedBtn
• TFileNameEdit - An edit field with attached TOpenDialog, to enter a file name
• TDirectoryEdit - An edit field with attached TSelectDirectoryDialog, to enter a file path
• TDateEdit - An edit field with attached TCalendarDialog (calendar), to enter a date
• TCalcEdit - An input field with attached TCalculatorDialog (Calculator), to enter a number
• TTIEdit - An RTTI capable input field