Exclude VCL Styles from styling Dialog / ShowMessage borders

Question

Is there any way to exclude VCL Styles from styling a system dialogs' border.

Sepecifically a dialog that is shown by calling MessageDlg or ShowMessage.

I read some articles on "The Road To Delphi" (which is an excellent site btw) but couldn't find the answer.

Here is what i want to achieve:

Now (Carbon Style with styled borders):

Goal (Carbon Style with standard windows borders):

I still want to have styled controls but no styled border.

Removing seBorder from the parent forms StyleElements doesn't do the trick.

Thanks!

Answer 1

MessageDlg() and ShowMessage() are Delphi VCL functions. They dynamically create a Delphi TForm and display that, so you do not have a chance to customise it. However, you can use CreateMessageDialog() instead to create the same TForm, then modify its style elements as needed, and then show it. For instance:

function DoMessageDlgPosHelp(MessageDialog: TForm; X, Y: Integer): Integer;
begin
  with MessageDialog do
    try
      if X >= 0 then Left := X;
      if Y >= 0 then Top := Y;
      if (Y < 0) and (X < 0) then Position := poScreenCenter;
      Result := ShowModal;
    finally
      Free;
    end;
end;

procedure ShowStyledMessage(const Msg: string; const StyleElements: TStyleElements);
var
  Form: TForm;
begin
  Form := CreateMessageDialog(Msg, mtCustom, [mbOK]);
  Form.StyleElements := StyleElements;
  DoMessageDlgPosHelp(Form, -1, -1);
end;

Call it like this:

ShowStyledMessage('Some text', [seFont, seClient]);

And the dialog looks like this: