Google Chrome style tabs on glass in Delphi

Question

I am trying to implement Google Chrome style tabs, in Windows 7, in a Delphi application.

The elements of this are:

• tabs may extend into the non-client area as they do in google chrome itself.
• draws properly on Vista and Windows 7 when glass is enabled
• tabs work just like google chrome, and look like google chrome, over glass.

I have found that the challenges I have to overcome are:

• How do I get a control (VCL control) to extend into the non-client area? (A good sample of a control that does this is the Ribbon control included in the VCL sources, but I haven't seen anybody else do it, and it takes some wicked hacking to get the Ribbon to function)
• How to draw bitmaps properly over glass? (DWM API). A related question already answers that aspect, here, this question was also asked by me.

Answer 1

You don't want a full glass window, but you will have to draw the tabs yourself as there isn't a control that I am aware of that will give you the exact look your looking for. If you use the GlassFrame properties of the current form, enable it and set the top to the height you will want for your tabs, drop a paintbox on this area and use GDI+ calls to draw your tabs manually. A good library that should work for this is available on the EDN (http://cc.embarcadero.com/Download.aspx?id=26950). Without using GDI+ you will be able to draw to the paint box, but black will become transparent. With GDI+ you can draw freely to the glass in any color. For example:

Source:

unit Unit6;

interface

uses
  Windows, Messages, SysUtils, Variants, Classes, Graphics, Controls, Forms,
  Dialogs, GdiPlusHelpers, GdiPlus, StdCtrls, ExtCtrls;

type
  TForm6 = class(TForm)
    pb1: TPaintBox;
    procedure pb1Paint(Sender: TObject);
  private
    { Private declarations }
   public
    { Public declarations }
  end;

var
  Form6: TForm6;

implementation

{$R *.dfm}

procedure TForm6.pb1Paint(Sender: TObject);
var
  Graphics : IGPGraphics;
  Brush: IGPSolidBrush;
  FontFamily: IGPFontFamily;
  Font: IGPFont;
  Point: TGPPointF;
  Pen: IGPPen;
begin
  Graphics := Pb1.ToGPGraphics;
  Brush := TGPSolidBrush.Create(TGPColor.Create(255, 0, 0, 0));
  FontFamily := TGPFontFamily.Create('Consolas');
  Font := TGPFont.Create(FontFamily, 12, FontStyleRegular, UnitPoint);
  Point.Initialize(1, 0);
  Graphics.TextRenderingHint := TextRenderingHintAntiAlias;
  Graphics.DrawString('GDI+ Black Text', Font, Point, Brush);
  Pen := TGPPen.Create(TGPColor.Create(255, 0, 0, 0));
  Graphics.DrawLine(Pen, 0, 0, 200, 100);
end;

end.

Form:

object Form6: TForm6
  Left = 0
  Top = 0
  Caption = 'Form6'
  ClientHeight = 282
  ClientWidth = 418
  Color = clBtnFace
  Font.Charset = DEFAULT_CHARSET
  Font.Color = clWindowText
  Font.Height = -11
  Font.Name = 'Tahoma'
  Font.Style = []
  GlassFrame.Enabled = True
  GlassFrame.Top = 22
  OldCreateOrder = False
  PixelsPerInch = 96
  TextHeight = 13
  object pb1: TPaintBox
    Left = 0
    Top = 0
    Width = 313
    Height = 105
    OnPaint = pb1Paint
  end
end

EDIT Updated to anti-alias the text so it looks better.