Tips and Tricks: quickly changing property values
Here's another handy series of shortcuts for Delphi: when designing forms it is very cumbersome to switch between the Form Designer and Object Inspector, since you would have to hit the F12 key twice to return from OI to the form.
But there's a better way: just start typing while the form is active. Delphi will automatically switch to OI and change the currently active property. When you're done, press Enter to return to the Form Designer! Very handy to quickly change a series of TLabel captions for example.
And if you don't want to change the currently active property, but another one: start by pressing Enter. This activates OI and you can then use the shortcuts I described here to navigate to a different property or event.
Note that this trick is not only limited to the Form Designer. It also works with the various Property Editors, such as the Collection Editor or the Fields Editor! To make this work with your own Property Editors, descend from TDesignWindow and in the appropriate KeyPress event call TDesignWindow.ActivateInspector passing the pressed key as a parameter.
But there's a better way: just start typing while the form is active. Delphi will automatically switch to OI and change the currently active property. When you're done, press Enter to return to the Form Designer! Very handy to quickly change a series of TLabel captions for example.
And if you don't want to change the currently active property, but another one: start by pressing Enter. This activates OI and you can then use the shortcuts I described here to navigate to a different property or event.
Note that this trick is not only limited to the Form Designer. It also works with the various Property Editors, such as the Collection Editor or the Fields Editor! To make this work with your own Property Editors, descend from TDesignWindow and in the appropriate KeyPress event call TDesignWindow.ActivateInspector passing the pressed key as a parameter.