How do I make my Delphi 5 app display password “blobs”?

StackOverflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1594906

  •  22-09-2019
  •  | 
  •  

Question

Pretty simple one, but I can't find the answer.

I'm building an app in Delphi 5 Enterprise, and want my app to use the new bold black dot in a password field instead of an asterisk.

How can I do this?

Was it helpful?

Solution 2

Thanks to all the above attempts, and all that contributed, but I had to join all the relevant parts together to get to a whole solution.

Thanks to Sinan Ünür for pointing out the ES_PASSWORD flag, which is used by default in Delphi, but only if PasswordChar is <> #0 (NUL).

This means that when you set PasswordChar to something, it sets the ES_PASSWORD flag, and then calls SendMessage(Handle, EM_SETPASSWORDCHAR, Ord(FPasswordChar), 0); (thanks to Stijn Sanders for pointing me towards the StdCtrls source).

If I create a subclass and bypass the line sending the EM_SETPASSWORDCHAR field, I still get only stars.

What I was forgetting to do was enable themes (which in my ancient version of Delphi requires a resource file compiling in). Hey presto, it works; Blobs abound!

So, in summary:

  1. Define the ES_PASSWORD constant if you don't already have it.

    const
  ES_PASSWORD = 32;

  2. Create a TEdit subclass and override CreateParams to include ES_PASSWORD in the window style.

    procedure TPasswordEdit.CreateParams(var Params: TCreateParams);
begin
  inherited;
  Params.Style := Params.Style or ES_PASSWORD;
end;

  3. Enable themes for your program.

And do not set the PasswordChar property. Done!

OTHER TIPS

See PasswordBox: A Better Way to Enter Passwords:

Getting the black dots to show up based on the visual style was insanely simple!

    private const int ES_PASSWORD = 0x0020;
    ...

    protected override CreateParams CreateParams
    {
        CreateParams cp = base.CreateParams;
        ...

        cp.Style |= ES_PASSWORD;
        ...

        return cp;
    }

I'm sure it uses the standard UI font. The CharMap code is U+25CF

I dunno if this will work, but you might be able to copy this.

●

Up to Delphi 2007, using "*" for your password character would show as "*". Starting with Delphi 2009, this shows properly.

According to KB 956609, the dot character is Unicode 0x25cf. It isn't tied to a particular font, but the linked page specifically mentioned that IE uses the Tahoma font.

The bold black dot in password fields is Unicode character U+25CF ("BLACK CIRCLE"). Most common fonts feature this character.

Licensed under: CC-BY-SA with attribution
Not affiliated with StackOverflow
scroll top