How can I see who triggered an action in Delphi?

Question

When an action even fires, the "sender" is always the action itself. Usually that's the most useful, but is it somehow possible to find out who triggered the action's onexecute event?

Example

Let's say you have a form with the following:

• 2 buttons, called Button1 and Button2
• 1 TAction called actDoStuff

The same action is assigned to both buttons. Is it possible to show which button I clicked?

Example.dfm

object Form1: TForm1
  object Button1: TButton
    Action = actDoStuff
  end
  object Button2: TButton
    Action = actDoStuff
    Left = 100
  end
  object actDoStuff: TAction
    Caption = 'Do Stuff'
    OnExecute = actDoStuffExecute
  end
end

Example.pas

unit Example;
interface
uses Windows, Classes, Forms, Dialogs, Controls, ActnList, StdCtrls;

type
  TForm1 = class(TForm)
    Button1: TButton;
    Button2: TButton;
    actDoStuff: TAction;
    procedure actDoStuffExecute(Sender: TObject);
  end;

var
  Form1: TForm1;

implementation    
{$R *.dfm}

procedure TForm1.actDoStuffExecute(Sender: TObject);
begin
  ShowMessage('Button X was clicked');
end;

end.

The only solution I see at the moment is to not use the action property of buttons, but having an eventhandler for each button, and calling actDoStuffExecute() from there, but that sort of defies the whole purpose of using actions in the first place.

I don't want to have a dedicated action for each separate control either. The example above is a simplified version of the problem that I'm facing. I have a menu with a variable number of menu items (file names), and each menu item basically has to do the same thing, except for loading another file. Having actions for each menu item would be a bit silly.

Answer 1

Ok, in the meanwhile I think I found a workable solution..

I can have all controls use the same action; I just need to override their OnClick event handler, and I just need a single handler for all of them.

I'm still interested to know if it's possible to find out which control triggered the action, but for my current application I'm using a solution that's similar to the code below:

unit Example;

interface

uses
  Windows, Classes, Forms, Dialogs, Controls, ActnList, StdCtrls;

type
  TForm1 = class(TForm)
    Button1: TButton;
    Button2: TButton;
    actDoStuff: TAction;
    procedure actDoStuffExecute(Sender: TObject);
    procedure ButtonClick(Sender: TObject);
    procedure FormCreate(Sender: TObject);
  end;

var
  Form1: TForm1;

implementation

{$R *.dfm}

procedure TForm1.actDoStuffExecute(Sender: TObject);
begin
  ShowMessage('Button '+TControl(Sender).Name +' was clicked')
end;

procedure TForm1.ButtonClick(Sender: TObject);
begin
  actDoStuffExecute(Sender)
end;

procedure TForm1.FormCreate(Sender: TObject);
begin
  Button1.OnClick := ButtonClick;
  Button2.OnClick := ButtonClick
end;

end.

Answer 2

Knowing what button triggered the action sort of goes against the point of using actions - an action may be triggered by a button click, or a menu click, or any number of other user activities. Actions exist to unify the state management of enable/disabled and click handling between buttons and menus.

If you want to know which button fired the action because you want to perform a slightly different operation, or "flavor" the operation differently, then perhaps TAction isn't the right solution for what you want to do.

Answer 3

set the Tag of the buttons as 1, 2, ... etc and then:

procedure TForm1.FormCreate(Sender: TObject);
begin
  Button1.OnClick := ButtonClick;
  Button2.OnClick := ButtonClick;
end;

procedure TForm1.ButtonClick(Sender: TObject);
begin
  if Sender is TButton then
  begin
    Caption := 'Button: ' + IntToStr(TButton(Sender).Tag);
  end;  
end;

Answer 4

Instead of actions, just use a click event. Set all buttons to use the same event handler. Ideally, NOT named after the first button (you can rename it).

Here's the code:

Procedure TMyForm.DestinationButtonClickHandlerThing(Sender: TObject); 
begin
  if Sender = Btn_ViewIt then
  begin
    // View It
  end
  else if Sender = Btn_FaxIt then
  begin
    // Fax It
  end
  else if Sender = Btn_ScrapIt then
  begin
    // Scrap It
  end
  else 
    ....   // error
   ...
end;

Answer 5

Try using the ActionComponent property:

  ShowMessage( (Sender as TAction).ActionComponent.Name );

Using this I get "Button1" and "Button2" when I click the first and second button respectively.