Delphi Tips

Create a hot URL link in the About box

Many programs have an About box with a WWW address in it. When the user clicks on that address, it will launch the webbrowser automatically and connect with the given site.

How to accomplish this?

Create your label component with the URL as it's caption. Set the font's color to 'blue' and style 'underline' so that it looks like a link.


uses ShellAPI;
..
    TAboutBox = class(TForm)
    ..
    URLLabel : TLabel;
    end;
..
 URLLabel.Cursor := crAppStart; { set this in the object inspector }
..

{ onClick event handler }
procedure TAboutBox.URLLabelClick(Sender: TObject);
var TempString : array[0..79] of char;
begin
  StrPCopy(TempString,URLLabel.Caption);
  ShellExecute(0, Nil, TempString, Nil, Nil, SW_NORMAL);
end;

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