ExtendedStrEditor

Class: TEgDBGridEx

property ExtendedStrEditor: Boolean default False;

Whether a variable-length String column (ftString/ftWideString - not fixed-length ftFixedChar/ftFixedWideChar) uses the same extended in-place editor behavior a Memo/CLOB column always has, instead of the plain default single-line editor a String column has always used. False (the default) preserves that original behavior; set True to extend the Memo/CLOB editing behavior below to variable-length String columns too. Overridable per column - see TEgColumn.ExtendedStrEditor.

Fixed-length columns (ftFixedChar/ftFixedWideChar) never use the extended behavior, regardless of this property’s value.

The extended editor behavior

A Memo/CLOB column’s in-place editor - and a String column’s, once this property (or its per-column override) resolves True - behaves differently from a plain TDBGrid editor in the following ways:

• Ctrl+ / Ctrl- grows or shrinks the editor’s own Font.Size (clamped 6..72) for as long as the cell stays in edit mode. This is a display convenience only: the change is never written back to Column.Font, so the next cell entered resets the font to the column’s normal size, the same as any other column.
• Enter inserts a line break at the caret instead of committing the edit and moving to the next row - the dataset is put into edit mode first (equivalent to what a normal keystroke would trigger) if it is not already.
• Up / Down / PgUp / PgDn move the caret within the text while there is more text above or below the caret’s current line; only once already on the first or last line do they fall through to the grid’s own row/page navigation, exactly as they would for any other column.
• Ctrl+Tab inserts a literal Tab character at the caret. Plain Tab (without Ctrl) is unaffected and still moves to the next column as usual.
• The editor’s automatic full-text selection on entering edit mode is collapsed to the start of the text instead of staying selected - so typing a character right after entering the cell inserts it at the start rather than replacing the whole value.

None of this changes how the cell is painted while not being edited - CellWordWrap and MemoMaxChars still control the read-only preview exactly as before, and a String column’s own resting-state rendering is completely unaffected by this property either way.

See Also

• TEgDBGridEx
• CellWordWrap
• MemoMaxChars
• TEgColumn.ExtendedStrEditor
• Component Reference