Data Sharing

See the Delphi 10 and Delphi 7 examples on GitHub.

The io.Connect Channels are enabled by default when registering a VBA window as an io.Connect Window. You have to provide handler implementations for the Channel related events that will be raised due to interaction with the io.Connect Window instance - changing Channels and handling Channel data updates. When the io.Connect Channels are enabled, a Channel Selector box is available in the window title bar.

To check whether the Channel Selector is visible, use the GetChannelSupport method of an IGlueWindow instance. To hide or show the Channel Selector, use the SetChannelSupport.

⚠️ Note that currently the SetChannelSupport method only hides or shows the Channel Selector, but doesn't enable or disable the Channel support. This can be done only during window registration.

// Toggle the visibility of the Channel Selector.
if  glueWin.GetChannelSupport() then
  glueWin.SetChannelSupport(False)
else
  glueWin.SetChannelSupport(True);

To handle the event when the user changes the Channel via the Channel Selector, use the HandleChannelChanged method of the IGlueWindowEventHandler interface:

function TMainForm.HandleChannelChanged(const glueWindow: IGlueWindow; const channel: IGlueContext; prevChannel: GlueContext): HResult;
begin
  if not Assigned(channel) then
  begin
    // Previous Channel deselected, no new Channel selected.
    ...
  end
  else
  begin
    // New Channel selected.
    ...
  end;
  Result := S_OK;
end;

To handle the event when the data in the current Channel is updated or the user selects a new Channel, use the HandleChannelData method of the IGlueWindowEventHandler interface:

function TMainForm.HandleChannelData(const glueWindow: IGlueWindow; const channelUpdate: IGlueContextUpdate): HResult;
var
  channel: IGlueContext;
  data: TGlueContextValueArray;
begin
  channel := channelUpdate.GetContext();
  // Get the Channel data in a native data structure.
  rawData := channel.GetData();
  data := SA_AsTranslatedContextValues(rawData);
  ...
  SafeArrayDestroy(rawData);
  Result := S_OK;
end;

To publish data to a Channel, you must update the shared context object dedicated the respective Channel. For details on how to update a shared context object, see the Shared Contexts > Updating a Context section.

⚠️ Note that you must only update the value of the "data" property of the context object. The "name" and "meta" properties must not be modified, because they are specifically set for each Channel.