How do I make a TLinkLabel work in Delphi?

Question

I put a TLinkLabel on my form, filled it in with a caption including a valid HTML link, and got some nice blue underlined text. When I ran the program, I expected it to invoke Firefox (my default browser) and open the link automatically. Apparently that's not the case.

The helpfile says I have to code this in an OnLinkClick event handler. It doesn't say anything about how to do that, though. It'll pass in a string value called "Link". How do I say "invoke the default browser and have it open Link"?

Answer 1

You can call ShellExecute. I wrote this method for generic calls, and should works in your case.

procedure ShellOpen(const Url: string; const Params: string = '');
begin
  ShellAPI.ShellExecute(0, 'Open', PChar(Url), PChar(Params), nil, SW_SHOWNORMAL);
end;

In your code you should call this

procedure TForm1.LinkLabelClick(Sender: TObject);
begin
  ShellOpen(LinkLabel.Caption);
end;

Answer 2

LOL, it's funny. So instead of setting crHandPoint as cursor, colored and underlined font and filling the OnClick event to standard TLabel we have component that knows link tag and which at all I need to supply with same On(Link)Click event :))

Only thing it is good for is that it makes easier to embed link into some text and that it is using system style of link...

p.s.: really you have to put Some text with <a href="some URL">link</a> into the Caption and setup OnLinkClick to that ShellExecute...