Glass effect in a Delphi Console Application

October 26, 2009 by Rodrigo 2 Comments

Using the DwmEnableBlurBehindWindow and  GetConsoleWindow functions , we  can  apply a nice glass effect to our console applications.

Check this sample application

program ConsoleGlassDelphi;
//Author  : Rodrigo Ruz 2009-10-26
{$APPTYPE CONSOLE}

uses
  Windows,
  SysUtils;

type
  DWM_BLURBEHIND = record
    dwFlags                 : DWORD;
    fEnable                 : BOOL;
    hRgnBlur                : HRGN;
    fTransitionOnMaximized  : BOOL;
  end;

//function to enable the glass effect
function DwmEnableBlurBehindWindow(hWnd : HWND; const pBlurBehind : DWM_BLURBEHIND) : HRESULT; stdcall; external  'dwmapi.dll' name 'DwmEnableBlurBehindWindow';
//get the handle of the console window
function GetConsoleWindow: HWND; stdcall; external kernel32 name 'GetConsoleWindow';

function DWM_EnableBlurBehind(hwnd : HWND; AEnable: Boolean; hRgnBlur : HRGN = 0; ATransitionOnMaximized: Boolean = False; AFlags: Cardinal = 1): HRESULT;
var
  pBlurBehind : DWM_BLURBEHIND;
begin
  pBlurBehind.dwFlags:=AFlags;
  pBlurBehind.fEnable:=AEnable;
  pBlurBehind.hRgnBlur:=hRgnBlur;
  pBlurBehind.fTransitionOnMaximized:=ATransitionOnMaximized;
  Result:=DwmEnableBlurBehindWindow(hwnd, pBlurBehind);
end;

begin
  try
    DWM_EnableBlurBehind(GetConsoleWindow(), True);
    Writeln('See my glass effect');
    Writeln('Go Delphi Go');
    Readln;
  except
    on E:Exception do
      Writeln(E.Classname, ': ', E.Message);
  end;
end.

And this is the result