델파이로 Shortcut 만들기

Intro to Shortcuts

Windows shortcut is a special type of file linked to another object (file or folder in most cases). We can think of a shortcut as a pointer to an object, it permits us to access a file or application without having to navigate to it on our hard drive. A shortcut is actually better termed as an alias file.

Shortcuts are extremely useful and are the primary mechanism you can use to customize your desktop to give yourself quick access to the applications, documents, and Internet resources you use most often.

In this article, you will learn how to create standard Windows shortcuts using Delphi code.

Creating a Shell Link - Shortcut

Add a button (button1) on a form (form1) and try this code:

 uses ShlObj, ActiveX, ComObj;
 ...
 procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject) ;
 var
    IObject : IUnknown;
    ISLink : IShellLink;
    IPFile : IPersistFile;
    PIDL : PItemIDList;
    InFolder : array[0..MAX_PATH] of Char;
    TargetName : String;
    LinkName : WideString;
 begin
    TargetName := 'c:\windows\calc.exe';
    {Use TargetName:=ParamStr(0) which
    returns the path and file name of the
    executing program to create a link to your
    Application}
    IObject := CreateComObject(CLSID_ShellLink) ;
    ISLink := IObject as IShellLink;
    IPFile := IObject as IPersistFile;
    with ISLink do
    begin
      SetPath(pChar(TargetName)) ;
      SetWorkingDirectory(pChar(ExtractFilePath(TargetName))) ;
    end;
    // if we want to place a link on the Desktop
    SHGetSpecialFolderLocation(0, CSIDL_DESKTOPDIRECTORY, PIDL) ;
    SHGetPathFromIDList(PIDL, InFolder) ;
    {
     or if we want a link to appear in
     some other, not-so-special, folder:
     InFolder := 'c:\SomeFolder'
    }
    LinkName := InFolder + '\Delphi Created Link.lnk';
    IPFile.Save(PWChar(LinkName), false) ;
 end; 

At the beginning of this code is the most important part. The CreateComObject call instantiates a single COM object. The result of this call (which is an IUnknown interface) is than converted both to an IShellLink interface and to an IPersistFile interface.

The IShellLink designates an interface that allows an application to create shell links (.lnkfiles) or to access the information of an existing one. The IPersistFile interface provides methods for an object to load and save itself in a disk file. At this point, we can use several methods available to those interfaces: 
. IShellLink.SetPath() sets the path and filename of a shell link object. The only parameter is a pChar to our TargetName. 
. IShellLink.SetWorkingDirectory() sets the name of the working directory for a shell link object. We are getting the working directory by using Delphi's ExtractFilePath() function. 
. IPersistFile.Save() saves a copy of the object into the specified file, which in our case creates the physical .LNK file.

In this example, a link to calc.exe (Windows calculator) is created on the Desktop. To get our Desktop directory folder we have to use SHGetSpecialFolderLocation API call. The second parameter in this call is the most important one: the integer value of the constant representing the SpecialFolder. For other constants (other special folders) take a look at Win32 help files.

Related Resources

• Shortcut target finder - a sample Delphi application, with full source code, that can be used to locate all the shortcut files (.LNK) on a drive (directory) and find the target that is executed by a shortcut.
• How to create an Internet Shortcut (.URL) file - unlike regular .LNK shortcuts (that point to a document or an application), Internet Shortcuts point to an URL (web document). Here's how to create an .URL file, Internet Shortcut, using Delphi.