VCL classes as TForm and TButton are found in the vcl module. You create a new VCL object by instantiating a VCL class in the same way you always create Python objects. All positional arguments are passed on to the constructor for the VCL class. VCL classes can have several constructors. The first constructor that matches the passed arguments will be used, e.g. vcl.TForm(None) will use the constructor that takes an owner component as argument. Keyword arguments will be assigned to the properties of the object after the object has been constructed, e.g. Form = vcl.TForm(None, Caption="Test dialog") is the same as Form = vcl.TForm(None); Form.Caption = "Test dialog"

Global functions as TextToShortCut can be found in the vcl module and are called like vcl.TextToShortCut("Ctrl+A").

The vcl module contains some global objects as Application, Mouse, Clipboard and Screen. Other objects can be directly constructed or returned from a function. None in Python can be used to pass a NULL pointer to a VCL function instead of an object.

The Python object is a proxy object to the actual VCL object. Per default VCL objects created directly in Python are owned by the proxy object. The VCL object will therefore be destroyed when the proxy object in Python is destroyed. Objects returned from a function or accessed through properties are not owned and will continue to exist after the proxy object has been destroyed. The proxy object has an _owned property that specify if the proxy object owns the underlying VCL object.

Object methods and properties are accessed as you normally would in Python so you can use Form.Show() and Form.Caption = "Test". If a method is overloaded, the first one that matches the parameters will be called.

Events can either be global functions or methods in an object, which can be assigned like properties. The event handler must be able to take the expected arguments which will be passed.

Sometimes an event takes a reference as argument. In that case the actual argument is an object with a property called Value that can be used to access the actual referenced value.

Most types can be used directly, e.g. strings, numbers and booleans. VCL sets are converted to Python strings, e.g. Form.Font.Style = "fsBold,fsItalic" will make the font bold and italic. Enumerations are always returned as strings but can be assigned as strings or integers, e.g. Form.WindowState = "wsMaximized" and Form.WindowState = 2 will both maximize the window. Records are converted to tuples with one element for every item in the record. Similarly a function that expects a record must be passed a tuple, e.g. Form1.ClientToScreen((100,50)).

# This script will show a dialog where you can enter a value.
# The event will check that only digits are entered.
# If the OK button is pressed, the entered value will be printed to the console.
import vcl
import string

def HandleKeyPress(Sender, Key):
  if not Key.Value in string.digits:
    Key.Value = '\0'

Form = vcl.TForm(None, Caption="Value dialog", Width=190, Height=110)
Label = vcl.TLabel(None, Parent=Form, Caption="Value:", Top=12, Left=8)
Edit = vcl.TEdit(None, Parent=Form, OnKeyPress=HandleKeyPress, Text="0", Top=8, Left=50)
OkButton = vcl.TButton(None, Parent=Form, Caption="OK", Default=True, ModalResult=1, Top=50, Left=8)
CancelButton = vcl.TButton(None, Parent=Form, Caption="Cancel", Cancel=True, ModalResult=2, Top=50, Left=100)
if Form.ShowModal() == 1:
  print("Result:", Edit.Text)