CAPTCHA

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About

According to wikipedia, a CAPTCHA (a contrived acronym for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart") is a type of challenge–response test used in computing to determine whether or not the user is human.

The component TCaptchaLabel allows to create a CAPTCHA to be used on any LCL form. It displays random characters which are colored and rotated and overlayed by colored lines to impede machine detection of the CAPTCHA text.

Author

Werner Pamler

License

Modified LGPL (with linking exception), like Lazarus LCL. See the file COPYING.modifiedLGPL.txt, included in the Lazarus distribution, for details about the license.

Description

TCaptchaLabel descends from TGraphicControl and contains its own drawing routine. Just place it on the form and use it. It displays a random string with rotated characters and overlaid lines.

Methods

• function Verify(const AText: String): Boolean - Compares whether the user-provided string AText matches the CAPTCHA string and returns true in case of an agreement, or false otherwise.
• procedure NewCaptcha - Generates and displays a new CAPTCHA string

Properties

• Text: String - CAPTCHA string. The characters of the string are selected randomly from the UpperCaseChars, LowerCaseChars, NumericChars and/or CustomChars.
• NumChars: Integer - Number of characters in the CAPTCHA, i.e. length of Text
• NumLines: Integer - Number of lines drawn over the CAPTCHA
• Font1, Font2: TFont - Two fonts to be mixed within the CAPTCHA characters randomly
• MaxAngle: Integer - Maximum rotation angle (in degrees) for the characters which are rotated by a random angle between -MaxAngle and +MaxAngle
• Color: TColor - Background color of the area of the control covered by the CAPTCHA. Character and line colors are selected such that a minimum brightness difference to the background color is achieved.
• UpperCaseChars: String - Contains the characters among which upper-case characters in the CAPTCHA are selected randomly. UTF8 encoding is supported as usual (and like for the following strings)
• LowerCaseChars: String - Contains the characters among which lower-case characters in the CAPTCHA are selected randomly
• NumericChars: String - Contains the numeric characters characters for the CAPTCHA
• CustomChars: String - Contains non-alpha and non-numeric characters for the CAPTCHA
• Options: TCaptchaOptions - This is a set of the following enumerated options which can be combined:
  • coAlphaUpper - Use upper-case characters as defined by the the UppercaseChars string
    Note: The characters which are hard to distinguish are skipped, O (upper-case o) vs 0 (zero), l (lower-case L) vs I (upper-case I)
  • coAlphaLower - Use lower-case characters as defined by the LowercaseChars string
  • coNumeric - Use numeric characters as defined by the NumericChars string
  • coCustom - Use special characters as defined by the CustomChars string
  • coRotated - Characters are rotated
  • coFont1 - Font1 is used
  • coFont2 - Font2 is used
  • coLines - Lines are drawn over the CAPTCHA
• NewCaptchaEvent: TNewCaptchaEvent - Enumerated property which determines a short-cut how to create a new CAPTCHA string at runtime:
  • nceNone - Feature is deactivated; CAPTCHA can only be changed by code.
  • nceClick - A new CAPTCHA is created when the user clicks on the control
  • nceDblClick - A new CAPTCHA is created when the user double-clicks on the control.

Installation

Development version

The development version (aka trunk) is available at https://sourceforge.net/p/lazarus-ccr/svn/HEAD/tree/components/captcha/. Download the package using svn or get the zipped snapshot version.

Load the package file captcha_pkg.lpk into the Lazarus Package Editor and click "Use" > "Install" to rebuild the Lazarus IDE. When Lazarus restarts you find the new component in the palette "Misc".

Release version

The stable release version is distributed via the Online-Package-Manager (OPM): Check the item "Captcha" in the OPM list, click "Install" and confirm the prompt to rebuild the IDE.