MFC CListCtrl does not appear after minimise-restore - visual-c++

Let me say at outset that I'm using old technology by today's standards! This happens in MFC on Visual Studio 2005 and running under WinXP. (If it 'aint broke.... ;-) )
I have a dialog based app which has a CTabCtrl with two tabs. Each contains a CListCtrl. These work perfectly under normal circumstances. They populate correctly and show and hide as they should. When I first open the application the display selection is correct. If I then minimize the dialog and restore, the CList Ctrl does not show, the tab is blank. It is the only control which has this problem. Another CListCtrl outside of the CTabCtrl does show up correctly. If I then swap tabs and back again, the other tab shows up then the first appears as normal.
This does not happen if I access any other part of the dialog before minimising, it is only when minimising is the absolute first action I take. It also happens with the CListCtrl I have in the other tab if I set this tab to be selected on startup in OnInitDialog where I set up the CTabCtrl.
I have actually solved the effect of this problem by adding into my OnSysCommand(...) the following:
if ((nID & 0xFFF0) == SC_RESTORE)
{
m_ctrlReadList.Invalidate();
}
but it bugs me that I'm adding code to solve a problem which only happens in such odd circumstances. I can't help thinking that there is something I have missed in the setup which is leading to this behaviour. Can anyone offer any explanation as to what is causing it in the first place?

My explanation is based on the facts of what I have found but this has been a learning experience for me so apologies if I get some of it a little confused, I'm still letting it settle in my mind.
Along with this problem I found another which turned out to be relevant. From the nature of the program I'm writing, my CListCtrls needed fixed width headers. Now that turned out to be another thing I couldn't set up! I just needed to prevent the user from grabbing and resizing the header's dividers or double clicking them to autosize, and of course there is functionality in the CListCtrl based on its child CHeaderCtrl to set this up isn't there? Well apparently not. LVS_EX_HEADERDRAGDROP for example isn't the way.
So I explored trying to capture messages which would allow me to myself, and what do you know, I couldn't! I could trap a few but not the ones I needed. I was looking for HDN_BEGINTRACK and HDN_DIVIDERDBLCLICK. (We won't go into the fact that you HAVE TO deal with both A and W versions of those separately!) The CHeaderCtrl is a child of the CListCtrl but it sends its messages back to the CDialog as the CListCtrl's parent. I tried there using both my list's and 0 as ID which headers apparently use. Many of them just plain didn't appear there at all.
So I created my own CListCtrl class inheriting from CListCtrl, overrode OnNotify and they turned up there. I simply prevented CListCtrl::On Notify from being called for those messages and it worked, no resize functionality at all.
I also played with the Z-order too which could have been relevant. I didn't explain earlier but this and another list are on two tabs, exactly aligned over each other. Selecting the tabs HIDEs and SHOWs each of the lists in turn. The other list had no display problems even when I changed the default display in OnInitDialog to show it at start up.
It was under the problematic one. So changing the Z-order in OnInitDialog where I set them up - did nothing! And to rub it in that second list was also unresizeable by default just as I wanted and I couldn't find out why. Their Properties listed exactly the same and there was nowhere in the code where any different aspect was set manually for either, they were effectively theoretically identical, but practically not so. So frustrating!!!
And the upshot of it is that now that the header resize issue is solved my display problem has vanished too! It looks to me and to a few others out there too who report similar symptoms as myself as though the CListCtrl is another one of the slightly flaky ones and needs a little massaging to get the best out of it.
I hope that makes sense to those of you out there who know this control well. I was surprised how simple the solution was, but it also surprised me that the diagnostic process was so difficult. It may of course come down to the ageing system I work within. Nowadays I do this only for fun and the expense of updating VS from 2005 for occasional use is not a high priority. I am sure that some of the symptoms will not show under other build and run environments but it may be worth having the issue and my solution on record somewhere for Google to find for others.

Related

how to disable tool mode entry box widget?

I'm trying to lock an entry widget in tool mode like this:
tool
extends Node
export(bool) var locked=false
export(String) var entry="" setget set_entry
func set_entry(new_val):
if!(locked):
entry=new_val
In theory, this should prevent any changes made to the entry widget
as It would rapidly change back to the previous value hence giving the illusion of being disabled
but in reality, you can type freely and after you select another node and then reselect the original node then the value returns to what it was before locking
How do I disable it completely? (perhaps using _set()?)
Edit
This is the problem I'm facing
To disable it completely, I think you need an Inspector Plugin (I talked a little about creating one elsewhere). You could make one that handles the property you are interested in and displays its value, but does not allow to edit it, or only allows to edit it conditionally.
However, for a quick and dirty approach you can do is tell the inspector that the properties changed:
func set_entry(new_val):
if!(locked):
entry=new_val
property_list_changed_notify()
This will cause the inspector to re-read the values of the properties. It can be a bit annoying, depending on the case. By the way, it seems to be ignored in sub-resources, which I find frustrating.
By the way, Godot 4 has PROPERTY_USAGE_READ_ONLY.
Addendum: We can be a little more aggressive than property_list_changed_notify, by using EditorInterface.inspect_object (we can get an instance of EditorInterface from an instance of EditorPlugin). Godot would reload the inspector (which also results in losing the keyboard focus).

excel active X buttons getting bigger every action

This is a question with the same title as here:
VBA Active-X buttons getting bigger with every action
I guess the problem is the same.
The question is nevertheless from 2014!!! and it does not really have an answer.
In my case the buttons were NOT created programatically, but just clicking in insert activeX control, button, and then click for writing the VBA behind.
In order to better illustrate the problem I made a video with my handy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBiu2FfRxQU
IN the video you can see how every time a button is clicked it gets bigger.
as note aside I have to say that this only happens when I connect remotely with my computer via a think client. Nevertheless both screens are the same (i.e. have the same resolution).
This is of course very annoying because it makes almost impossible to use home working since connecting to my excel at work makes all the buttons go crazy in size.
As #TimStack and #jvdv has pointed out this is a known issue of Microsoft, i.e. a BUG, there since many years.
Hence there is no solution but workarounds.
So stay away from controlX if you don't want to get surprises.
I had faced this issue today itself. And found very strange solution to this problem.
I just tried to resize the button where I was facing the issue and it was solved.
Hope this works with you.

Creating a floating menu that pops like normal menu but appears at mouse position

Some context
I've recently switched to ubuntu budgie (from unity), and I am really tired of the Plank/panel menu combo. I cannot find a setting that suits me, because depending on my screen setup, there's always something in the wrong place.
I am literally unable to show the menu on certain edges if I activate auto-hide, and if I don't activate it, it's not nice at all, to the point that I have removed the plank thing altogether. (Am I having strange bugs on this OS, or is it really messy?)
My idea
With great frustrations come new ideas. I thought again about one I had in the past. I would like to have a circle menu that pops around my mouse cursor when I press a given key combination (very much the kind of thing you would find in some games).
The main use case is to get "pined" application shortcuts easily when I need them, but perhaps other things would fit well with them (commands ...).
Questions
So my questions are:
Does such a thing already exist?
If it doesn't, is it difficult to realize? (How much time, complexity, ...)
What tools/libraries are needed for such a project? I know I'll find plenty of explanations on the gnome developer website but I could really use some more help.
Since you mention a buggy behaviour on Plank, depending on the screen configuration, I suspect you are suffering from this bug. In short: Plank's returned values for the space it needs are not always correct in multi monitor setup.
A neat option to replace at least part of the functionality is Ulauncher, by default called from a shortcut, but you could trigger it from anything that is capable of running its command.
Since Ulauncher's window simply identifies in the window list, you can easily write a script to move it to the current mouse position.
In case you'd need any help in that, just leave a comment.
Not sure if you are also referring to quick access of the window list, but for that you could use the Window Previews applet, or even the Workspace Overview applet, so life without Plank is possible.

System.ComponentModel.Design.ExceptionCollection

I'm using the Ribbon control located on CodePlex, and following the tutorial located here . Once I add the reference, and the proper code in the designer I get this error when I try to view the form:
Exception of type 'System.ComponentModel.Design.ExceptionCollection' was thrown
And I cant figure out what I'm doing wrong. Anyone worked with this control and know how to resolve this issue?
Interesting; I just ran into this same issue with one of my own forms; which is how I found your relevant and recent question.
Here's how I solved it:
Open two instances of Visual Studio. Open the same project in both.
In one instance, goto Debug->Exceptions and enable all the 'Thrown' options to stop at first chance exceptions. This will stop the debugger when the exception is generated.
In the same instance, select Debug->Attach to Process, select devenv.exe.
In the other instance, open the form to cause the exception
With any luck the first instance should stop somewhere that yields a more relevant exception.
In my case it turned out to be something that I should have conditioned with:
if (!DesignMode)
{
// Do something that should only happen at runtime
}
Don't forget turn turn off all those 'Thrown' options later.
A workaround for me was:
Right-click on the form and 'View Code'
Keep the code loaded in the editor and then attempt to view the designer again.
This feels very glitchy and I cannot confirm whether it's a problem with my code (as I'm working on an entirely new codebase) or whether it's a VS2012 bug. If I find out, I will report back.
Since the solution outlined by pilotcam didn't work for me, I took a different approach:
Make a SVN commit for the file.
Open the “*.designer.cs” file of the form that shows the error in source view.
Remove larger blocks of form element declarations.
Fix all compilation errors with ReSharper (i.e. ensure that nothing is red anymore on the side-indicator).
Save the file. No need to compile.
Open the Windows Forms Designer of the form.
If the error still shows up, do a SVN revert to go back to the initial state.
Repeat steps 2 to 7 until the error does not show up anymore.
Now you’ve encircled the erroneous child control that causes the error.
Repeat steps 2 to 7 with a smaller amount of controls you remove, until you have only one control left.
In my case it was a user control inside a group control inside a tab control, so I first identified the tab control, then the group control and then the user control.
You could isolate the user control inside a new form to further investigate. In my case it was rather easy; I put checks for design mode around most of the functions inside my control to ensure the code only gets executed if the control is not in design mode.
This fixed my error.
I had the same issue and none of the above answers solved the problem.
At the end, emptying the "bin" folder and rebuild has worked for me.
Let me add two more cases when such exception can happen, along with when control tries to do something that is not allowed under design mode:
When it's impossible to compile the user control.
When designer code contains multiple similar (or identical) lines with initialization of same controls or properties, this can easily happen on merge.
All that cases produce same extremely meaningful error message, and in this particular two debugging of Visual Studio won't help, so I just ended up with bisecting my designer code.
[ReadOnly(true)]
[Browsable(false)]
Above all properties worked for me

Screen capture doesn't work on MFC application in Vista

We've got some in-house applications built in MFC, with OpenGL drawing routines. They all use the same code to draw on the screen and either print the screen or save it to a JPEG file. Everything's been working fine in Windows XP, and I need to find a way to make them work on Vista.
In three of our applications, everything works. In the remaining one, I can get the window border, title bar, menus, and task bar, but the interior never shows up. As I said, these applications use the exact same code to write to the screen and capture the window image, and the only difference I see that looks like it might be relevant is that the problem application uses the MFC multiple document interface, while the ones that work use the single document interface.
Either the answer isn't on the net, or I'm worse at Googling than I thought. I asked on the MSDN forums, and the only practical suggestion I got was to use GDI+ rather than GDI, and that did nothing different. I have tried different things with every part of the code that captures and prints or save, given a pointer to the window, so apparently it's a matter of the window itself. I haven't rebuilt the offending application using SDI yet, and I really don't have any other ideas.
Has anybody seen anything like this?
What I've got is four applications. They use a lot of common code, and share the actual .h and .cpp files, so I know the drawing and screen capture code is identical.
There is a WindowtoDIB() routine that takes a *pWnd, and a source rectangle and destination size. It looks like very slightly adapted Microsoft code, and I've found other functions in this file on the Microsoft website. Of my four applications, three handle this just fine, but one doesn't. The most obvious difference is that the problem one is MDI.
It looks to me like the *pWnd is the problem. I'm not a MFC guru by a long shot, and it seems to me that the problem may be that we've got one window setup in the SDIs, and more than one in the MDI. I may be passing the wrong *pWnd to the function.
In the meantime, it has started working properly on the 64-bit Vista test machine, although it still doesn't work on the 32-bit Vista machine. I have no idea why. I haven't changed anything since the last tests, and I didn't think anybody else had. (On the 32-bit version, the Print Screen key works as expected, but it does not save the screen as a JPEG.)
Your question title mentions screen capture but your actual question doesn't. Please elaborate more clearly. Is the problem that you can do screen capture of three of your applications, but not the fourth one? You can use different screen capture software that can capture OpenGL/DirectX windows. Those surfaces are handled directly by the Window Manager and won't show up with a simple 'PrtScn'.
Switching to GDI+ won't solve it, nor will switching to SDI.
If it's the content of the CView that you want, then yes, that should be right one. If it's the content of the whole screen (at least the content, without the toolbar(s) and status bar), then you should pass it the CMainFrame (that's the default name which may have been changed, the one that is derived from CMDIFrameWnd).
Can you post the code of WindowToDIB()? I've just tried it and It Works For Me (TM), but without OpenGL code in the view. Try passing the following windows to your WindowToDIB() function:
CMainFrame* mainfrm = static_cast<CMainFrame*>(::AfxGetMainWnd());
- mainfrm
- mainfrm->MDIGetActive()
- mainfrm->MDIGetActive()->GetActiveView()
and see what you get.
The contents of each window are directX surfaces and are only assembled by the window manager in the graphics card. You'd not be able to capture this unless you switch off the new interface (DWM) or code specifically for screen capture from the DWM.
Wikipedia has a good description of the Desktop Window Manager (DWM)
Sorry, I still don't understand. You're trying to get the Print Screen key to work on all four applications? Or you're trying to get the WindowtoDIB() function to work, which takes a 'screenshot' (from within your own application) of the application itself, so that it can be saved as an image file?
Also, what do you mean with 'he Print Screen key works as expected, but it does not save the screen as a JPEG.'? Print Screen only copies to the clipboard, what happens when you paste in Paint?
If your WindowtoDIB() function only 'captures' the window you pass to it, then yes, your MDI child windows are not going to show up.
We eventually solved this by creating a different OpenGL context, and drawing everything to that. We gave up on the screen capture.

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