Set MFC dialog inside a cview - visual-c++

I have a cdialog in mfc and I want to host it in a cview so when you click on another cview, it will come to the top, unlike a normal dialog.
I tried by setting the cview as parent of the dialog, but the dialog did not showup. Is there a way to do this?
Thnaks.

Create a CFormView. A CFormView is based on a dialog template, so it's basically a view that looks/acts/works like a dialog (and unless you've done something strange, your existing dialog template should work fine for the CFormView as well).

Related

Child window not getting invalidated when the parent window has CLIP_CHILDREN and CLIP_SIBLINGS style

In my Application, there is a modeless dialog box which has one static control and some customized controls - Edit box, buttons. Actually we are enhancing the functionality of this dialog and added 2 more static controls. The dialog box has CLIP_SIBLINGS and CLIP_CHILDREN styles.
The Problem I am facing is in WinXP, when some other window gets overlapped on this dialog, every other control is getting painted properly except the newly added static controls. But there is no particular difference between the existing static controls and the ones I added.
This is solved with explicitly calling Invalidate method of the static control in dialog's OnPaint() method, but still I didn't get why the existing controls are painted fine.
I tried removing CLIP_CHILDREN style, then it worked fine but there is a lot of flickering.
Please help me understand the same, I have gone through so many threads relating to the same but I didn't find the answer.

Is there a way to defocus fields in CDialog of VC++?

When I make a dialog using CDialog project of VC++,
I can not defocus any field on this dialog(CDialog).
What I want to do is how some field can be defocused
when I clicked the outside of this field with mouse.
Thanks for any advice and comments.
The only obvious question: WHY? Why do you want to de-focus from a control, and (possibly) not give focus to any control? Some control within the dialog should have a keyboard focus!
You can however, make a textbox, which would be outside the visible area of dialog, and SetFocus on that control, whenever you get WM_MOUSE* message(s) on the CDialog.

Keep taskbar icon, replace MFC dialog

I have a MFC dialog based application. User can change the language of the dialog, and I made this by closing existing dialog, and opening another with changed language. The problem is that the effect in the taskbar is that one icon is removed, and another identical is created in its place. If my application's icon is not the last icon in the task bar it will be perceived as it was moved to the end of taskbar icon set.
I want to retain icon's position in the taskbar, and rather to prevent icon flicker at all from happening. How do I do that?
The application must support OS'es from Windows XP to Windows 7.
EDIT: alternative question for which I would accept an answer is how to create an invisible window that is nevertheless shown in the taskbar, and how to forward relevant window messages from that window to my main window?
Make the dialog a child of another outer parent window. The parent can be a dialog or any other kind of window; all it will be providing is the title bar. If the user tries to resize it it will have to forward resizing commands to the dialog, but otherwise you shouldn't need to do much in the parent window.
Why not replace the dialog with a CFormView instead? That way there's a frame window that wraps around the dialog (which is embedded in a form view) and it's the frame window that owns the taskbar icon.
Create an SDI application that displays a CFormView. Display the dialog in the default language (or whatever langauge the user previously chose) on initialization. When the user chooses the 'change language' option, simply change the form view that's being displayed with a new one.
Bonus feature: with this design, the framework will take care of things like language-specific accelerators and menus for you with no effort on your part.
For more on how to do this, check out http://www.codeguru.com/cpp/w-d/doc_view/viewmanagement/article.php/c3341/Multiple-Views-Using-SDI.htm

How to make a custom dialog in InstallShield?

I'm trying to understand InstallShield (2009)/InstallScript on the fly, because I'm modifying someone else's installation script.
One of the dialogs during the installation procedure previously had one textbox on it, asking for a SQL Server instance, assuming a certain database name. Now I've just completed an enhancement enabling you to choose any database name, not just the default, and I need to add a field to this dialog so the user can input the chosen DB name. Monkey see, monkey do, just make a new control and duplicate and adapt whatever functionality the form had for the first textbox - easy enough, right?
Umm... problem here. It seems that the "SdShowDlgEdit1" form is a generic thing that gets shipped with InstallShield, and is used all over, wherever you have a dialog that needs one textbox. Change that form, and it changes everywhere that it's called... so now I have a spurious 2nd textbox appearing all over my installation wherever there was a single text box before.
Oops. Undo changes, and change the reference to "SdShowDlgEdit2", which is - you guessed it - InstallShield's standard form for dialogs needing 2 textboxes. Now that would be great.... excepting that the previous developer got there before me and added a "browse" button to that form for a place where he needed the 2nd text box to contain a folder path. I don't want that "browse" button, and I can't delete it.
So I think, why don't I create a custom form of my own, and not get under anyone else's toes? So I clone the form, rename the new instance to "EnterDbDetails", delete the "Browse" button and make the form look just right.
Then I go back into the InstallScript to redirect to "EnterDbDetails" and discover that the EzDefineDialog function requires me to pass in the "Resource ID" of the form. Now what was it again... 12018... great... fill in all necessary details, compile, build, and give it a whirl. Looks lovely, all the right default values are filled into the two text boxes - but hey! Why is the browse button there? And why is the text on the labels not what I set?
Back to InstallScript, check the Resource ID - turns out that the original "SdShowDlgEdit2" also has a Resource ID of 12018. Well, that explains that nicely. Silly that InstallShield allows you to have two forms with the same ID, but whatever... So let's go back to my "EnterDbDetails" form and change the ID...
... but the Resource Identifier property is read-only! WTF?
So now I can't use any of the standard forms, and I can't use a custom form because it won't let me change the resource ID.
I am stumped. Can anyone please explain how you are supposed to do something like this, which really ought to be the simplest thing in the world?
Creating New Custom Dialogs in InstallScript and InstallScript MSI Projects
Quote from the site (2015 edition) :
To create a custom dialog, you need to perform the following general steps:
Use the New Dialog Wizard to add a new custom dialog to your project. For more information, see Using the New Dialog Wizard to Add a New Custom Dialog to an InstallScript or InstallScript MSI Project.
Add controls to the dialog. For more information, see Adding a Control to a Dialog in an InstallScript or InstallScript MSI Project.
Create a script function that loads the dialog into memory, displays it on the screen, handles the end user’s interaction with the dialog’s controls, and closes the dialog when the user is finished with it. For more information, see Using InstallScript to Implement Custom Dialogs.
To create a new dialog:
Open the Dialogs view. The Dialogs view is located in the User Interface section of the View List.
Right-click the All Dialogs explorer and then click New Dialog. The Dialog Wizard opens. Click Next to dismiss the Welcome panel.
In the Dialog Template panel, click Interior Wizard Panel, and select the Let me insert this dialog in a User Interface sequence check box.
In the User Interface panel, select Installation in the User Interface Sequence list. In the list of dialogs, select InstallWelcome. Based on these selections, InstallShield will insert your new dialog in sequence immediately following the InstallWelcome dialog.
In the Dialog Position and Condition panel, leave the default settings, and click Finish. Your new dialog appears in the Dialogs list.
Right-click the dialog and select Rename. Rename the dialog WelcomeBitmap.
Using the same technique, you can insert additional dialogs in your installation’s user interface.
In this step, you will modify the WelcomeBitmap dialog that you just created:
First, create a bitmap (using a program like Microsoft Paint) that measures 300 by 150.
Open the Dialogs view.
Expand the WelcomeBitmap dialog’s node. Click English (United States) to open the Dialog Editor.
Click the Dialog Bold Title text box at the top of the dialog. In the Text field, type Welcome Bitmap. This changes the dialog’s main title.
Click the Dialog Normal Description text box at the top of the dialog. In the Text field, type Displays my welcome bitmap. This changes the dialog’s description.
Click the Bitmap button on the Dialog Control toolbar and use the cursor to drag a box on the dialog. Set the Height to 150 and the Width to 300.
In the File field browse to the bitmap file that you created in step 1.
After rebuilding the project (by pressing F7) and running it (by pressing CTRL+F5), the Welcome Bitmap dialog will appear after the Install Welcome dialog.
You need to edit the ResourceID (to something unique) in the Dialog table which is found in the Direct Editor under Additional Tools section in the Installation Designer.
By custimizing standard InstallShield dialogs, like sdWelcome, sdFinish and sdFinishReboot you will be able to use the dialogs default script APIs with the performed customization's

MFC KeyPresses on Properties Docking Window being catched as other Control accelerators

I have a Visual C++ application where there are, among other things, a CListCtrl in the Main Frame and a Dockable Pane with a properties Window.
When I press the Delete key on the Properties Window, the application also understands it as "Delete selected item" of the CListCtrl.
Some similar behaviours occur for other keys.
How can I say that I don't want this to go also to the CListCtrl?
Ok, I made a PreTranslateMessage function in the Mainframe class, that puts the HACCCEL current accelerator table in a temporary variable when the input comes from the Properties Control or a descendent of it, then call the parent class PreTranslateMessage, and finally retake the original accelerator table in the end of this function.
Now, I have another question: Is this the best solution? Doesn't seem to me it is!

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