1. Dialog Boxes and Property Sheets
Jim Fawcett
CSE791 – Advanced Windows Programming
Summer 2002

2. References
Programming Windows with MFC, Jeff Prosise, 2nd Edition, Microsoft Press, 1999
Derived from presentations by Kevin Devaney and Ciahua Wang, 2001

3. Dialog Boxes Modal Modeless Property Sheets
Owner window disabled until dialog closed
Modeless
Owner window can be reactivated while dialog is still open
Property Sheets
Dialog boxes with tabbed pages

4. Class Hierarchy

5. Example Dialog Box Font dialog Controls Combo boxes List boxes
Check boxes
Push buttons

6. Create a Simple Dialog App
Use MFC AppWizard
Visual C++ Menu
File / New / MFC AppWizard
“Step 0” - Define project name and location
Step 1 – Choose “Dialog-based”
Other Steps – Accept defaults

7. Using MFC AppWizard

8. Add Dialog Controls Use toolbar to select controls for your dialog
Click on the control you want
Click on the dialog where you want to put the control
Drag mouse on edges of the control to resize it
Right-click on control, select properties and provide new ID

9. Dialog Resource File (.rc)
IDD_CREDIT_DIALOG DIALOGEX 0, 0, 265, 154
STYLE DS_MODALFRAME | WS_MINIMIZEBOX | WS_POPUP | WS_VISIBLE | WS_CAPTION | WS_SYSMENU
EXSTYLE WS_EX_APPWINDOW
CAPTION "Credit Card Calculator"
FONT 8, "MS Sans Serif"
BEGIN
DEFPUSHBUTTON "Calculate",IDOK,198,102,41,14
PUSHBUTTON "Exit",IDCANCEL,198,126,41,14
CONTROL "Spin1",IDC_SPIN_DEBT,"msctls_updown32",UDS_ARROWKEYS,21,22,11,14
END
Resource file has “dialog template”
Dialog box characteristics (popup)
Types of controls used in the dialog (spin)
Control position, size, characteristics

10. Adding Shortcut Keys &Exit Right-click on control and select
Properties
&Exit
Alt-E
will activate the
Exit button

11. Setting Tab Order In Visual C++ menu, choose Layout/Tab Order
Current tab order
will be shown
Click on controls in
desired order to set
a new tab order

12. Responding to User Input
Double-click on the control
“Add Member Function” dialog will pop up
Select “OK” and it will create a function for that control
OnOK for OK button
OnChangeEditXxxx for edit control
Add code to the function to perform needed processing

13. Temperature Converter
IDC_EDIT_INPUT
IDC_EDIT_OUTPUT

14. OnOK Processing

15. How to talk to controls - 1
Use CWnd functions
GetDlgItemText, SetDlgItemText
CheckRadioButton, GetCheckedRadioButton
CheckDlgButton, IsDlgButtonChecked
This was illustrated in Temperature Converter example

16. How to talk to controls - 2
Use info supplied in the message handler

17. How to talk to controls - 3
Use common control classes
CEdit, CListBox, CComboBox, CSliderCtrl, etc
Use CWnd Attach function to associate control class with your control

18. Common Control Class Example
Remember to use Detach function if you
create the object on the stack

19. How to talk to controls - 4
Use Dynamic Data Exchange
Override virtual function DoDataExchange
Use DDX functions to associate member variables with controls
Exchange occurs:
Input (variable to control) in OnInitDialog
Output (control to variable) in OnOK

20. DDX Example

21. DDX Functions DDX_Text Edit control DDX_Check Check box
DDX_Radio Radio box
DDX_LBIndex, DDX_LBString List box
DDX_CBIndex, DDX_CBString Combo box
DDX_Scroll Scroll bar

22. Dynamic Data Validation
Dynamic data validation (DDV) works similar to DDX
DDV checks that input data is within specified limits
If data is outside limits, focus is passed to the control and an error message is displayed

23. DDV Example

24. DDV Functions DDV_MinMaxByte, DDV_MinMaxInt,
DDV_MinMaxLong, DDV_MinMaxUInt,
DDV_MinMaxDWord, DDV_MinMaxFloat,
DDV_MinMaxDouble, DDV_MaxChars

25. Modal vs Modeless Modal Display dialog by calling CDialog::DoModal
Exit by calling CDialog::OnOK or OnCancel
Usually instantiated on the stack so destruction is automatic

26. Modal vs Modeless Modeless Display dialog by calling CDialog::Create
Exit dialog by calling DestroyWindow
Don’t call OnOK or OnCancel
Usually instantiated on the heap (new) so the dialog is not destroyed prematurely
Make sure dialog is deleted by overriding CDialog::PostNcDestroy function using “delete this” statement

27. Basic Modal Dialog Programming (see example p. 398)
Declare dialog member variables in header file (.h)
Initialize variables and setup controls in OnInitDialog
Use Class Wizard to create message handler functions that get user input
Perform data processing in OnOK and comment out call to Cdialog::OnOK()

28. Property Sheets Tabbed dialog boxes
User can switch between pages using mouse
MFC classes
CPropertySheet
CPropertyPage

29. Property Sheets
Is a tabbed dialog box containing pages of controls that user can switch among.
Encapsulated in a pair of MFC classes: CPropertySheet and CPropertyPage
CPropertySheet represents the property sheet itself
CPropertyPage represents a page in the property sheet.
Property sheets can be modal or modeless, created with DoMomal() or Create()

30. How to Create a Modal Property Sheet
For each page create a dialog template.
For each page derive a dialog-like class from CPropertyPage that include public members linked to the page’s controls via DDX or DDV.
Derive a property sheet class from CPropertySheet.
Use CPropertySheet::AddPage() to add pages to the property sheet.
Call the property sheet’s DoModal() to display the property sheet.

31. How to Create a Modal Property Sheet (cont.)
MFC CPropertySheet provide functions for three buttons -- OK, Cancel and Apply.
Property sheet pages should not include OK or Cancel button --when the property sheet’s OK buton is clicked, the current page’s OnOK() is called.
Add message handler for Apply button, which should call the active page’s UpdateData(TRUE).
Use CPropertyPage’s SetModified() to enable or disable Apply button.

32. How to Create a Modal Property Sheet (cont.)
class CFirstPage:public CPropertyPage{
public: ….
// delare member here
ptotected:
virtual void DoDataExchange(CDataExchange*); …. };
class CMyPropertySheet:public CProperySheet{
CFirstPage m_firstPage; // first page …..
public: ….
CMyPropertySheet(…){ // constructor
AddPage(&m_firstPage); …. }

33. Common Dialogs CFileDialog CPrintDialog CPageSetupDialog
CFindReplaceDialog
CColorDialog
CFontDialog

34. CFileDialog

35. CFileDialog code
TCHAR szFilters[] = _T("Text files (*.txt)|*.txt|All files (*.*)|*.*||")
CFileDialog dlg(TRUE, _T("txt"), _T("*.txt"),
OFN_FILEMUSTEXIST | OFN_HIDEREADONLY, szFilters);
if( dlg.DoModal() == IDOK ) {
filename = dlg.GetPathName(); }