win32 gui

Hi,

I have made a button, when pressed program should activate some shortcuts. I am using the GetAsyncKeyState function to find out what button is pressed. But where should I put this, currently I have put it this way, but when activated the GUI stops responding untill the shortcut button has pressed:

Code:

BOOL CALLBACK DialogProc(HWND hWnd, UINT message, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam)
{	
	switch (message)
	{    
	case WM_COMMAND:
		switch (LOWORD(wParam))
		{
		case IDC_ACTIVATE:
			while(1) { while(!GetAsyncKeyState(vKey)) Sleep(50);
				/* Do Stuff.. */
				break;
			}
			break;
		}
	break;
	return 0;
}

Any info about how I can fix this is welcome,
apsync

[edit]I am using Windows XP as OS and VC++6 as compiler[/edit]

You can't just halt the windows message loop by throwing in a while(1) and a sleep.

Everything has to be, get in, do some small amount of work based on the current message and get out again.

So for instance

Code:

BOOL CALLBACK DialogProc(HWND hWnd, UINT message, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam)
{	
	static bActivated = FALSE;  // a bit of persistent memory for this function

	switch (message)
	{    
	case WM_COMMAND:
		switch (LOWORD(wParam))
		{
		case IDC_ACTIVATE:
			bActivated = TRUE;
			break;
		}
	break;
	case WM_TIMER: // maybe WM_KEYDOWN, WM_CHAR, etc etc - RTM to find suitable ones
		if ( bActivated && GetAsyncKeyState(vKey) ) {
			/* Do Stuff.. */
		}
	break;
	}
	return 0;
}

Obviously, in response to some other message, you set the flag to FALSE again.

If you want your application to respond to the key even if it's not the current app, perhaps RegisterHotKey() is what you're looking for.

Thanks for the replies. I see what you mean Salem, I have a totally different view now, thanks.

Also, Cactus_Hugger, I will check out what RegisterHotKey function does and if it is any good in my situation, but for now I will stick with Salem's solution.

>>// maybe WM_KEYDOWN, WM_CHAR, etc etc - RTM to find suitable ones
Can you provide a link, been searching on msdn but couldnt find it. Isn't 'message identifiers' the right keyword for it?

Since you're using VC6, just point at a message identifier and press F1

Or point at a message identifier, right click and press "goto definition".
That will take you to the windows header file containing a whole bunch of them, where you can then F1 all the ones which might interest you.

That helps, thank you.