Changing windows without changing?

I've got a main screen for my game with 4 buttons: new, load, options, and quit.

When the player clicks options, I was basically wanting to stay in the same window but erase everything and start over; maybe using a different handle and window procedure(?) The new window will be called (drum roll) the "Options Window" and have it's own stuff.

My boss told me "You must change without changing, my son"

He also said "If you cannot change without changing, it will be time for you to leave"

Any ideas?

mw

I think what you are wanting to do is to keep the new, load, options and quit items visible while changing an area of the screen to display the options when the options button is clicked. If this is correct then create a new window, perhaps a child window of the main window and display it where the options should be.
You can have multiple windows with the same co-ordinates and use ShowWindow() to show/hide the window depending on which button the user clicked.

What would be so bad about opening a new window on top of your old like any other windows application does ?

It's something I've seen in pc video games: you click the options button (or whatever) and everything on the window disappears and is replaced with something new. Usually there's a "transition effect" of some sort: the old controls fade or zoom off and disappear into the background and the new controls fade in or zoom IN to the screen from the background, etc. I don't need a fancy transition effect at this point though.

The "old" window controls, background, etc are not visible when the new controls become visible.

When the new controls are no longer used (ie: the user clicks "Return to Main Menu") then the new controls disappear and the old controls return.

The point is the user doesn't detect a change in the window itself, merely a change in controls (and background, etc).

I know, I know: it's crazy, impossible, nobody's ever done that, etc.

Now how do I do it?

mw

You can just destroy the current controls in the window with DestroyWindow.
Or hide them with ShowWindow.

Hide the current controls (or dialog),
show the options controls (or dialog)
process the options input.
Hide the options dialog,
Show the main ones.

Make the option window/dlg modal. This means that the options window must be closed/finalised before the user can move on.

>>Usually there's a "transition effect" of some sort
Look at AnimateWindow()

Another option is to move your options screen to the top of the z-order (and re-size to the current screen) with SetWindowPos().
This will have the effect of hiding the current screen, unless the user moves them apart. As maximised that is not possible (or make sure it its not by handling the move msgs)

Thanks guys! I'll give that a try!

mw

Works great! And it was easy! :-)

Still having centering problems with my new button though... :-(

mw