Display Dialog Box Then Execute

I want to know how to get a dialog box to display itself before I execute a function. This is what I have for the dialog box procedure:

Code:

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LRESULT CALLBACK DlgProc(HWND hWndDlg, UINT Message, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam) {
    switch(Message) {
          case WM_INITDIALOG:
              hProgress = CreateWindowEx(0, PROGRESS_CLASS, NULL, WS_CHILD | WS_VISIBLE, 5,35,76,20, hWndDlg, 0, hInst, NULL);
              SendMessage(hProgress, PBM_SETRANGE, 0, MAKELPARAM(0,100));
              SendMessage(hProgress, PBM_SETSTEP, (WPARAM)5, 0);
              return true;
          case WM_COMMAND:
              myFunction(hWndDlg); // This calls a function which updates the progress bar
              EndDialog(hWndDlg,0);
              return true;
          default:
              return DefWindowProc(hWndDlg, Message, wParam, lParam);
    }
}

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The problem with that code is the dialog box isnt displayed UNTIL AFTER myFunction has completed its execution (and then the next line of code closes the dialog box, so you actually dont get to see the dialog box at all). I just want a simple progress bar that I can set the current status in myFunction (which this works properly if I could only get it to display the dialog box).

Any help is greatly appreciated. THANKS!!!

This should have been posted on the windows board (maybe a mod will move it). If you don't actually see the dialog box, how do you know that it gets displayed? Is it created with the WS_VISIBLE style?

If I comment out the EndDialog() line, the dialog box is displayed after myFunction() executes.

I'm sorry for putting this in the wrong forum...

I don't think there's anything in the code you posted that should cause that to happen. I see two errors: your dialog procedure should return FALSE as default, and the return type should be INT_PTR. But I don't think either of those should cause the behavior you've described.

Could you post the code that creates the dialog and the dialog template resource?

Here is the code I use to create the dialog (and I call this function from another dialog box):

Code:

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DialogBox(hInst, "PROGRESSDLG", GetParent(hWndDlg), reinterpret_cast<DLGPROC>(DlgProc));
// GetParent(...) gets the main window...I want the parent dialog to be the main window for this dialog and not a dialog to be the parent

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Here is my updated procedure code. There is no default parameter this time because if I put the DefWinowProc(...) function there, the WM_LBUTTONDOWN message never gets called (which is needed if someone wants to reposition the progress bar)

Code:

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LRESULT CALLBACK DlgProc(HWND hWndDlg, UINT Message, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam) {
    switch(Message) {
          case WM_INITDIALOG:
              hProgress = CreateWindowEx(0, PROGRESS_CLASS, NULL, WS_CHILD | WS_VISIBLE, 5,35,76,20, hWndDlg, 0, hInst, NULL);
              SendMessage(hProgress, PBM_SETRANGE, 0, MAKELPARAM(0,100));
              SendMessage(hProgress, PBM_SETSTEP, (WPARAM)5, 0);
              SendMessage(hWndDlg, WM_COMMAND, 0, 0);
              break;
          case WM_COMMAND:
              myFunction(hWndDlg); // This calls a function which updates the progress bar
              SendMessage(hWndDlg, WM_DESTROY, 0, 0);
              break;
          case WM_DESTROY:
              EndDialog(hWndDlg, 0);
              break;
          case WM_LBUTTONDOWN:
              SendMessage(hWndDlg, WM_NCLBUTTONDOWN, HTCAPTION, lParam);
              break;
    }
    return 0;
}

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And lastly, here is my resource code...

Code:

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PROGRESSDLG DIALOGEX 75,82,50,41
STYLE DS_SETFONT | DS_FIXEDSYS | WS_POPUP | WS_BORDER
FONT 9, "Times New Roman"
BEGIN
    LTEXT            "Please wait...",IDC_STATIC,5,5,40,12
END

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Win32 API

(dialog boxes) must not call the DefWindowProc function to process unwanted messages. Unwanted messages are processed internally by the dialog box window procedure.

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What are you processing the WM_COMMAND message in return to? There are any number of things and controls (buttons, menu items, etc) that _all_ spawn WM_COMMAND messages, usually there is some filtering done to determine who sent that message. You're responding to all of them the same - probably bad practice. What are you trying to accomplish, in English?

Edit in response to your code:
1) You're not returning the correct values from your callback. Return nonzero if you process the message, zero if you don't. (Except on WM_INITDIALOG, look it up.)
2) You shouldn't need the cast in DialogBox();.
3) Again, the WM_COMMAND parts are mysterious. The way your code is setup, you will never see the box, because:
DialogBox() sends a WM_INITDIALOG to your box.
Your box does a SendMessage() to itself with WM_COMMAND.
Your box (processing WM_COMMAND) sends itself a WM_DESTROY.
WM_DESTROY calls EndDialog(), which says:

Quote:

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If your application calls the function while WM_INITDIALOG is being processed, the dialog box is destroyed before it is shown and before the input focus is set.

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And your dialog is gone. (After WM_INITDIALOG is finished then will DialogBox() display your dialog. Your WM_INITDIALOG essentially kills the dialog before it is shown.)

1.) Could you tell me what to return? I believe that you and JaWiB disagree on the type thats returned. Bascially, JaWiB said INT and your saying BOOL. So, bascially, which one do I return, INT or BOOL?

3.) I understand what you are saying, but my question basically is, how can the WM_COMMAND message be sent automatically after the dialog box is created. If I move my WM_COMMAND send message from WM_INITDIALOG to WM_KEYDOWN, everything works as I want it to, but it doesnt start myFunction(...) until I hit Enter (which is KEYDOWN). My basic question is how can I send a message AUTOMATICALLY after the dialog box is created.

EDIT:

For question 1.), how big of a difference does it make by returning different values? For me, everything works no matter what I return. Maybe I'm missing something, but I dont see the significance in what is returned.

EDIT EDIT:

2.) When I removed the cast, I got quite a few compiler errors. Invalid conversions between LRESULT and BOOL. I think the cast is necessary.

I said the return type should be INT_PTR, but if you don't handle any messages (default case) you should return FALSE.

If you change the prototype to:

Code:

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INT_PTR CALLBACK DlgProc(HWND hWndDlg, UINT Message, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam)

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You shouldn't need the cast.

There might be a message sent to the dialog immediately after it is displayed, but I'm not sure (possibly WM_ENTERIDLE would work). What you could do is create the dialog with the CreateDialog function, then immediately after that send a custom message to the dialog, eg:

Code:

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#define UM_MYMESSAGE WM_USER + 10

HWND hDialog = CreateDialog(/*...*/);
if (hDialog)
  SendMessage(hDialog,UM_MYMESSAGE,0,0);

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I changed the prototype to INT_PTR and removed the cast and it worked. Thanks for your help.

Ok, for the default case, return false, and for all the other cases, return true? Is that correct or should it be 0 (zero) or what should be returned, literally.

I also just realized that myFunction(...) doesnt need to be in the WM_COMMAND case because I'm sending a message (WM_COMMAND message), so instead of sending a message, I can just put myFunction(...) in there instead....This doesnt really help me, but it somewhat allows me to be more flexible with my code.

WM_ENTERIDLE didnt work. I'm sure it would work as soon as the dialog box entered the idle state, but I dont want to wait that long.

Using CreateDialog, I was able to get it to work properly...Just only one problem...It doesnt display my LTEXT. I tried creating a STATIC class window, but that didnt work either. Any suggestions. EDIT: Maybe it doesnt work entirely properly. Only the WM_INITDIALOG message is sent. It never sends the WM_LBUTTONDOWN message (which is needed if someone wants to move the progress bar around).

Thanks for your help.

Let's see your updated code.

My resource code hasnt changed...I think theres a problem with DIALOGEX, it should be DIALOG. Could that be causing any of my problems? (I would prefer to have DIALOGEX because it makes the dialog box look much nicer)

Here is one way that I'm calling the dialog box. The only problem with this one is that I dont know how to initialize myFunction(...) after the dialog box has been created and displayed.

Code:

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DialogBox(hInst, "PROGRESSDLG", hWndDlg, DlgProc);

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Here is the other way that I'm calling the dialog box. Two problems with this one. 1 - WM_LBUTTONDOWN message never gets called resulting in a dialog box that cant be repositioned. 2 - The LTEXT control isnt displayed, but the progress bar is.

Code:

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HWND hDialog = CreateDialog(hInst, "PROGRESSDLG", hWndDlg, DlgProc);
ShowWindow(hDialog, SW_SHOWNORMAL);
if(hDialog) {
    myFunction(hDialog);
    DestroyWindow(hDialog);
}

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Here is my procedure function:

Code:

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INT_PTR CALLBACK DlgProc(HWND hWndDlg, UINT Message, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam) {
    switch(Message) {
          case WM_INITDIALOG:
              //CreateWindowEx(0,"Static","Please wait...",WS_CHILD | WS_VISIBLE,5,5,40,12,hWndDlg,0,hInst,NULL);
              hProgress = CreateWindowEx(0,PROGRESS_CLASS,NULL,WS_CHILD | WS_VISIBLE,5,35,76,20,hWndDlg,0,hInst,NULL);
              SendMessage(hProgress, PBM_SETRANGE, 0, MAKELPARAM(0,100));
              SendMessage(hProgress, PBM_SETSTEP, (WPARAM)5, 0);
              return true;
          case WM_COMMAND:
              myFunction(hWndDlg);
              EndDialog(hWndDlg,0);
              return true;
          case WM_LBUTTONDOWN:
              SendMessage(hWndDlg, WM_NCLBUTTONDOWN, HTCAPTION, lParam);
              // The next line allows me to initiate myFunction(...) after I click and release the left mouse button within the progress bar dialog box
              SendMessage(hWndDlg, WM_COMMAND, 0, 0);
              return true;
          default:
              return false;
    }
}

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I comment out the case WM_COMMAND portion and the Send WM_COMMAND portion when I try the second way of creating the dialog box.

EDIT:

If I wanted to, I could replace the WM_COMMAND SendMessage (which is located in the WM_LBUTTONDOWN message) with myFunction(...); EndDialog(...); and it would do the same thing. Thats kinda what I meant in my previous post.

EDIT EDIT:

One thing I tried to do for automatically initializing the myFunction() function was to put it in the default case. I assumed WM_INITDIALOG is the very first message that gets sent and the second message, no matter what, would initialize myFunction() and close the dialog box. However, that never displays the dialog box. I then attempted to put myFunction() within the WM_PAINT message (since WM_PAINT is another message that is automatically sent), but then the LTEXT control is not displayed, but it works.

Also, I just realized that if I'm in the middle of executing myFunction, there isnt going to be any messages sent and since I want myFunction to execute automatically and when its done, I want it to close the dialog box, the user will have no possible way of moving the dialog box so I can remove that message.

Finally...Me fergets I made meself simple text output function...Here is my procedure function using the first method of calling a dialog box:

Code:

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INT_PTR CALLBACK DlgProg(HWND hWndDlg, UINT Message, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam) {
    switch(Message) {
          case WM_INITDIALOG:
              hProgress = CreateWindowEx(0,PROGRESS_CLASS,NULL,WS_CHILD | WS_VISIBLE,5,35,76,20,hWndDlg,0,hInst,NULL);
              SendMessage(hProgress, PBM_SETRANGE, 0, MAKELPARAM(0,100));
              SendMessage(hProgress, PBM_SETSTEP, (WPARAM)5, 0);
              return true;
          case WM_PAINT: {
              PAINTSTRUCT ps;
              HDC hdc = BeginPaint(hWndDlg, &ps);
              RECT rc;
              GetClientRect(hWndDlg,&rc);
              //Parameter of textout():
              // (HDC,RECT,Const Char* output,INT fontsize,INT mode, UINT);
              // Mode - 1=bold,2=bold/italic,3=italic,4=normal
              textout(hdc, rc, "\r\nPlease wait...", 14, 4, DT_CENTER | DT_WORDBREAK);
              EndPaint(hWndDlg, &ps);
              myFunction(hWndDlg);
              EndDialog(hWndDlg,0);
              return true;
          }
          default:
              return false;
    }
}

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That works perfectly...Thanks for your help.

Code:

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HWND hDialog = CreateDialog(hInst, "PROGRESSDLG", hWndDlg, DlgProc);

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I think that should be

Code:

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HWND hDialog = CreateDialog(hInst, MAKEINTRESOURCE(PROGRESSDLG), hWndDlg, DlgProc);

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MAKEINTRESOURCE(PROGRESSDLG) and "PROGRESSDLG" are the same thing except you have to predefine PROGRESSDLG if you use MAKEINTRESOURCE. I forget where I read that, but I'll post a link if I'm able to find.

Ah! I wasn't quite understanding what you wanted to occur. Grats on getting it fixed.

As a last note, MAKEINTRESOURCE(PROGRESSDLG) and "PROGRESSDLG" are not the same thing, and which one you want depends on how you built your resource file. Since your program is working, there is no need for change. The difference is that one is a string ("ID") and one a number (MAKEINTRESOURCE(ID), where ID is usually #define'd as some number.) But otherwise both are perfectly valid - but not the same.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Win32 API

If the high-order word of the [name] is zero, the low-order word specifies the integer identifier of the name or type of the given resource. Otherwise, those parameters are long pointers to null-terminated strings. If the first character of the string is a pound sign (#), the remaining characters represent a decimal number that specifies the integer identifier of the resource's name or type. For example, the string "#258" represents the integer identifier 258.

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See MAKEINTRESOURCE() and FindResource().

(100th post! Yay...)

Thanks for clarifying that for me. I actually think I saw "ID" in an example somewhere and decided to use it since it worked just like MAKEINTRESOURCE(ID). I just think its easier if you dont have to #define as much (especially with me, I have a lot of #definitions.)

stickman, How long do you expect myFunction to take? If it takes a short time then even if you got the dialog to display before it was executed then it would disapear pretty quickly. If it will take a long time and you want myFunction to update the dialog's progress control, multithreading is your answer.

Code:

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case WM_INITDIALOG:
              hProgress = CreateWindowEx(0,PROGRESS_CLASS,NULL,WS_CHILD | WS_VISIBLE,5,35,76,20,hWndDlg,0,hInst,NULL);
              SendMessage(hProgress, PBM_SETRANGE, 0, MAKELPARAM(0,100));
              SendMessage(hProgress, PBM_SETSTEP, (WPARAM)5, 0);
              DWORD dwID;             
              HANDLE hThread=CreateThread(NULL,  0,  (LPVOID)&MyFunction,  hWndDlg,  0, &dwID,);
              CloseHandle(hThread);
);

              return true;

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myFunction(...) depends on what the user inputted in the previous dialog box. It uploads files (so if the files are big, it takes a long time, if the files are small, it takes a short time). Right now, I'm glad I got it working how I want it to. The next thing I need to do is update the progress bar at a steady, but accurate pace. Right now, I have the progress bar updating in certain parts of myFunction(...).

About the multithreading. I'm not familiar with this so I'd prefer not to do this. Thanks for the information anyway.