Modeless Dialog Communication (MFC)

[mhandlon]

I’m trying to figure out how to pass variables back and forth between a modeless dialog and my main program. The program is a dialog based application and I’m trying to write a live trade window to view and edit the list of stocks being used. In

OnInitDialog()

of the main window I created the modeless by

CTraderDlg *m_pTdlg = new CTraderDlg(this);
	m_pTdlg->Create(IDD_TRADER_DIALOG);
	m_pTdlg->ShowWindow(TRUE);

But, how would I pass variables to this window or changes made to the list back to the main application?

Someone in IRC said something about SendMessage or SetWindowLongPtr to a variable… if someone could give me an example I should be able to run with it… please.

[FillYourBrain]

SendMessage is a good method. Basically, you should define a new message

#define WM_MYDATAMESSAGETHINGY (WM_USERMESSAGE + 1)

then, from the dialog just Send the message with whatever parameters you feel like sending. The main window will have to handle the WM_MYDATAMESSAGETHINGY message.

[mhandlon]

In the modeless dialog's class I added the line

#define WM_LOADFILE WM_USER+0x100

in the class header and am using sendmessage as so.

m_pMain->SendMessage(WM_CLOSE);

Where m_pMain is a pointer to the main window I got using..

m_pMain = CWnd::FindWindow(NULL, _T("New Deal Options"));

in the class's constructor.

In the main window I'm trying to send a message to all I changed was

BEGIN_MESSAGE_MAP(CSGOptionsBlackBoxDlg, CResizeDialog)
        .....
        .....
        .....
	ON_MESSAGE (WM_LOADFILE, OnBnClickedImport)
END_MESSAGE_MAP()

But, when I compile I get this error....
c:\Documents and Settings\office3\My Documents\Visual Studio Projects\SGOptionsBlackBox\SGOptionsBlackBoxDlg.cp p(124) : error C2440: 'static_cast' : cannot convert from 'void (__thiscall CSGOptionsBlackBoxDlg::* )(void)' to 'LRESULT (__thiscall CWnd::* )(WPARAM,LPARAM)'
None of the functions with this name in scope match the target type

What exactly does this mean? How do I fix it?

[Ken Fitlike]

Try reinterpret_cast instead.

For future reference, if you highlight the error message in the error window of the ide and press F1 you'll get useful information regarding the specific error message.

c2440

[CornedBee]

Erm, no, it's not a good idea to cast function pointers under any circumstances. Make the signature of your target function match what ON_MESSAGE requires. (Note: it requires the signature (LRESULT (WPARAM, LPARAM)).

LRESULT OnBnClickedImport(WPARAM, LPARAM)

[novacain]

You can also use from the modless dlg

GetParent()

or

AfxGetApp()

and then call these classes methods directly.

[Cat]

I, too, recommend windows messages.

Be very careful with SendMessage() if you're using it across a thread boundary. It's easy to create deadlock conditions with it. PostMessage() doesn't have that problem.

If there's not a multithreading issue to deal with, then either should be fine.

I tend to use PostMessage() in general unless I really want the calling code to wait for the message to finish being processed.

[mhandlon]

Thank you, using SendMessage I was able to send messages w/o a problem and use caller functions to get @ the functions I wanted. The one thing I don’t get is how to pass variables, pointers, arrays… whatever using SendMessage.

[Cat]

Just cast one of the parameters. E.g.:

wind->SendMessage(UWM_MYMESSAGENAME, (WPARAM) &buffer, (LPARAM) count);

...

LRESULT OnMyMessage(WPARAM w, LPARAM l){
     char * buffer = (char *) w;
     int count = (int) l;
     ...
}

The only thing to know about passing pointers:
1. Pointers can't be passed over a process boundary (but they can be passed over a thread boundary).
2. If you pass pointers over a thread boundary, and you use PostMessage(), your pointer must be guaranteed to still be valid when the other thread accesses it (no local variables!)