Simplest Checkable Groupbox Class

• Download demo project - 13.9 Kb
• Download source code - 3.25 Kb

Introduction

Lots of time we want to disable a set of controls in our dialog. Group box is a good control to categorize a few controls together, but unfortunately it cannot enable/disable its controls. I extended CButton class and made it very simple to accomplish this and it is encapsulated into one class.

So you can change the title of a group box into a check box or radio button (then you need more group boxes of course).

I must confess I borrowed some idea of other talented programmers.

How to use it

1. Draw a group box in resource editor as usual. In resource editor, change the style property of group box to icon or bitmap, this prevents Overlapped text when tab is pressed!

   

   You can also enable tab key navigation by enabling Tab Stop in group box resource like following

   

2. Add a member variable for this added group box, but choose CCheckableGroupBox as control type.
3. In OnInitDialog(), call m_yourVariable.SetTitleStyle(BS_AUTOCHECKBOX); to change normal title to a check box, or use BS_AUTORADIOBUTTON for radio box.
4. you want a group of group box toggle by radio box title, just create more Checkable group box as you already did, and call SetGroupID to give them a group!
5. In updated version of this control, I support DDX_Check, which means now you can use UpdateData() to update and save the state of check box in an standard MFC fashion.

Because the check/radio box is created when SetTitleStyle() is called, no variable update is applicable before that point. If you want to update the status from a member variable, please call UpdateData(FALSE) after that. I know it's not perfect but it's not that bad anyway.

History

• Updated (21/11/03) - Supports windows WM_ENABLE message. Now you can call EnableWindow() to disable the whole group!
• Updated (24/11/03) - Suppot DDX_Check for variable exchange. Please refer to demo project for details. Tab support by enable tab stop style in resource.
• Updated (02/12/03) - Send BN_CLICKED Message to parent dialog while title box is clicked. This is crucial if you use this control along with my Data Driven UI Behaviour Pattern.
• Updated (03/12/03) - Support embedded group boxes (Groupbox inside another), no level or number limitations!