Click here to Skip to main content
15,914,447 members
Articles / Desktop Programming / MFC

Create a Modeless Dialog Box as Child Window

Rate me:
Please Sign up or sign in to vote.
4.00/5 (9 votes)
9 Nov 2000 296.1K   3.3K   33   33
Simple step by step article explaining how to create a modeless dialog box as child window.

This article is part of the drag and drop interface samples.

  1. Serializing ASCII Data
  2. Modeless child dialog
  3. Modeless sibling dialog
  4. The drag source
  5. The MFC drop target
  6. The TBTextTarget class

To create the modeless dialog as sibling, follow this link.

Follow these steps:

  1. Create a new dialog resource and use the Class Wizard for making a new CDialog based class for it; let's call it CDropDialog.
  2. In your CFormView-derived class, add a (private) member variable of type CDropDialog* as a container for the modeless dialog class, let's call it m_pModeless. In the constructor of your view, make sure you initialize m_pModeless to NULL.
  3. In your appropriate message handler, let's call it OnModeless, do the following:
    C++
    void CInterfaceView::OnModeless() 
    {
        // Display the modal dialog box
        if (!m_pModeless)
            m_pModeless = new CDropDialog;
    
        if (!::IsWindow(m_pModeless->GetSafeHwnd()))
            m_pModeless->Create(IDD_DIALOG1, this);
    
        m_pModeless->ShowWindow(SW_SHOW); 
    }

In the destructor of the parent window, proof if the dialog has been closed and release the memory:

C++
CInterfaceView::~CInterfaceView()
{
    if (m_pModeless)
    {
        if (::IsWindow(m_pModeless->GetSafeHwnd()))
            m_pModeless->EndDialog(IDCANCEL);
        delete m_pModeless;
    }
}

License

This article has no explicit license attached to it, but may contain usage terms in the article text or the download files themselves. If in doubt, please contact the author via the discussion board below.

A list of licenses authors might use can be found here.


Written By
Web Developer
Germany Germany
PhD Chemist,
programming with MSVC & MFC since 1996

Comments and Discussions

 
GeneralRe: If I set the dialog style to Child, it is not enabled Pin
ZendLion31-Aug-17 20:02
ZendLion31-Aug-17 20:02 
GeneralOnModeless Pin
Julien4-Jan-01 11:35
Julien4-Jan-01 11:35 
GeneralRe: OnModeless Pin
Julien4-Jan-01 11:46
Julien4-Jan-01 11:46 
GeneralEndDialog()?... must be DestroyWindow(). Pin
15-Nov-00 20:22
suss15-Nov-00 20:22 
GeneralRe: EndDialog()?... must be DestroyWindow(). Pin
Leo Davidson16-Nov-00 0:47
Leo Davidson16-Nov-00 0:47 
GeneralRe: EndDialog()?... must be DestroyWindow(). Pin
16-Nov-00 17:19
suss16-Nov-00 17:19 
GeneralRe: EndDialog()?... must be DestroyWindow(). Pin
I_dont_want_no_stinkin_alias29-May-03 5:01
I_dont_want_no_stinkin_alias29-May-03 5:01 
Questionm_pDlg? Pin
Some Guy14-Nov-00 23:12
Some Guy14-Nov-00 23:12 
Thomas,

In the first chunk of code, you have:

if (!::IsWindow(m_pDlg->GetSafeHwnd()))

Shouldn't that be:

if (!::IsWindow(m_pModeless->GetSafeHwnd()))

Can you explain [to an MFC newbie] what this line of code does/why you do it?

I also have a more general question somewhat related to this. I did something similar, but I put it in
my App class and attached a show/hide menu to the dialog. How do I decide if things go in the View
class or in the App class? I'm new to MFC and don't quite understand _where_ I'm [logically]
supposed to put things - App, Doc, View, Frame ???

Thanks,
Some Guy
AnswerRe: m_pDlg? Pin
5-Jun-01 22:30
suss5-Jun-01 22:30 
GeneralRe: m_pDlg? Pin
9-Feb-02 9:43
suss9-Feb-02 9:43 

General General    News News    Suggestion Suggestion    Question Question    Bug Bug    Answer Answer    Joke Joke    Praise Praise    Rant Rant    Admin Admin   

Use Ctrl+Left/Right to switch messages, Ctrl+Up/Down to switch threads, Ctrl+Shift+Left/Right to switch pages.