Windows Controls

Most controls can be encapsulated in objects that are either embedded in the appropriate Controller (you can have a separate Controller objects for every dialog box in your program) or, for static controls, in the View.

Controller objects are created in response to WM_CREATE or, for dialog boxes, WM_INITDIALOG messages. Constructors of controls embedded in these Controllers are executed at that time.

The base class for most controls is SimpleControl. It obtains and stores the window handle of the particular control. To obtain this handle, you need the parent window handle and the control's id.

class SimpleControl
{
public:
	SimpleControl (HWND hwndParent, int id)
        : _hWnd (GetDlgItem (hwndParent, id))
    {}

    void SetFocus ()
    {
        ::SetFocus (_hWnd);
    }

    HWND Hwnd () const { return _hWnd; }

protected:
    HWND _hWnd;
};

class Edit: public SimpleControl
{
public:
    Edit (HWND hwndParent, int id)
        : SimpleControl (hwndParent, id)
    {}

    void SetString (char* buf)
    {
        SendMessage (Hwnd (), WM_SETTEXT, 0, (LPARAM) buf);
    }

    // code is the HIWORD (wParam)
    static BOOL IsChanged (int code)
    {
        return code == EN_CHANGE;
    }

    int GetLen ()
    {
        return SendMessage (Hwnd (), WM_GETTEXTLENGTH, 0, 0);
    }

    void GetString (char* buf, int len)
    {
        SendMessage (Hwnd (), WM_GETTEXT,
                      (WPARAM) len, (LPARAM) buf);
    }

    void Select ()
    {
        SendMessage (Hwnd (), EM_SETSEL, 0, -1);
    }
};

class Controller
{
public:
    Controller(HWND hwnd);
    ...
private:
    Edit    _edit;
    char    _string [maxLen];
};

Controller::Controller (HWND hwnd)
    : _edit (hwnd, IDC_EDIT)
{
    _edit.SetFocus ();
    ...
}

void Controller::Command (HWND hwnd, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam)
{
    switch (LOWORD(wParam))
    {
        case IDC_EDIT:
            if (_edit.IsChanged(HIWORD (wParam)))
            {
                _edit.GetString (_string, maxLen);
            }
            break;
        ...
    }
}

But, of course, the most likely place to use controls is in a Dialog Box.