Common dialog boxes make it easier for you to develop applications for the Microsoft Windows operating system. A common dialog box is a dialog box that an application displays by calling a single function rather than by creating a dialog box procedure and a resource file containing a dialog box template. The dynamic-link library COMMDLG.DLL provides a default procedure and template for each type of common dialog box. Each default dialog box procedure processes messages and notifications for a common dialog box and its controls. A default dialog box template defines the appearance of a common dialog box and its controls.
In addition to simplifying the development of Windows applications, a common dialog box assists users by providing a standard set of controls for performing certain operations. As Windows developers begin using the common dialog boxes in their applications, users will find that after they master using a common dialog box in one application, they can easily perform the same operations in other applications.
This chapter describes the various common dialog boxes and includes sample code to help you use common dialog boxes in your Windows applications.
Following are the types of common dialog boxes in the order in which they are presented in this chapter:
| Name | Description |
| Color | Displays available colors, from which the user can select one; displays controls that let the user define a custom color. |
| Font | Displays lists of fonts, point sizes, and colors that correspond to available fonts; after the user selects a font, the dialog box displays sample text rendered with that font. |
| Open | Displays a list of filenames matching any specified extensions, directories, and drives. By selecting one of the listed filenames, the user indicates which file an application should open. |
| Save As | Displays a list of filenames matching any specified extensions, directories, and drives. By selecting one of the listed filenames, the user indicates which file an application should save. |
| Displays information about the installed printer and its configuration. By altering and selecting controls in this dialog box, the user specifies how output should be printed and starts the printing process. | |
| Print Setup | Displays the current list of available printers. The user can select a printer from this list. This common dialog box also provides options for setting the paper orientation, size, and source (when the printer driver supports these options). In addition to being called directly, the Print Setup dialog can be opened from within the Print dialog. |
| Find | Displays an edit control in which the user can type a string for which the application should search. The user can specify the direction of the search, whether the application should match the case of the specified string, and whether the string to match is an entire word. |
| Replace | Displays two edit controls in which the user can type strings: the first string identifies a word or value that the application should replace, and the second string identifies the replacement word or value. |
Applications that use the common dialog boxes should specify at least 8K for the stack size, as shown in the following example:
NAME cd
EXETYPE WINDOWS
STUB 'WINSTUB.EXE'
CODE PRELOAD MOVEABLE DISCARDABLE
DATA PRELOAD MOVEABLE MULTIPLE
HEAPSIZE 1024
STACKSIZE 8192
EXPORTS
FILEOPENHOOKPROC @1