Buttons

Windows CE provides dialog boxes and controls to support communication between an application and the user. A button is a Windows control that a user can turn on or off to provide input to an application. Buttons can be used alone or in groups and can appear with or without application-defined text, known as a label. Buttons belong to the BUTTON window class.

The user turns a button on or off by selecting it with the stylus or keyboard. Selecting a button changes its visual appearance and state, for example, from checked to unchecked. A button can send messages to its parent window, and a parent window can send messages to a button.

Although you can use buttons in overlapped, pop-up, and child windows, they are designed for use in dialog boxes where Windows CE standardizes their behavior. If you use buttons outside dialog boxes, you increase the risk that your application may behave in a nonstandard fashion. You can create customized buttons by using window subclassing procedures.

Windows CE provides four kinds of buttons: push buttons, check boxes, radio buttons, and group boxes. Each type has one or more styles which affects the button's appearance, behavior, or both.

Thes following button types are described in this chapter: