Dialog Boxes: Overview

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Dialog boxes are windowsused to display status information or to obtain information from the user. The user uses dialog boxes to have a “dialog” with your program. Dialog boxes contain controls, including:

• Windows common controls such as edit boxes, pushbuttons, list boxes, combo boxes, tree controls, list controls, and progress indicators.
  
  
• ActiveX controls.
  
  
• Owner-drawn controls: controls that you are responsible for drawing in the dialog box.

Most dialog boxes are modal. The user can interact only with the dialog box while the box is open. But it is possible to create modeless dialog boxes, which let users work with other windows while the dialog box is open. MFC supports both kinds of dialog box with class CDialog. The controls are arranged and managed using a dialog-template resource, created with the dialog editor.

Property sheets, also known as tab dialog boxes, are dialog boxes that contain “pages” of distinct dialog-box controls. Each page has a file folder “tab” at the top. Clicking on a tab brings that page to the front of the dialog box.

What do you want to do?

• Learn more about:
  • Modal and modeless dialog boxes
    
    
  • Property sheet dialog boxes (tab dialog boxes)
• Create a:
  • Modal dialog box
    
    
  • Modeless dialog box
    
    
  • Property sheet dialog box
• Create a dialog-template resource with the dialog editor
  
  
• Work with dialog boxes
  
  
• Work with MFC’s dialog data exchange (DDX) and validation (DDV)