HOWTO: Using Accelerator Keys Within a Modal Dialog Box

• The Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC), included with:
  • Microsoft Visual C++, 32-bit Editions, versions 4.1, 4.2, 5.0, 6.0

SUMMARY

Accelerator keys are a common User Interface feature of Windows applications; therefore, why limit them to just the application? This article shows how to add accelerator key functionality to any modal dialog box.

MORE INFORMATION

Keyboard accelerators are processed by calling the TranslateAccelerator() function in the application's main message loop. However, for a modal dialog box, the dialog box manager message loop (built into Windows) is used to translate and dispatch messages. Of course, because this message loop is not designed to process accelerators, it does not call the TranslateAccelerator() function.

To process accelerator keys in a modal dialog box, you must override the the dialog box's PreTranslateMessage() function and try to process the message as an accelerator by calling ::TranslateAccelerator(). If this method fails, then processing continues by calling the the base class PreTranslateMessage().

For the purposes of this article, we add accelerator key functionality to the AboutBox dialog box of an MFC AppWizard-generated MDI application:

1. Use AppWizard to create a new MFC MDI application called Test.



2. Add a button, with resource ID "IDC_BUTTON1", to the AboutBox dialog box resource.



3. Use Class Wizard to add a handler for this button and insert the following code as an indicator that the accelerator key works:
   

   AfxMessageBox("Hello"); 




4. Insert a new Accelerator Table to the Resource.



5. Add an Accelerator key to the table by associating the F5 key to the resource ID "IDC_BUTTON1".



6. Add the member variable, m_hAccelTable, to the class CAboutBox:
   

   HACCEL  m_hAccelTable; 




7. Initialize m_hAccelTable in CAboutBox::CAboutBox:
   

   m_hAccelTable = LoadAccelerators(AfxGetInstanceHandle(), MAKEINTRESOURCE(IDR_ACCELERATOR1)); 




8. Use Class Wizard to add an override of the PreTranslateMessage for the CAboutDlg.



9. In the CAboutBox::PreTranslateMessage() method, add the following lines of code:
   

   BOOL CAboutDlg::PreTranslateMessage(MSG* pMsg) {
      if (m_hAccelTable) {
         if (::TranslateAccelerator(m_hWnd, m_hAccelTable, pMsg)) {
            return(TRUE);
         }
      }
      return CDialog::PreTranslateMessage(pMsg);
   
   } 




10. Compile and run CTestApp.

REFERENCES

For additional information about accelerator key processing within modal dialog boxes, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q100770 INFO: Using Accelerator Keys with Modal Dialog Box Main Window

Additional query words: accelerator modal dialog

Keywords : kbKeyAccel kbMFC kbVC410 kbVC420 kbVC500 kbVC600 kbVS600
Version : winnt:4.1,4.2,5.0,6.0
Platform : winnt
Issue type : kbhowto