Dialog Box Keyboard Interface - Win32 Programmer's Reference

Custom Search

Dialog Box Keyboard Interface

Windows provides a special keyboard interface for dialog boxes that carries out special processing for several keys. The interface generates messages that correspond to certain buttons in the dialog box or changes the input focus from one control to another. Following are the keys used in this interface and their respective actions.

Key	Action
ALT+mnemonic	Moves the input focus to the first control (having the WS_TABSTOP style) after the static control containing the given mnemonic.
DOWN	Moves the input focus to the next control in the group.
ENTER	Sends a WM_COMMAND message to the dialog box procedure. The wParam parameter is set to IDOK or control identifier of the default push button.
ESC	Sends a WM_COMMAND message to the dialog box procedure. The wParam parameter is set to IDCANCEL.
LEFT	Moves the input focus to the previous control in the group.
mnemonic	Moves the input focus to the first control (having the WS_TABSTOP style) after the static control containing the given mnemonic.
RIGHT	Moves the input focus to the next control in the group.
SHIFT+TAB	Moves the input focus to the previous control that has the WS_TABSTOP style.
TAB	Moves the input focus to the next control that has the WS_TABSTOP style.
UP	Moves the input focus to the previous control in the group.

The Win32 API automatically provides the keyboard interface for all modal dialog boxes. It does not provide the interface for modeless dialog boxes unless the application calls the IsDialogMessage function to filter messages in its main message loop. This means that the application must pass the message to IsDialogMessage immediately after retrieving the message from the message queue. The function processes the messages if it is for the dialog box and returns a nonzero value to indicate that the message has been processed and must not be passed to the TranslateMessage or DispatchMessage function.

Because the dialog box keyboard interface uses direction keys to move between controls in a dialog box, an application cannot use these keys to scroll the contents of any modal dialog box or any modeless dialog box for which IsDialogMessage is called. When a dialog box has scroll bars, the application must provide an alternate keyboard interface for the scroll bars. Note that the mouse interface for scrolling is available when the system includes a mouse.

Last news from Greatis Software

    Nostalgia .Net     .Net is powerful, but not all-powerful, so sometimes we need to use Win32 API for our .Net applications. It's simple enough with Platform Invoke if you have Win32 skill, but we do not always have time to dig the ancient documentation, declare the special types that are compatible with Win32, find the values of the Win32's constants and so on. Nostalgia .Net offers several simple-to-use classes, and components that will allow you to forget about the headache of Win32 and just use the power of Win32 in your application the same way as you use the native. Net classes. More »

Recommended software for developers

    Ultimate Pack     Component pack for Delphi and C++ Builder that contains runtime form designer, runtime object inspector, print suite and much more for the very special price. More »

    Form Designer .Net     Unique runtime form design solution that allows to edit any form in .Net WinForms application at runtime with full source codes for only 300 euro! More »

    Print Suite .Net     Print Suite .Net is a set of components for easy printing texts, images and grids from your WinForms applications. Full C# source codes are available More »

    Gradient Controls .Net     Gradient Controls .Net offers controls with gradient background feature. Labels, panels and so on... Full C# source codes are available More »

    Greatis iGrid     iGrid plots drawing grid right over your desktop, so you can use it everywhere, with any drawing application without any special plugins for different graphic editors. More »

All the contacts and projects

Dmitry Vasiliev (just.dmitry)

More Online Helps

Win32 Programmer's Reference
Win32 Multimedia Programmer's Reference
OLE Programmer's Reference
Microsoft Windows Pen API Programmer's Reference
Microsoft Windows Sockets 2 Reference
Microsoft Windows Telephony API (TAPI) Programmer's Reference
Unix Manual Pages

greatis just4fun network