Dialog Box Template

A dialog box template is binary data that describes the dialog box, defining its height, width, style, and the controls it contains. To create a dialog box, Windows either loads a dialog box template from the resources in the application's executable file or uses the template passed to it in global memory by the application. In either case, the application must supply a template when creating a dialog box.

A developer creates template resources by using a resource compiler or a dialog box editor. A resource compiler converts a text description into a binary resource, and a dialog box editor saves an interactively constructed dialog box as a binary resource.

Note An explanation of how to create template resources and add them to the application's executable file is beyond the scope of this overview. For more information about creating template resources and adding them to an executable file, see the documentation provided with your application development tools.

To create a dialog box without using template resources, you must create a template in memory and pass it to the CreateDialogIndirectParam or DialogBoxIndirectParam function, or to the CreateDialogIndirect or DialogBoxIndirect macro.

A dialog box template in memory consists of a header that describes the dialog box, followed by one or more additional blocks of data that describe each of the controls in the dialog box. The template can use either the standard format or the extended format. In a standard template, the header is a DLGTEMPLATE structure followed by additional variable-length arrays; and the data for each control consists of a DLGITEMTEMPLATE structure followed by additional variable-length arrays. In an extended dialog box template, the header uses the DLGTEMPLATEEX format and the control definitions use the DLGITEMTEMPLATEEX format.

You can create a memory template by allocating a global memory object and filling it with the standard or extended header and control definitions. A memory template is identical in form and content to a template resource. Many applications that use memory templates first use the LoadResource function to load a template resource into memory, then modify the loaded resource to create a new memory template. For more information about creating a dialog box template in memory, see Templates in Memory.

The following sections describe the styles, measurements, and other values used in a dialog box template.

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