WTL - Button Menu
3.50/5 (2 votes)
Jul 28, 2000
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Use WTL to create simple button that implements drop-down menu
DevStudio's Tools|Customize menu displays a dialog box that contains a button control with an arrow on it. When pressed, the button will display a drop-down menu. I needed this feature in my ATL applications, but didn't want the overhead of MFC or the headache of Win32. So I borrowed from Norm Almond's excellent example of Cool Push Menu Button and ported it to WTL, simplifying it's functionality along the way. I'm not implying anything was wrong with what Norm developed...the control just did more than I needed it to. I will eventually port his entire control to WTL, when time allows.
Caveats
CButtonMenu is derived from CButtonMenuImpl. To draw the arrow on the button, CButtonMenuImpl needs to have the BS_OWNERDRAW style set. However, this will send the WM_DRAWITEM msg to the parent of the CButtonMenuImpl, and not the CButtonMenuImpl itself. By subclassing the parent HWND, the CButtonMenuImpl can hijack the msg and handle it alone. To do this, the CButtonMenuImpl has a private member CContainedWindow variable that subclasses the parent. Then, using the ALT_MSG_MAP() macro, we can catch the msg:
class CButtonMenuImpl : ...
{
CContainedWindow m_Parent;
public:
CButtonMenuImpl():
m_Parent(this,1){}
{other code}
protected:
typedef CWindowImpl<T, TBase, TWinTraits> baseClass;
BEGIN_MSG_MAP(CButtonMenuImpl)
other msgs
ALT_MSG_MAP(1)
MESSAGE_HANDLER(WM_DRAWITEM, OnDrawItem)
END_MSG_MAP()
{other code}
};
Finally, to make simple use of this control, CButtonMenu provides an operator overload:
class CButtonMenu : public CButtonMenuImpl<CButtonMenu>
{
public:
DECLARE_WND_SUPERCLASS(_T("WTL_CButtonMenu"), GetWndClassName())
//ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
CButtonMenu& operator=(HWND hWnd)
{
if ( m_hWnd )
DestroyWindow();
if ( ::IsWindow(hWnd) )
SubclassWindow(hWnd);
return *this;
}
};
Here's an example of how to initialize a CButtonMenu with a button already on a dialog:
// Member variable of dialog
CButtonMenu btnMenu;
// Somewhere in WM_INITDIALOG handler
btnMenu = GetDlgItem(IDC_BTN_ABOUT);
btnMenu.AddMenuItem(IDC_MNU_ONE,"Windows");
btnMenu.AddMenuItem(IDC_MNU_TWO,"Template");
btnMenu.AddMenuItem(IDC_MNU_THREE,"",MF_SEPARATOR);
btnMenu.AddMenuItem(IDC_MNU_FOUR,"Library");
When the user selects a menu item, a msg will be sent to the dialog.