DLGTEMPLATEEX et al

[donkey]

Hi all,

I have to use a dialog template in memory for a little sample code I am working on and since I haven't ever really done this that I can remember I am having a bit of trouble. The dialog will show correctly until I add a control, at which point it returns "Error 1407 > Cannot find window class.". Since the class is "Edit" I think I must have an alignment problem but I can't find it...

Code Select Expand

NEWITEMTEMPLATEEX struct
dlgVer DW 1
signature DW 0FFFFh
helpID DD 0
exStyle DD WS_EX_TOOLWINDOW
style DD WS_VISIBLE + WS_SYSMENU + WS_CAPTION + DS_SETFONT
cDlgItems DW 1
x DW 6
y DW 6
cx DW 208
cy DW 212
menu DW 0 ;IDD_NEWITEMDLG
windowClass DW 0
title DUS "New/edit item",0
pointsize DW 8
weight DW 400
italic DB 0
charset DB 0
typeface DUS "MS Sans Serif",0
ENDS

CONTROL1 STRUCT
helpID DD 0
exStyle DD 0x00000200
style DD 0x50010000
x DW 56
y DW 70
cx DW 120
cy DW 13
id DW IDC_STARTIN
windowClass DUS "Edit",0
title DW 0
extraCount DW 0
ENDS

DATA SECTION

ALIGN 4
NewItemDlg NEWITEMTEMPLATEEX <>
ALIGN 4
Ctrl1 CONTROL1 <>
ALIGN 4
EndDlgTemplate: // Provides padding to the next DWORD boundary

CODE SECTION

invoke DialogBoxIndirectParam,[hInstance],offset NewItemDlg,[hwnd],offset DlgProc2,0

Ofcourse the DialogBoxIndirectParam is in my main message loop and the [hInstance] and [hwnd] parameters are filled and correct at the time of the call. Thanks in advance for any help.

Donkey

[Darrel]

I would use CreateWindowEx when ever I want to add another control to a DialogBox.

Code Select Expand

INVOKE CreateWindowEx,NULL,ADDR EditClass,NULL,\
WS_CHILD or WS_VISIBLE or WS_CLIPSIBLINGS,56,70,120,13,hdlg,IDC_EDIT,hInstance,NULL


Regards,

Darrel

[donkey]

Hi Darrel,

That is not an option in this case as there are 17 controls and it requires too many calls to CreateWindow when a single call to create the dialog will do. At any rate the problem was that the SDK was incorrect, the id field which it had as a WORD is actually supposed to be a DWORD, this threw the class parameter out of alignment. By changing id from DW to DD it solved the problem nicely.

DLGITEMTEMPLATEEX

Donkey

[Vortex]

Edgar,

You could convert your resource file to a binary resource template, it's an easier method :

Code Select Expand

#include "Dlgbox.inc"

.data
pTemplate INCBIN "rsrc.bin"

hInstance dd ?
CommandLine dd ?
hCursor dd ?

.code
start:
invoke GetModuleHandle,0
mov [hInstance],eax
invoke DialogBoxIndirectParam,[hInstance],ADDR pTemplate,0,ADDR DlgProc,0
invoke ExitProcess,eax

DlgProc FRAME hWnd,uMsg,wParam,lParam

cmp d[uMsg],WM_CLOSE

jne >initdlg
invoke EndDialog,[hWnd],0
jmp >true
initdlg:
cmp d[uMsg],WM_INITDIALOG

jne >setcursor
invoke LoadCursor,0,IDC_CROSS
mov [hCursor],eax
jmp >true
setcursor:
cmp d[uMsg],WM_SETCURSOR

jne >false
invoke SetCursor,[hCursor]
jmp >true
false:
xor eax,eax
ret
true:
mov eax,1
ret
ENDF
[attachment deleted by admin]

[hutch--]

I remember with some humour developing the in memory template dialog system in masm32 on a win98 box and it had that unpleasant habit of going out with a black screen of death and required a reboot for each mistake. Edgar is right that the Microsoft info was faulty and the misaligned data caused the crashes. Once it was working it has proven to be a very reliable and easy to use system.

[donkey]

Edgar,

You could convert your resource file to a binary resource template, it's an easier method :

Hi Vortex,

Thanks but the source must be modifiable, as I said it is for sample code. Had it been for my use only I would have included it in the RES section of a program whcih is the prefered way to include binary data in an application.

Donkey

[ramguru]

Hi, donkey, I can't understand one thing regarding DLGITEMTEMPLATEEX. If I'm producing resource file from .rsrc section and I meet dialog item that has helpID = 9 what I'm supposed to do with that value, because "CONTROL text, id, class, style, x, y, width, height [, extended-style]"  says nothing about helpID...
And yeah...regarding alignment, why not "CONTROL1 STRUCT 4" instead of ALIGN 4 many times ?

[donkey]

Hi ramguru,

Sorry for the time it took to reply, I have been working rather late this week, end of the fiscal year on November 30th and I'm swamped.

The helpid is for context sensitive help, it is the id that is returned in a WM_HELP notification (HELPINFO.dwContextId) if the user presses F1 while the control has focus, you can ignore the value for resource based controls. If you need the Help id in the control you can define them in the CONTROL statement...

According to Microsoft RC help file...

(controlType), x, y, cx, cy [, [exStyle] [, helpID]

So...

CONTROL text, id, class, style, x, y, width, height [, extended-style[,helpid]]

Donkey

[ramguru]

Thanks for answer, donkey. You're right  :U "CONTROL text, id, class, style, x, y, width, height [, extended-style[,helpID]]" statement really has that last undocumented member helpID. Now just wondering, maybe you happen to know some info about STRINGTABLE resource format... I do know that one table has max 16 strings limit, that LENGTH(2 bytes) follows uni STRING, but how to determine string ID ? Don't rush to answer (if you have any clues) if you're busy at the moment

[donkey]

Hi ramguru,

A long long time ago, RadASM did not have string tables and I wrote an addin for generating them, shortly after Ketil added them to RadASM and I have not worked with them since. I will try to hunt down the code for the original addin but I doubt that I kept a copy, if I did I will post it for you. Beyond that and the reader procedure I wrote for some program (can't remember which, maybe res2dlg) I have never actually worked with them on a code level.

EDIT: It was Res2Dlg that has the reader (and writer) you might want to check out the code from that, it is available on my website.

Donkey

[ramguru]

It was Res2Dlg that has the reader (and writer) you might want to check out the code from that, it is available on my website.

I just took a look at your (res2dlg) source-code (& working sample in RadASM), indeed you are reading strings from memory, but the funniest thing is that you somehow managed to omit IDs (of strings) ( thing I need to know how ...) Thanks anyway, I appreciate your help.

[donkey]

Hi ramguru,

It's still a bit foggy but I seem to remember looking for the structure of a string directory entry in the resources and never finding one. I believe though I doubt I ever confirmed it, that the IDs are stored in a separate entry in a type of index. It might be useful to attempt to reverse engineer an executables resource section in order to determine where the entries are stored then finding the appropriate res id for the table. I no longer have the original links to my research but this is a good place to start...

http://www.skynet.ie/~caolan/publink/winresdump/winresdump/doc/pefile.html

Edgar

[PBrennick]

RamGuru,
String IDs are user definable to anything you like and cannot be pre-determined by another application. String tables, themselves, do not have IDs, just the strings within them. A table can have only 20 entries but a resource section can contain many tables. I have the sources to a program called ZipDLL (by whom, I know not) that has 8 string tables in the resource file. If you want to see that I can post it.

I, also, have the code for a Tip Of The Day function that shows that 20 entries WILL work. The stringtable is:

STRINGTABLE DISCARDABLE
BEGIN
  IDM_NEW       "New file"
  IDM_OPEN      "Open file"
  IDM_SAVE      "Save file"
  IDM_CUT       "Cut"
  IDM_COPY      "Copy"
  IDM_PASTE     "Paste"
  IDM_UNDO      "Undo"
  IDM_REDO      "Redo"
  IDM_DELETE    "Delete"
  IDM_FIND      "Find"
  IDM_REPLACE   "Replace"
  IDM_PRINT     "Print"

/* tip of the day is randomized mod(NUM_TIPS)+20000 */

    20000    "You can format the text using different fonts, sizes and colors using the Format+Font menu."
    20001    "You can change the text to bold by pressing Ctrl+B"
    20002    "You can change the text to italics by pressing Ctrl+I"
    20003    "To undo you're last change, press Ctrl+Z"
    20004    "You can exit quickly by pressing F4"
    20005    "You can search for text by pressing Ctrl+F"
    20006    "You can repeat the last find operation by pressing F3"
    20007    "You can replace text by pressing Ctrl+H"
    20008    "You can repeat you're last replace operation by pressing F6"
    20009    "You can open rich text documents (.RTF files) by changing the file type in the open dialog"
    20010    "You can print the current contents by pressing Ctrl+P"
    20011    "To underline you're text, press Ctrl+U"
    20012    "You can place a strikeout mark over the current selection by pressing Ctrl+K"
    20013    "You can center text by pressing Ctrl+T"
    20014    "You can left justify you're text by pressing Ctrl+L"
    20015    "You can right justify you're text by pressing Ctrl+R"
    20016    "To save you're current changes, press Ctrl+S"
    20017    "Pressing Ctrl+O invokes the open dialog"
    20018    "Pressing Ctrl+X cuts the selected text to the clipboard"
    20019    "Pressing Ctrl+C copies the selected text to the clipboard"
#define NUM_TIPS 20

It shows the tooltips AND the 20 tips within the same String Table making me wonder if more is allowable. The tool tips work in the editor and the Tip Of The Day works just fine. It uses NUM_TIPS for the modulus calculation used to randomize the first tip to be displayed. After that, it will step through the 20 tips with wrap-around.

Perhaps the IDs of those 20 strings is what you are looking for (the code used to work with them). If so, I can give it to you.

Paul

[donkey]

Hi Paul,

Though a string table entry contains no IDs the individual strings must be identified in order to make them useable. For example you assign an ID to the strings and reference them by their ID number when building a toolbar, something that I do alot as I prefer toolbars to menus. Also you can call LoadStringA to load a string by resource identifier. I have always been under the suspiscion that there is an index that contains the StringTable resource ID number followed by a list of String IDs for that table, hence the limit of 16 strings per table (though any number of tables are allowed). The structure of an index entry would have to be a minimum of 18 bytes, 2 bytes for the ResID and 16 entries for string ids but it is difficult to find any documentation on these structures, Jeremy or anyone who has written an assembler/linker would have to have found the information somewhere, perhaps I will email him and ask, I just hate to bother him with something so trivial.

This is a great link...

http://www.opensource.apple.com/darwinsource/Current/cxxfilt-1/src/binutils/windres.h

Edgar

[donkey]

Hmmm,

Perhaps it is more simple than that, I am beginning to suspect that the strings are just numbered sequentially, once the sequence is broken a new table is started. Using WinExplorer for an test, I renumbered the ids of strings in the string table. The number of tables matched the number of sequential entries. I believe that Paul is right, the table has an ID and the strings do not have an id but it is calculated at run time. It would only be necessary to find the base ID of the table and add 1 for each entry in that case.

Edgar