Knowledge Base

INFO: Dynamically Disabling/Enabling a Control in a Dialog Box

Article ID: 108896

Article Last Modified on 11/21/2006

APPLIES TO

Microsoft Foundation Class Library 4.2, when used with:
- Microsoft Visual C++ 1.0 Professional Edition
- Microsoft Visual C++ 1.5 Professional Edition
- Microsoft Visual C++ 1.51
- Microsoft Visual C++ 1.52 Professional Edition
- Microsoft Visual C++ 1.0 Professional Edition
- Microsoft Visual C++ 2.0 Professional Edition
- Microsoft Visual C++ 2.1
- Microsoft Visual C++ 4.0 Standard Edition

This article was previously published under Q108896

This article demonstrates one way to disable or enable a dialog box control during the execution of a program with the Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC). The dialog box uses a dialog box template created by App Studio.

To disable or enable a control in a dialog box, the following steps can be performed:

Create a data member in the dialog box class that maps to a specific control (you can use Class Wizard to do this). For example:
```
      ...
      public:
      CButton     m_button;
      ...
                
```

Override CWnd::DoDataExchange(CDataExchange *pDX) in the dialog box class and call the appropriate DDX routine to hook the Windows control to the dialog class data member. For example:

      ...
      protected:
      virtual void DoDataExchange(CDataExchange* pDX);
      ...

      void CMyDlg::DoDataExchange(CDataExchange* pDX)
      {
        CDialog::DoDataExchange(pDX);
        DDX_Control(pDX, IDC_BUTTON1, m_button);
      }

NOTE: If you use Class Wizard to add a member variable in your dialog box class, it does this for you.

Call CWnd::EnableWindow() to disable or enable the control when needed. For example, you can disable a button when the dialog box is initialized. For example:

      CMyDlg::OnInitDialog()
      {
       ...
       m_button.EnableWindow(FALSE);
       ...
      }

An alternative method is to use the CWnd::GetDlgItem() function to get a CWnd * to the control and then call EnableWindow(). For example:

      CMyDlg::OnInitDialog()
       {
        ...
        GetDlgItem(IDC_BUTTON)->EnableWindow(FALSE);
        ...
       }

SUMMARY

Additional query words: kbSweptVC600 kbinf 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.10 2.50 2.51 2.52 3.00 3.10 4.00

Keywords: kbhowto kbuidesign kbdlg kbctrl KB108896

Microsoft KB Archive/108896

INFO: Dynamically Disabling/Enabling a Control in a Dialog Box

SUMMARY