Question

I am not using a dialog, I’m using my own custom class which I have registered and then used the CreateWindow call to create it, I have preset the background color to red when registering:

WNDCLASSEX wc;
wc.hbrBackground = CreateSolidBrush(RGB(255, 0, 0));

But now I want to change the background color at runtime, by e.g. clicking a button to change it to blue.

I have tried to use SetBkColor() call in the WM_PAINT, and tried returning a brush from the WM_CTLCOLORDLG message, they don’t work.

Any help?

Answer 1

From Window Background comes:

…The system paints the background for a
window or gives the window the
opportunity to do so by sending it a
WM_ERASEBKGND message when the
application calls BeginPaint. If an
application does not process the
message but passes it to
DefWindowProc, the system erases the
background by filling it with the
pattern in the background brush
specified by the window’s class…..

…… An application can process the
WM_ERASEBKGND message even though a
class background brush is defined.
This is typical in applications that
enable the user to change the window
background color or pattern for a
specified window without affecting
other windows in the class. In such
cases, the application must not pass
the message to DefWindowProc. …..

So, use the WM_ERASEBKGND message’s wParam to get the DC and paint the background.