Question

I’m trying to imitate a hyperlink on a dialog using C++.

I’m using a static control with SS_NOTIFY set so that a user can click the control and go to a webpage:

 LTEXT           "Caption2",IDC_SETTINGS,9,36,219,13,SS_NOTIFY

With SS_NOTIFY set I can intercept the click, as it’s registered against the static:

case IDC_STC_URL:
ShellExecute(NULL, "open", "http://google.co.uk", NULL, NULL, SW_SHOWNORMAL);
return TRUE;

I’m also changing the cursor to a hand by intercepting the WM_SETCURSOR message:

case WM_SETCURSOR:
POINT pt;
RECT rect;

GetCursorPos( &pt );
GetWindowRect( GetDlgItem(hwnd,IDC_SETTINGS), &rect );

if (PtInRect(&rect, pt))
{
    SetCursor(LoadCursor(NULL, IDC_HAND));
}
else
{
    SetCursor(LoadCursor(NULL, IDC_ARROW));
}
return TRUE;

However, when SS_NOTIFY is set the cursor change doesn’t work. When SS_NOTIFY is disabeled it does. But then the click isn’t registered against the static so ShellExecute() doesn’t get to open the URL.

Does anyone have a suggestion as to what I’m doing wrong?

thanks,
ofer.

Answer 1

The return value from a dialog box proc is different from the return value from a window proc. (Documentation for dialog box proc: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms645469(v=vs.85).aspx – worth reading carefully.) The return value from a dialog box is just TRUE or FALSE, indicating whether the message was handled, but the return value from a window proc is the return value of the processing of the window message.

If the window message has a meaningful return value (most don’t, but WM_SETCURSOR is one that does), in a dialog proc you need to use SetWindowLong(hwnd,DWL_MSGRESULT,value) to set the result just before returning TRUE from the dialog proc.

I think the default DWL_MSGRESULT is zero, so in this code, you will be returning FALSE from the WM_SETCURSOR message. That indicates that the static should do its own thing – i.e., set the arrow cursor.