Question

So I’m using Visual C++, and I have created a draggable, borderless window. Anyway, there is a toolbar along the top, and i want to be able to drag the window by that toolbar. I still want the toolbar to be functional, but i have no earthly idea how to be able to drag the window by it. This is my current window (see the toolbar on the top):

And this is my current code to make it draggable:

case WM_NCHITTEST: {
    LRESULT hit = DefWindowProc(hWnd, message, wParam, lParam);
    if(hit == HTCLIENT) hit = HTCAPTION;
    return hit;
}
break;

Answer 1

You are on the right track with hooking WM_NCHITTEST. Now, you need to make change what constitutes a client hit versus a caption hit. If I understand your code right now, anywhere you click within the client area of the window (everything but the border) will allow you to drag the window elsewhere. This will make interacting with your application very difficult. Instead, you should be returning HTCAPTION only after you have determined that the hit was within the menubar area. Specifically, the area of the menubar that does not hold the File/Edit/Help buttons.

case WM_NCHITTEST: {
  LRESULT hit = DefWindowProc(hWnd, message, wParam, lParam);
  if (hit == HTCLIENT) { // The hit was somewhere in the client area. Don't know where yet.
    // Perform your test for whether the hit was in the region you would like to intercept as a move and set hit only when it is.
    // You will have to pay particular attention to whether the user is actually clicking on File/Edit/Help and take care not to intercept this case.
    // hit = HTCAPTION;
  }
  return hit;
  break;
}

Some things to keep in mind here:

• This can be very confusing to a user that wants to minimize, close, or move your application. Menubars do not convey to the user that you can move the window by dragging them.
• If you are concerned with vertical pixels you may consider doing what other applications on Windows are starting to do — moving the menubar functionality to a single button that is drawn in the titlebar. (See recent versions of Firefox/Opera or Windows explorer in Windows 8 for some idea to move things to the titlebar.