CMessageBoxX v1.16

Welcome to CMessageBoxX, an MFC class to encapsulate the MessageBox API via sub classing.

Features

• Subclasses the message box window to allow additional customisation.
• Sub classed using a standard CWnd derived class, so you can use standard MFC message maps in the class itself and any classes you derive from it.
• Implements standard support for automatic addition of icons just like in MFC.
• Allows custom icons to be easily added to the message box.
• Implements timed out message box support with specific timeout button. The timeout can also be reset based on mouse or keyboard activity.
• Implements disabled button support. Helpful where you want to implement Nag screens when you want to remind an end user to register your product.
• Implements support for including checkboxes on the message box. For example you can implement "Don't remind me again" type message boxes.
• Includes support for right aligned buttons instead of the default for the MessageBox API on older versions of Windows which was to have the buttons centered.
• As of v1.09, the classes are now designed for VC 2017 or later. They will not compile on earlier releases of VC.
• Integrates with MFC support for message box help context.
• Fully Unicode compliant.
• Optionally supports a hyperlink in your message box via the CMFCLinkCtrl MFC class.
• Supports selectable text in your message boxes.
• Includes support for user defined animated text and captions

Copyright

• You are allowed to include the source code in any product (commercial, shareware, freeware or otherwise) when your product is released in binary form.
• You are allowed to modify the source code in any way you want except you cannot modify the copyright details at the top of each module.
• If you want to distribute source code with your application, then you are only allowed to distribute versions released by the author. This is to maintain a single distribution point for the source code.

History

v1.16 (20 February 2022)

• Updated copyright details.
• Updated the code to use C++ uniform initialization for all variable declarations

8 August 2021

• Updated copyright details.
• Updated compiler settings to more modern defaults.

v1.15 (12 April 2020)

• Fixed more Clang-Tidy static code analysis warnings in the code.

v1.14 (28 January 2020)

• Updated copyright details.
• Fixed more Clang-Tidy static code analysis warnings in the code.

v1.13 (18 December 2019)

• Fixed various Clang-Tidy static code analysis warnings in the code.

v1.12 (9 September 2019)

• Fixed a number of compiler warnings when the code is compiled with VS 2019 Preview

v1.11 (22 April 2019)

• Updated copyright details
• Updated the code to clean compile on VC 2019

v1.10 (16 September 2018)

• Fixed a number of compiler warnings when using VS 2017 15.8.4

v1.09 (1 July 2018)

• Updated copyright details.
• Fixed a number of C++ core guidelines compiler warnings. These changes mean that the code will now only compile on VC 2017 or later.

v1.08 (19 July 2016)

• Updated copyright details.
• Tidied up the implementations of GetFirstButton, GetRightMostButtonRect, RightAlignButtons, CreateCheckBox, FixUpPositionsToSuitQHTM, ModifyButtonCaptions & GetCheckBoxSize.
• Fixed a bug in the creation of the selectable text control in CMessageBoxX::OnInitDialog. Thanks to Petr Stejskal for reporting this issue.
• Removed two calls to VERIFY in CMessageBoxX::OnInitDialog. Instead now failure to create the selectable text control or the QHTM control results in the message box failing with IDCANCEL.
• Added a BOOL return value to SetCaption, SetText & SetHTMLText methods which internally call LoadString.
• Removed support for QHTM control from the code as it looks like the control is no longer being developed and is not available from the author's web site at http://gipsysoft.com
• Tested code operates correctly on High DPI monitors.
• Added SAL annotations to all the code.
• Added support for adding a hyperlink to the messagebox. Thanks to Petr Stejskal for requesting this feature. Please note that you should not create a messagebox which includes both a checkbox and a hyperlink as you will get the hyperlink control appearing over the white / gray boundary on the message box which will look ugly. If you really want a more complicated dialog which supports hyperlinks and checkboxes at the same time then please check out the TaskDialog Windows API or the author's own XTaskDialog code at http://www.naughter.com/xtaskdialog.html which provides an emulation of Task Dialogs on versions of Windows prior to Vista.
• The selectable text control is now created with the WS_TABSTOP style thus allowing the text to be tabbed into via the keyboard.

v1.07 (17 November 2015)

• Verified the code compiles cleanly on VC 2015.
• Updated the sample apps main icon.
• Updated copyright details.

v1.06 (18 May 2014)

• Updated copyright details.
• Updated the code to compile cleanly on VC 2012 and later. Further changes were required to achieve this because MFC in Visual Studio 2012 has been reworked to use the SDK style fusion wrappers rather than those in the now defunct afxcomctl32.h header file.
• Updated the SetCaption method to operate where AfxGetApp() returns NULL.
• Updated the project settings to more modern default values.

v1.05 (11 July 2008)

• Updated copyright details.
• Updated sample app to clean compile on VC 2008
• Removed VC 6 style classwizard comments from the code.
• The code has now been updated to support VC 2005 or later only.
• Code now compiles cleanly using Code Analysis (/analyze)
• Code now uses newer C++ style casts instead of C style casts.
• Updated sample app to demonstrate support for user icons
• Class now correctly handles the manifest contexts which the MessageBox API's can have when you are using Common Control v6 or later

v1.04 (11 August 2007)

• Updated copyright details.
• Check box text control is now clipped to the width of the main text control if its calculated width will exceed the message box client area. This was done following a report from Kyle Alons that this text can get clipped on Vista when you pick a longish piece of text as the check box text. You should ensure you pick a shortish piece of text to avoid this problem as well as test all your message boxes on all the operating systems you will be supporting your application on.
• Addition of a CMESSAGEBOXX_EXT_CLASS to allow the code to be more easily added to an extension dll.

v1.03 (5 November 2006)

• Minor update to stdafx.h of sample app to avoid compiler warnings in VC 2005.
• Code now uses QHTM const for the class name

v1.02 (3 July 2006)

• Code now uses newer C++ style casts instead of C style casts.
• Class now allows you to put HTML text into the message box. This is provided by the QHTM HTML control provided at http://www.gipsysoft.com/qhtm/. You may need to purchase a license (depending on the type of application you are developing) as well as follow their instructions on deploying it if you want this functionality with CMessageBoxX. This functionality by default is not included in CMessageBoxX and is only available when you define the preprocessor macro "CMESSAGEBOXX_HTML_SUPPORT".
• Implemented support for selectable text. This means that end-users can select the text in the message box and paste it into the clipboard. Very helpful if you want end-users to record the details of error messages etc in your apps.
• Button captions can now be modified via SetModifiedButtonCaption.
• Added user defined animated text support.
• Added user defined animated caption support.
• Updated code to clean compile on VC 2005.

v1.01 (24 April 2006)

• Updated copyright details.
• Updated documentation to use the same style as the web site.
• UpdateCaptionDueToTimer method has been renamed to UpdateUIDueToTimer
• Now includes support for including a check box on the MessageBox. To achieve this simply call SetCheckBox with the text to show on the check box and its initial checked state prior to calling DoModal to show the message box. Then when DoModal returns simple call GetCheckBoxState to determine whether the check box was ticked or not.
• Now includes support for right aligning buttons instead of the default for the MessageBox API which is to have the buttons centered. The support for checkboxes and right aligned buttons is inspired by the GSMessageBox article at http://www.gipsysoft.com/messagebox/.
• Both SetTimeout and SetDisabledButton methods now include a "bModifyCaptionDuringCountdown" which determines if they should cause the MessageBox caption to be modified during their timer countdowns
• Updated the sample app to allow most of the functionality of the code to be optionally tested.
• SetTimeout method now includes a bResetTimeoutOnUserActivity parameter.
• Addition of GetCurrentTimerCaption() and GetCurrentDisabledCaption() virtual methods which allow the timeout and disabled captions to be easily customized at runtime.
• Fixed a number of compiler warnings when the code is compiled using /Wp64

v1.0 (19 April 2003)

• Initial public release.

Usage

• To use the class in your code simple include MessageBoxX.cpp in your project and #include MessageBoxX.h in which ever of your modules needs to make calls to the class.
• You also need to copy across all the IDS_MESSAGEBOXX_* string resources from the sample app to your application.
• Included with the download is a very simple dialog based which exercises all of the functionality of the class. You should be able to get an idea on how to use the class by examining the code in this sample.

Contacting the Author

PJ Naughter
Email: pjna@naughter.com
Web: http://www.naughter.com
20 February 2022