DLGTEMPLATEEX structure

Article
12/11/2020

An extended dialog box template begins with a DLGTEMPLATEEX header that describes the dialog box and specifies the number of controls in the dialog box. For each control in a dialog box, an extended dialog box template has a block of data that uses the DLGITEMTEMPLATEEX format to describe the control.

The DLGTEMPLATEEX structure is not defined in any standard header file. The structure definition is provided here to explain the format of an extended template for a dialog box.

Syntax

typedef struct {
  WORD      dlgVer;
  WORD      signature;
  DWORD     helpID;
  DWORD     exStyle;
  DWORD     style;
  WORD      cDlgItems;
  short     x;
  short     y;
  short     cx;
  short     cy;
  sz_Or_Ord menu;
  sz_Or_Ord windowClass;
  WCHAR     title[titleLen];
  WORD      pointsize;
  WORD      weight;
  BYTE      italic;
  BYTE      charset;
  WCHAR     typeface[stringLen];
} DLGTEMPLATEEX;

Members

dlgVer

Type: WORD

The version number of the extended dialog box template. This member must be set to 1.

signature

Type: WORD

Indicates whether a template is an extended dialog box template. If signature is 0xFFFF, this is an extended dialog box template. In this case, the dlgVer member specifies the template version number. If signature is any value other than 0xFFFF, this is a standard dialog box template that uses the DLGTEMPLATE and DLGITEMTEMPLATE structures.

helpID

Type: DWORD

The help context identifier for the dialog box window. When the system sends a WM_HELP message, it passes this value in the wContextId member of the HELPINFO structure.

exStyle

Type: DWORD

The extended windows styles. This member is not used when creating dialog boxes, but applications that use dialog box templates can use it to create other types of windows. For a list of values, see Extended Window Styles.

style

Type: DWORD

The style of the dialog box. This member can be a combination of window style values and dialog box style values.

If style includes the DS_SETFONT or DS_SHELLFONT dialog box style, the DLGTEMPLATEEX header of the extended dialog box template contains four additional members ( pointsize, weight, italic, and typeface) that describe the font to use for the text in the client area and controls of the dialog box. If possible, the system creates a font according to the values specified in these members. Then the system sends a WM_SETFONT message to the dialog box and to each control to provide a handle to the font.

For more information, see Dialog Box Fonts.

cDlgItems

Type: WORD

The number of controls in the dialog box.

x

Type: short

The x-coordinate, in dialog box units, of the upper-left corner of the dialog box.

y

Type: short

The y-coordinate, in dialog box units, of the upper-left corner of the dialog box.

cx

Type: short

The width, in dialog box units, of the dialog box.

cy

Type: short

The height, in dialog box units, of the dialog box.

menu

Type: sz_Or_Ord

A variable-length array of 16-bit elements that identifies a menu resource for the dialog box. If the first element of this array is 0x0000, the dialog box has no menu and the array has no other elements. If the first element is 0xFFFF, the array has one additional element that specifies the ordinal value of a menu resource in an executable file. If the first element has any other value, the system treats the array as a null-terminated Unicode string that specifies the name of a menu resource in an executable file.

windowClass

Type: sz_Or_Ord

A variable-length array of 16-bit elements that identifies the window class of the dialog box. If the first element of the array is 0x0000, the system uses the predefined dialog box class for the dialog box and the array has no other elements. If the first element is 0xFFFF, the array has one additional element that specifies the ordinal value of a predefined system window class. If the first element has any other value, the system treats the array as a null-terminated Unicode string that specifies the name of a registered window class.

title

Type: WCHAR[titleLen]

The title of the dialog box. If the first element of this array is 0x0000, the dialog box has no title and the array has no other elements.

pointsize

Type: WORD

The point size of the font to use for the text in the dialog box and its controls.