Wrapping the Dialog Procedure

Question

I've been using the standard method for wrapping dialog procedures, by using a static dialog procedure in a class, and pure virtual dialog procedure that is derived later on. This works perfectly, but I have some design questions. Consider the definition of my static dialog procedure:

INT_PTR __stdcall ModalDialog::router(HWND dlg, UINT msg, WPARAM wp, LPARAM lp)
{
    ModalDialog *thisPtr = 0;

    if (msg == WM_INITDIALOG)
    {
        thisPtr = reinterpret_cast< ModalDialog *>(lp);

        ::SetWindowLongPtr(dlg, DWLP_USER, reinterpret_cast< LONG_PTR >(thisPtr));

        thisPtr->_dlg = dlg;

        return static_cast< INT_PTR >(TRUE);
    }
    else
        thisPtr = reinterpret_cast< ModalDialog *>(::GetWindowLongPtr(dlg, DWLP_USER));

    if (thisPtr)
        //the virtual procedure from which to derive from
        return thisPtr->proc(msg, wp, lp);
    else
        //return false when not processing a message, look we should
        return static_cast< INT_PTR >(FALSE);
}

Lets say I want to add the following virtual methods to the ModalDialog base class:

virtual bool onInitDialog(HWND dlg) = 0;
virtual bool onCommand(HWND dlg, int high_word, int low_word) = 0;
virtual bool onClose(HWND dlg) = 0;

Would it be all right if I abandoned the virtual dialog procedure, and changed the static like so:

INT_PTR __stdcall ModalDialog::router(HWND dlg, UINT msg, WPARAM wp, LPARAM lp)
{
    ModalDialog *thisPtr = 0;

    if (msg == WM_INITDIALOG)
    {
        thisPtr = reinterpret_cast< ModalDialog *>(lp);

        ::SetWindowLongPtr(dlg, DWLP_USER, reinterpret_cast< LONG_PTR >(thisPtr));

        thisPtr->_dlg = dlg;

        //ADDED
        onInitDialog(dlg);

        return static_cast< INT_PTR >(TRUE);
    }
    else
        thisPtr = reinterpret_cast< ModalDialog *>(::GetWindowLongPtr(dlg, DWLP_USER));

    //ADDED
    switch (msg)
    {
    case WM_COMMAND:
        if (thisPtr && thisPtr->onCommand(dlg, HIWORD(wp), LOWORD(lp)))
            return static_cast< INT_PTR >(TRUE);
        break;
    case WM_CLOSE:
        if (thisPtr && thisPtr->onClose(dlg))
            return static_cast< INT_PTR >(TRUE);
        break;
    defualt:
        return static_cast< INT_PTR >(FALSE);

    //if (thisPtr)
    //    return thisPtr->proc(msg, wp, lp);
    //else
    //    return static_cast< INT_PTR >(FALSE);
}

That way in the base class I only have to redefine the virtual "on..." commands? I also noticed that ::EndDialog(thisPtr->_dlg,0) only works on WM_CLOSE? Do I still need to assign the _dlg from the thisPtr like this: thisPtr->_dlg = dlg?

Thank you for any help you can give.

Answer 1

This gives you less flexibility - It'd be better to call event handlers from the virtual dialog procedure, allowing you to override the behavior for individual subclasses. If you want these "event handlers" to be called by default for all subclasses of ModalDialog, simply don't make the virtual dialog procedure pure virtual - implement it also for ModalDialog, and explicitly call it from subclasses.

ModalDialog::dialogProc(...) {
  switch (...) {
  case ...: onInitDialog(...); break;
  }
}

ModalDialogSubClass::dialogProc(...) {
  switch (...) {
  case ...: break;
  default: return ModalDialog::dialogProc(...);
}

Given this scenario, you could make the decision to not call onInitDialog for a specific base class in the dialogProc for that base class.

Typically, what you want to do in the static procedure is simply:

if (is first message) {
  SetWindowLong...
}
((ModalDialog *) GetWindowLong())->dialogProc(); // Also for the initial message