Custom Dropdown for CComboBox

Question

I am trying to create a custom drop-down menu for the CComboBox derivative. The calendar control plus some “hot spots”, for example, will be a dropdown.

Image posted by ImageShack.us http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/394/calctrl.png

So, I believe that the best way to achieve this is to have a simple CWnd -derived class that acts as the parent calendar control and draw it yourself.

The window should be a popup — I think — rather than a child window so that it doesn't get cropped. But this leads to the fact that the dialogue (on which the control with the list is installed), in order to stop being the topmost (foreground?), Leads to the fact that its frame is drawn in different ways:

alt text http://img693.imageshack.us/img693/3474/35148785.png

This spoils the illusion that the drop-down menu is part of the combobox, as it acts more like a modal dialog at this point. Any suggestions on how I create a drop down menu like a regular drop down menu?

Are there any other issues that I should care about, such as focus and mouse capture?

Answer 1

When you create a popup, you need to specify its owner. Custom pop-ups activate their owner when you activate them. Without specifying the owner, your window is activated, which causes a change in the owner that you see.

Answer 2

Yes, I had this problem. A quick google makes me suspect that I solved it using CreateWindowEx () and specifying WS_EX_NOACTIVATE. I have another code that achieves the same effect by creating a window with WS_EX_TOOLWINDOW, and not as a popup, but I'm not sure why this was done this way, my intuition will say that making this popup will be the way to go.