Windows programs can usually ignore WM_DEADCHAR and WM_SYSDEADCHAR messages, but you should definitely know what dead characters are and how they work.

On some non-U.S. English keyboards, certain keys are defined to add a diacritic to a letter. These are called “dead keys” because they don’t generate characters by themselves. For instance, when a German keyboard is installed, the key that is in the same position as the +/= key on a U.S. keyboard is a dead key for the grave accent (`) when shifted and the acute accent (´) when unshifted.

When a user presses this dead key, your window procedure receives a WM_DEADCHAR message with wParam equal to ASCII or Unicode code for the diacritic by itself. When the user then presses a letter key that can be written with this diacritic (for instance, the A key), the window procedure receives a WM_CHAR message where wParam is the ANSI code for the letter `a’ with the diacritic.

Thus, your program does not have to process the WM_DEADCHAR message because the WM_CHAR message gives the program all the information it needs. The Windows logic even has built-in error handling: If the dead key is followed by a letter that can’t take a diacritic (such as `s’), the window procedure receives two WM_CHAR messages in a row—the first with wParam equal to the ASCII code for the diacritic by itself (the same wParam value delivered with the WM_DEADCHAR message) and the second with wParam equal to the ASCII code for the letter `s’.

Of course, the best way to get a feel for this is to see it in action. You need to load a foreign keyboard that uses dead keys, such as the German keyboard that I described earlier. You do this in the Control Panel by selecting Keyboard and then the Language tab. Then you need an application that shows you the details of every keyboard message a program can receive.

Can any one please tell me what exactly the Visual C++ is.

Windows sends the window procedure WM_VSCROLL (vertical scroll) and WM_HSCROLL (horizontal scroll) messages when the scroll bar is clicked with the mouse or the thumb is dragged. Each mouse action on the scroll bar generates at least two messages, one when the mouse button is pressed and another when it is released.

WM_VSCROLL and WM_HSCROLL are accompanied by the wParam and lParam message parameters. For messages from scroll bars created as part of your window, you can ignore lParam; that’s used only for scroll bars created as child windows, usually within dialog boxes.

The wParam message parameter is divided into a low word and a high word. The low word of wParam is a number that indicates what the mouse is doing to the scroll bar. This number is referred to as a “notification code.” Notification codes have values defined by identifiers that begin with SB, which stands for “scroll bar.” Here’s how the notification codes are defined in WINUSER.H:

#define SB_LINEUP           0
#define SB_LINELEFT         0
#define SB_LINEDOWN         1
#define SB_LINERIGHT        1
#define SB_PAGEUP           2
#define SB_PAGELEFT         2
#define SB_PAGEDOWN         3
#define SB_PAGERIGHT        3
#define SB_THUMBPOSITION    4
#define SB_THUMBTRACK       5
#define SB_TOP              6
#define SB_LEFT             6
#define SB_BOTTOM           7
#define SB_RIGHT            7
#define SB_ENDSCROLL        8

If you hold down the mouse button on the various parts of the scroll bar, your program can receive multiple scroll bar messages. When the mouse button is released, you’ll get a message with a notification code of SB_ENDSCROLL. You can generally ignore messages with the SB_ENDSCROLL notification code. Windows will not change the position of the scroll bar thumb. Your application does that by calling SetScrollPos.

When you position the mouse cursor over the scroll bar thumb and press the mouse button, you can move the thumb. This generates scroll bar messages with notification codes of SB_THUMBTRACK and SB_THUMBPOSITION. When the low word of wParam is SB_THUMBTRACK, the high word of wParam is the current position of the scroll bar thumb as the user is dragging it. This position is within the minimum and maximum values of the scroll bar range. When the low word of wParam is SB_THUMBPOSITION, the high word of wParam is the final position of the scroll bar thumb when the user released the mouse button. For other scroll bar actions, the high word of wParam should be ignored.

To provide feedback to the user, Windows will move the scroll bar thumb when you drag it with the mouse as your program is receiving SB_THUMBTRACK messages. However, unless you process SB_THUMBTRACK or SB_THUMBPOSITION messages by calling SetScrollPos, the thumb will snap back to its original position when the user releases the mouse button.

A program can process either the SB_THUMBTRACK or SB_THUMBPOSITION messages, but doesn’t usually process both. If you process SB_THUMBTRACK messages, you’ll move the contents of your client area as the user is dragging the thumb. If instead you process SB_THUMBPOSITION messages, you’ll move the contents of the client area only when the user stops dragging the thumb.

The WINUSER.H header files includes notification codes of SB_TOP, SB_BOTTOM, SB_LEFT, and SB_RIGHT, indicating that the scroll bar has been moved to its minimum or maximum position. However, you will never receive these notification codes for a scroll bar created as part of your application window.

Although it’s not common, using 32-bit values for the scroll bar range is perfectly valid. However, the high word of wParam, which is only a 16-bit value, cannot properly indicate the position for SB_THUMBTRACK and SB_THUMBPOSITION actions. In this case, you need to use the function GetScrollInfo

Every scroll bar has an associated “range” and “position.” The scroll bar range is a pair of integers representing a minimum and maximum value associated with the scroll bar. The position is the location of the thumb within the range. When the thumb is at the top (or left) of the scroll bar, the position of the thumb is the minimum value of the range. At the bottom (or right) of the scroll bar, the thumb position is the maximum value of the range.

By default, the range of a scroll bar is 0 (top or left) through 100 (bottom or right), but it’s easy to change the range to something that is more convenient for the program:

SetScrollRange (hwnd, iBar, iMin, iMax, bRedraw) ;

iBar argument is either SB_VERT or SB_HORZ.

iMin and iMax are the new minimum and maximum positions of the range.

bRedraw to TRUE if you want Windows to redraw the scroll bar based on the new range. (If you will be calling other functions that affect the appearance of the scroll bar after you call SetScrollRange, you’ll probably want to set bRedraw to FALSE to avoid excessive redrawing.)

hwnd parameter to the window procedure is the handle of the window changing in size. (Remember that one window procedure could be handling messages for multiple windows that were created based on the same window class. The hwnd parameter lets the window procedure know which window is receiving the message.) The message parameter is WM_SIZE. The wParam parameter for a WM_SIZE message is the value SIZE_RESTORED, SIZE_MINIMIZED, SIZE_MAXIMIZED, SIZE_MAXSHOW, or SIZE_MAXHIDE (defined in the WINUSER.H header file as the numbers 0 through 4). That is, the wParam parameter indicates whether the window is being changed to a nonminimized or nonmaximized size, being minimized, being maximized, or being hidden.

The thumb position is always a discrete integral value. For instance, a scroll bar with a range of 0 through 4 has five thumb positions

How to set the Thumb Position of the window

SetScrollPos (hwnd, iBar, iPos, bRedraw);

SetScrollPos to set a new thumb position within the scroll bar range.

iPos argument is the new position and must be within the range of iMin and iMax. Windows provides similar functions (GetScrollRange and GetScrollPos) to obtain the current range and position of a scroll bar.

Windows’ responsibilities for scroll bars:

• Handle all processing of mouse messages to the scroll bar.
• Provide a reverse-video “flash” when the user clicks the scroll bar.
• Move the thumb as the user drags the thumb within the scroll bar.
• Send scroll bar messages to the window procedure of the window containing the scroll bar.

Responsibilities of your program:

• Initialize the range and position of the scroll bar.
• Process the scroll bar messages to the window procedure.
• Update the position of the scroll bar thumb.
• Change the contents of the client area in response to a change in the scroll bar.

Scroll bars are one of the best features of a graphical user interface. They are easy to use and provide excellent visual feedback. You can use scroll bars whenever you need to display anything—text, graphics, a spreadsheet, database records, pictures, Web pages—that requires more space than is available in the window’s client area.

Scroll bars are positioned either vertically (for up and down movement) or horizontally (for left and right movement). You can click with the mouse the arrows at each end of a scroll bar or the area between the arrows. A “scroll box” (or “thumb”) travels the length of the scroll bar to indicate the approximate location of the material shown on the display in relation to the entire document. You can also drag the thumb with the mouse to move to a particular location.

Programmers sometimes have problems with scrolling terminology because their perspective is different from the user’s. A user who scrolls down wants to bring a lower part of the document into view; however, the program actually moves the document up in relation to the display window. The Window documentation and the header file identifiers are based on the user’s perspective: scroll up means moving toward the beginning of the document; scroll down means moving toward the end.

It is easy to include a horizontal or vertical scroll bar in your application window. All you need do is include the window style (WS) identifier WS_VSCROLL (vertical scroll) or WS_HSCROLL (horizontal scroll) or both in the third argument to CreateWindow. The scroll bars specified in the CreateWindow function are always placed against the right side or bottom of the window and extend the full length or width of the client area. The client area does not include the space occupied by the scroll bar. The width of the vertical scroll bar and the height of the horizontal scroll bar are constant for a particular video driver and display resolution. If you need these values, you can obtain them (as you may have observed) from the GetSystemMetrics calls.

Windows takes care of processing all mouse messages to the scroll bars. However, scroll bars do not have an automatic keyboard interface. If you want the cursor keys to duplicate some of the functionality of the scroll bars, you must explicitly provide logic for that (as we’ll do when we make another version of the SYSMETS program in the next chapter).