I now understand how to create a Control Panel Applet thanks to this
wonderful article:
http://www.pocketpcdn.com/articles/controlpanelapplet.html
But, I'm wondering how one can get the exact feel of a standard control
panel applet (like About, or Audio, or Backlight, etc.). Let me further
explain what I mean.
Try this (with let's say the standard control panel applet "Clock"):
1. Start->Settings->System Tab->Clock
2. Tap Alarms Tab
3. Start->Today --- it takes you back to the Today screen
4. Start->Settings->System Tab->Clock --- It was brought up the way I last
left this dialog (the Alarms tab has focus)
Or to further show my point, for step 2 do this:
a. Change the date (or time)
b. Click the ok button (Save changes to clock settings? MsgBox appears)
(continue on normally - step 3, step 4 - from above)
Again, it was brought up the way I last left this dialog - with the MsgBox
displayed - a MsgBox with the "Settings" title I may add (get to this
later).
Things to note about these "standard applets" are:
1. When the dialog appears, it still says "Settings" in the title bar.
2. You can go to the Today screen
3. There's only ever one dialog (or sheet/page). If you leave the dialog
before pressing ok btn (through the Start Menu), the dialog is left in it's
current state, but no longer visible until you go back to the same applet
and click it again.
Here's what happens for me when I create a Control Panel Applet (I'll just
use a normal dialog right now, as opposed to sheet/page):
1. Dialog appears and the "Settings" title bar is changed to the caption of
my dialog.
2. Try to go to Today screen, and it won't let me.
3. While my dialog is up (haven't pressed ok yet), if I go to
"Start->Settings" (1st dialog now behind settings window) and tap my applet
again - a 2nd dialog appears. I'll now have two different dialogs I'll have
to "ok" (or 3, or 4, or 5, depending on how many times I do this)
I did discover this link:
http://www.pocketpcdn.com/articles/today_friendly_dialogs.html
And I set the value to overlapped. And it did allow me to go to the Today
screen. And it seems that only 1 dialog is being displayed (no matter how
many times I start the dialog, don't press ok, then go to settings, repeat)
But ...
1. The title still gets changed from Settings to the Caption on the dialog
2. When I go back to settings to click the applet, the dialog isn't left off
where it was before I lost focus (remember, I'm going to Start->Settings
instead of pressing ok on the dialog)
For #1, I don't think it is as simple as the programmer chaning the caption
on their dialog to "Settings" (maybe it is). I think that if it's properly
coded to act exactly like a standard control panel applet, what happens is
that the title doesn't change because the dialog properly becomes some type
of child to the control panel settings window. Or something like that.
And that link above may have at least got me to the point that I can get to
the Today screen when using a dialog .. but what about sheet/page? I can't
seem to find a way to get this to work with sheet/page. The Sheet class
doesn't have a resource where I'm changing it to overlapped. And I did try
overriding the PreCreateWindow (think that's the name) virtual function and
setting cs.style to WS_OVERLAPPED. Didn't work. I tried setting the
property page dialogs to overlapped - but that didn't work either.
For the life of me, I can't figure out how to get this to work with
Sheet/Page!
How does one duplicate the standard control panel applets? What are they
doing that I'm not? Is it even possible to achieve that standard?
Thanks!
William Campbell