Question

Detecting a modal pop-up form

Asked by: KurtVon

I have an app with several forms.  Some of the forms need to be able to detect if another form is showing a modal pop-up (form or message box).  The easiest way to do this is to write a function IsShowingModalWindow() which does the obvious.

Unfortunately, there are hundreds of ways for these windows to be popping up a window, most of which are outside my control.  Furthermore, everything is working in Framework 1.1, so I can't use Application.EnterThreadModal (if that would even work for dialogs popped up by third party COM objects).

OwnedForms works some of the time, but I need to be able to catch stuff like:

private void button_Click(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
    MyForm form = new MyForm();
    form.ShowDialog();
    // Here there are no owned dialogs, but MyForm is clearly holding
    // modal focus.
    MessageBox.Show(this, "Modal message box");
    // Even though this is the owner, the message box never shows up
    // on the OwnedForms list.
}

Currently the app uses the CBT hook, but thanks to lack of context switching this is a buggy hack nightmare to work with (for example, you cannot get the window modal state until you first get the window caption -- why?  No idea.)

So is there any clean way to do this?

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Asked On
2008-05-12 at 10:42:13ID23395343
Tags

Microsoft

,

Visual Studio Dot Net

,

1.1

,

C#

Topics

C# Programming Language

,

.NET

,

Microsoft Visual C#.Net

Participating Experts
2
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Comments
9

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Answers

 

by: jungesPosted on 2008-05-12 at 12:00:19ID: 21549602


try this:

if(myMDIForm.ActiveForm.Modal == true){
  ...
}

 

by: KurtVonPosted on 2008-05-13 at 13:52:11ID: 21559181

There is no ActiveForm member.  Is that a Framework 2.0 addition?

 

by: jungesPosted on 2008-05-14 at 04:11:27ID: 21562830

oh sorry,

if(Form.ActiveForm != null && Form.ActiveForm.Modal == true){
  ...
}
 
// OR
 
Form activeForm = Form.ActiveForm; 
if (activeForm != null && activeForm.IsMdiContainer && activeForm.ActiveMdiChild != null) 
{ 
     activeForm = activeForm.ActiveMdiChild; 
}
 
// OR
 
Form activeForm = Form.ActiveForm; 
    if (activeForm == null) 
    { 
        FormCollection openForms = Application.OpenForms; 
        for (int i= 0; i < openForms.Count && activeForm == null; ++i) 
        { 
            Form openForm = openForms[i]; 
            if (openForm.IsMdiContainer) 
            { 
                activeForm = openForm.ActiveMdiChild; 
            } 
        } 
    }

                                              
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by: KurtVonPosted on 2008-05-14 at 09:48:34ID: 21566161

Sadly, Application.OpenForms is framework 2.0 only.  I've been trying to push for an upgrade, but there is more than a little resistance.  It's a Framework 1.1 solution or there is no solution at this point.

Oh, and I can guarantee no MDI containers.

 

by: KurtVonPosted on 2008-07-18 at 12:23:37ID: 22038935

While I haven't found a good solution to the problem, the workaround I have found is the code below, which can tell if the window exists.  Unfortunately the handle returned is unusable since Form.FromHandle will fail unless the Form.ActiveForm would have given you the same window anyway.

Fortunately it can be manipulated be calling into unmanaged Win32 code.

[DllImport("user32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto, EntryPoint = "GetWindow", SetLastError = true)]
private static extern IntPtr GetNextWindow(IntPtr hwnd, [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.U4)] int wFlag);
 
public bool HasActiveWindow()
{
    // Use the Win32 routine to check for a popup.
    IntPtr handle = GetNextWindow(Handle, 6);
    return (handle != IntPtr.Zero);
}
                                              
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by: Computer101Posted on 2008-08-22 at 16:00:45ID: 22294719

PAQed with points refunded (500)

Computer101
EE Admin

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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