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Refreshing and Redrawing the Desktop Window

Currently my application needs to draw directly over the entire desktop. In doing so, I obtain its device context by calling the CWindowDC constructor. After doing so, I am able to successfully paint directly to the desktop like I need to. However, when I finish, I need to restore the desktop to its original state (i.e. refresh it - exactly equivalent to what happens if you click on the desktop and press the F5 key). I have tried many ways of doing this, all without success. Any insight would be great. Thanks.

jaba

HWND hwndDT = GetDesktopWindow();
InvalidareRect(hwndDT, NULL);
UpdateWindow(hwndDT);
Thats all

mueller

ASKER

Unfortunately, I went down that path prior to posting the question and came up drawing blanks. Take the following code for example, which gets the desktop window's device context, draws a text string to it, and attempts to clean up the mess afterwards (all in the same manner as above, but as applied to MFC).

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
// get desktop window
CWnd *pWnd = GetDesktopWindow();

// get desktop window's device context
CWindowDC desktopDC( pWnd );

// write some string out to the dc
desktopDC.TextOut( 50, 50, "Hello" );

// attempt to clean up the desktop
pWnd->InvalidateRect( NULL, TRUE );

// update the window
pWnd->UpdateWindow();
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Again, the code above does not work, and follows your example in a similar manner (the difference being you call the Win32 API, but no big deal). Also, when passing through the online Visual C++ 4 documentation the other day looking for info on CWnd::RedrawWindow(), I found an interesting note at the bottom of the "Remarks" section:

When the RedrawWindow member function is used to invalidate part of the desktop window, that window does not receive a WM_PAINT message. To repaint the desktop, an application should use CWnd::ValidateRgn, CWnd::InvalidateRgn, CWnd::UpdateWindow, or ::RedrawWindow.

However, when I followed the advice, I still came up drawing blanks. If anyone has any insight, I'd be very appreciative. Thanks.

chensu

Try this:

::SHChangeNotify(SHCNE_UPDATEDIR, SHCNF_FLUSH, 0, 0);

chensu

Maybe the following code is better. I hope it will update the desktop.

// Get the PIDL for the Desktop.
LPITEMIDLIST pidlDesktop; // PIDL for the Desktop
if (SUCCEEDED(::SHGetSpecialFolderLocation(pWnd->GetSafeHwnd(), CSIDL_DESKTOP, &pidlDesktop)))
{
// Refresh the Desktop
::SHChangeNotify(SHCNE_UPDATEDIR, SHCNF_IDLIST, (DWORD)pidlDesktop, 0);

// pointer to the shell's IMalloc interface.
LPMALLOC pMalloc;

// Get the shell's allocator.
if (SUCCEEDED(::SHGetMalloc(&pMalloc)))
{
// Free the PIDL returned by SHGetSpecialFolderLocation
pMalloc->Free(pidlDesktop);

// Release the shell's allocator.
pMalloc->Release();
}
}

mueller

ASKER

Unfortunately the code used to update and refresh the desktop by using the Shell API was not successful. If anyone has any ideas, it would be great. Thanks again.

mueller

ASKER

Adjusted points to 150

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chensu

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mueller

ASKER

Chensu,

Thanks for all of the help. I did use Spy++ earlier to grab the desktop window's class name, but mine came up with
"SysListView32". I tried the FindWindow method with that class name but always came up blank. Again, thanks for the help.

Steve

chensu

The "SysListView32" window that you got is the child of the "Program Manager" window that is the top level window. The class name "SysListView32" belongs to the List View control.