Spy++ unable to find dialog controls
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Normally, when using the Spy++ find window tool, you can mouse over a dialog and the controls will highlight as you mouse over them, allowing you to click them and then have Spy++ select them in its list of windows. We have a dialog app and this has worked fine for that app. We recently upgraded to a new version of a third party GUI library we use and are seeing some wierdness. When trying to use Spy++ to examine the windows, I noticed that the Spy++ find window tool no longer works in this dialog. With the find window tool active, when you mouse over the dialog the controls do not highlight. If you move to the title bar the dialog does highlight. If you click the dialog, you can see it in the Spy++ list along with all the child controls. I guess I'm grasping at straws a bit, but this seemed really unusual. I can run an older version (before the third party GUI library update) and it works fine. Any ideas what (if anything) this strange Spy++ behavior could indicate?
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Normally, when using the Spy++ find window tool, you can mouse over a dialog and the controls will highlight as you mouse over them, allowing you to click them and then have Spy++ select them in its list of windows. We have a dialog app and this has worked fine for that app. We recently upgraded to a new version of a third party GUI library we use and are seeing some wierdness. When trying to use Spy++ to examine the windows, I noticed that the Spy++ find window tool no longer works in this dialog. With the find window tool active, when you mouse over the dialog the controls do not highlight. If you move to the title bar the dialog does highlight. If you click the dialog, you can see it in the Spy++ list along with all the child controls. I guess I'm grasping at straws a bit, but this seemed really unusual. I can run an older version (before the third party GUI library update) and it works fine. Any ideas what (if anything) this strange Spy++ behavior could indicate?
Dave Calkins wrote:
you can see it in the Spy++ list along with all the child controls
Are you sure the above list contains the controls that Spy++ find window tool cannot detect? I mean maybe those controls aren't windows.
If the Lord God Almighty had consulted me before embarking upon the Creation, I would have recommended something simpler. -- Alfonso the Wise, 13th Century King of Castile.
[my articles] -
Normally, when using the Spy++ find window tool, you can mouse over a dialog and the controls will highlight as you mouse over them, allowing you to click them and then have Spy++ select them in its list of windows. We have a dialog app and this has worked fine for that app. We recently upgraded to a new version of a third party GUI library we use and are seeing some wierdness. When trying to use Spy++ to examine the windows, I noticed that the Spy++ find window tool no longer works in this dialog. With the find window tool active, when you mouse over the dialog the controls do not highlight. If you move to the title bar the dialog does highlight. If you click the dialog, you can see it in the Spy++ list along with all the child controls. I guess I'm grasping at straws a bit, but this seemed really unusual. I can run an older version (before the third party GUI library update) and it works fine. Any ideas what (if anything) this strange Spy++ behavior could indicate?
I've seen this quite a few times with controls that are obscured by others. I never bothered to find a solution, if there even is one.
"Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for, in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it." - Ellen Goodman
"To have a respect for ourselves guides our morals; to have deference for others governs our manners." - Laurence Sterne
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Normally, when using the Spy++ find window tool, you can mouse over a dialog and the controls will highlight as you mouse over them, allowing you to click them and then have Spy++ select them in its list of windows. We have a dialog app and this has worked fine for that app. We recently upgraded to a new version of a third party GUI library we use and are seeing some wierdness. When trying to use Spy++ to examine the windows, I noticed that the Spy++ find window tool no longer works in this dialog. With the find window tool active, when you mouse over the dialog the controls do not highlight. If you move to the title bar the dialog does highlight. If you click the dialog, you can see it in the Spy++ list along with all the child controls. I guess I'm grasping at straws a bit, but this seemed really unusual. I can run an older version (before the third party GUI library update) and it works fine. Any ideas what (if anything) this strange Spy++ behavior could indicate?
Dave Calkins wrote:
Any ideas what (if anything) this strange Spy++ behavior could indicate?
yes
Dave Calkins wrote:
third party GUI library we use
Therefore
Dave Calkins wrote:
seeing some wierdness.
Does this library include source code? If not then you need to be asking them not us. If the library does not include source code then you have eliminated yourself or any other developer from solving the problem. You are now completely at the mercy of the third party. Are you having fun yet?
led mike
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Dave Calkins wrote:
you can see it in the Spy++ list along with all the child controls
Are you sure the above list contains the controls that Spy++ find window tool cannot detect? I mean maybe those controls aren't windows.
If the Lord God Almighty had consulted me before embarking upon the Creation, I would have recommended something simpler. -- Alfonso the Wise, 13th Century King of Castile.
[my articles]yes, they are windows. although they don't highlight when mousing over with the find window tool, if you mouse over the dialog title bar and click it, it finds it in the list. If you then expand the tree, you can see all the controls listed as windows. In the list, you can right-click and highlight them and they do highlight. It just seemed that the mouse-over behavior was odd and I was wondering if that indicated anything particular.
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Dave Calkins wrote:
Any ideas what (if anything) this strange Spy++ behavior could indicate?
yes
Dave Calkins wrote:
third party GUI library we use
Therefore
Dave Calkins wrote:
seeing some wierdness.
Does this library include source code? If not then you need to be asking them not us. If the library does not include source code then you have eliminated yourself or any other developer from solving the problem. You are now completely at the mercy of the third party. Are you having fun yet?
led mike
led mike wrote:
yes
can you be more specific? :)
led mike wrote:
Does this library include source code? If not then you need to be asking them not us. If the library does not include source code then you have eliminated yourself or any other developer from solving the problem. You are now completely at the mercy of the third party. Are you having fun yet?
yes, the library includes source code. I have asked them and they're not sure either. Its a strange issue and the Spy++ behavior seemed odd so I thought I'd ask what that could indicate. The issue is we're using custom control from the library which provides menu toolbar functionality. It uses a menu resource along with toolbar icons and provides icons in the menus, etc. Its worked fine for some time, but upgrading the third party GUI library results in the menu no longer rendering. The toolbar is there, but is empty. None of the menu items render. Creating an empty sample project works fine. The menu shows as expected using the new vesion of the library. So there's something messed up with the project. I tried Spy++ just to see what was there and saw the strange mouse-over behavior. As I said, there's some straw grasping going on :)
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led mike wrote:
yes
can you be more specific? :)
led mike wrote:
Does this library include source code? If not then you need to be asking them not us. If the library does not include source code then you have eliminated yourself or any other developer from solving the problem. You are now completely at the mercy of the third party. Are you having fun yet?
yes, the library includes source code. I have asked them and they're not sure either. Its a strange issue and the Spy++ behavior seemed odd so I thought I'd ask what that could indicate. The issue is we're using custom control from the library which provides menu toolbar functionality. It uses a menu resource along with toolbar icons and provides icons in the menus, etc. Its worked fine for some time, but upgrading the third party GUI library results in the menu no longer rendering. The toolbar is there, but is empty. None of the menu items render. Creating an empty sample project works fine. The menu shows as expected using the new vesion of the library. So there's something messed up with the project. I tried Spy++ just to see what was there and saw the strange mouse-over behavior. As I said, there's some straw grasping going on :)
Well at least you have the source so you will just have to dig in and figure it out. Menu's can be a quite stubborn. It sounds like perhaps something is not being created successfully so I might start by checking out how they implemented creation. Like are they logging or asserting or throwing or whatever. Since you have source you could add any of those that might be helpful in researching the problem.
led mike
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Well at least you have the source so you will just have to dig in and figure it out. Menu's can be a quite stubborn. It sounds like perhaps something is not being created successfully so I might start by checking out how they implemented creation. Like are they logging or asserting or throwing or whatever. Since you have source you could add any of those that might be helpful in researching the problem.
led mike
well, I noticed something else which might provide a hint. If I hit the Alt key and then the down arrow, the drop down menus appear, but they appear as though they're dropping down from under the title bar and each top level menu (accessed by using the right and left arrow keys) shows up in the same place. I guess I'll dig into their rendering code. Maybe the positioning was somehow hosed.
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Normally, when using the Spy++ find window tool, you can mouse over a dialog and the controls will highlight as you mouse over them, allowing you to click them and then have Spy++ select them in its list of windows. We have a dialog app and this has worked fine for that app. We recently upgraded to a new version of a third party GUI library we use and are seeing some wierdness. When trying to use Spy++ to examine the windows, I noticed that the Spy++ find window tool no longer works in this dialog. With the find window tool active, when you mouse over the dialog the controls do not highlight. If you move to the title bar the dialog does highlight. If you click the dialog, you can see it in the Spy++ list along with all the child controls. I guess I'm grasping at straws a bit, but this seemed really unusual. I can run an older version (before the third party GUI library update) and it works fine. Any ideas what (if anything) this strange Spy++ behavior could indicate?
Interesting. Are your controls, by chance, contained within other controls?
Why is common sense not common? Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level where they are an expert. Sometimes it takes a lot of work to be lazy Individuality is fine, as long as we do it together - F. Burns
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Interesting. Are your controls, by chance, contained within other controls?
Why is common sense not common? Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level where they are an expert. Sometimes it takes a lot of work to be lazy Individuality is fine, as long as we do it together - F. Burns
no, they're direct children of the dialog.
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no, they're direct children of the dialog.
Hmmm... I don't have that same problem (using the same library). Contained control controls are not showing up and the ones that do, Spy++ says it can't find the window at all. So while I can find the controls, Spy++ still can't find them.
Why is common sense not common? Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level where they are an expert. Sometimes it takes a lot of work to be lazy Individuality is fine, as long as we do it together - F. Burns