CODEWITHSUNDEEP
windowsdialog
Alon Gubkin
Alon Gubkin

Reputation: 57129

Get the text within a dialog box

What Windows API function can I use to get text within a dialog? For example, if I had the handle of an error message dialog, how could I get the displayed error message?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 4768

Answers (2)

Oleg
Oleg

Reputation: 221997

If I correctly understand your question, your problem is very easy. Open Spy++ from the Visual Studio Tools menu. Then press Ctrl + F to receive a dialog for finding windows. Drag & drop the "Finder tool" on the control inside the dialog box from which you want to read the text; look at properties of the window, the field "Control ID" is what you need.

If you have a handle of the Dialog Window (HWND hDlg) you should use the GetDlgItemText function:

UINT GetDlgItemText(HWND hDlg,
    int nIDDlgItem,
    LPTSTR lpString,
    int nMaxCount
);

to read the text. As a nIDDlgItem parameter you should place the identifier of the control. It is the value which you have found using Spy++.

Upvotes: 3

Mark Ransom
Mark Ransom

Reputation: 308206

Dialog boxes don't actually contain text - they contain other controls which contain the text. You must enumerate or otherwise find the appropriate child window of the dialog box, and get its text with GetWindowText.

Upvotes: 1

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