The Old New Thing

Some call it context, others call it reference data, but whatever it is, it's yours

December 18, 2006 Dec 18, 2006 12/18/06

Raymond Chen

Different functions call it different things. calls it . calls it reference data. calls it . just calls it a parameter! But whatever its name is, it means the same thing: It's a value the function doesn't care about. All the function does is hand that value back to you. What the value means is up to you. What if you need to pass more ...

Do not write in-process shell extensions in managed code

December 18, 2006 Dec 18, 2006 12/18/06

Raymond Chen

Jesse Kaplan, one of the CLR program managers, explains why you shouldn't write in-process shell extensions in managed code. The short version is that doing so introduces a CLR version dependency which may conflict with the CLR version expected by the host process. Remember that shell extensions are injected into all processes that use the ...

Why do user interface actions tend to occur on the release, not on the press?

December 16, 2006 Dec 16, 2006 12/16/06

Raymond Chen

If you pay close attention, you'll notice that most user interface actions tend to occur on the release, not on the press. When you click on a button, the action occurs when the mouse button is released. When you press the Windows key, the Start menu pops up when you release it. When you tap the Alt key, the menu becomes active when you ...

Computing listview infotips in the background

December 14, 2006 Dec 14, 2006 12/14/06

Raymond Chen

When the listview control asks you for an infotip, it sends you then notification, and when you return, the result is displayed as the infotip. But what if computing the infotip takes a long time? You don't want to stall the UI thread on a long operation, after all. This is where comes in. If you want to say, "Um, I'm not ready with that ...

Displaying infotips for folded and unfolded listview items

December 13, 2006 Dec 13, 2006 12/13/06

Raymond Chen

When displaying infotips for listview items, you have to deal with both the folded and unfolded case. "Folded" is the term used to describe a listview item in large icon mode whose text has been truncated due to length. When the user selects the item, the full text is revealed, a process known as "unfolding". Take our scratch program and ...