\nA customer wanted a way to determine whether a particular\nwindow is modal. They listed a few methods they had tried\nbut found that it didn’t work and asked for assistance.\n<\/p>\n
\nAs Eric Lippert<\/a>\nis fond of saying,\n“First, write your spec<\/a>.”\nUntil you know what you want, you won’t know how to get it.\n<\/p>\n \nFirst, you need to define what you mean by a modal window<\/i>.\n\nThere are multiple competing definitions<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n \nThe customer decided that the definition of modal window<\/i>\nthey want is this one:\n<\/p>\n \nA modal window is a child window that requires the user\nto interact with it before they can return to operating\nthe parent application,\nthus preventing any work on the application main window.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \nOne thing you notice in this definition is that it talks\nboth about windows<\/i> and applications<\/i>.\nYou have a child window<\/i>, a parent application<\/i>,\nand even an application main window<\/i>.\nThis implies that a modal window must be in a different application\nfrom its parent.\n(If it were in the same application, then it vacuously does not\nprevent you from interacting with the parent application because\nit is<\/i> the parent application.)\nBut modality is a user interface concept, not a process management\nconcept, so it’s unclear why process considerations appear in the definition.\nEnd-users sitting in front of a user interface see windows,\nnot processes.\nI’m going to assume that the use of the term application<\/i> here\nis a mistake, and that all we’re talking about is windows<\/i>.\n<\/p>\n \nThe second thing you realize from this definition is that it\nis describing something impossible.\nIn Windows, child windows cannot be interacted with when their\nparent window is disabled.\nThis definition appears to be using a common abuse of terminology,\nusing the words child<\/i> and parent<\/i>\ninstead of the more accurate but clumsier\nowned<\/i> and owner<\/i>.\nThis common abuse of terminology rarely causes trouble among\npeople with experience programming the Windows user interface,\nbut it is often a source of confusion for beginners,\nwhich is why I try to use the precise terminology\nrather than the casual terminology.\nAnd this question was clearly asked by a beginner.\n<\/p>\n \nAnother thing you notice about this definition is that it\ninvolves not two but three<\/i> windows:\nThe child window, the parent window, and the application main window.\nConsider the situation where you have an application main window\n(which is interactive), a secondary window (which is not interactive),\nand a tertiary window which is a child of by the secondary window\nwith which the user must interact in order to return to operating\nthe secondary window.\n<\/p>\n