KB108896 - INFO: Dynamically Disabling/Enabling a Control in a Dialog Box

This article demonstrates one way to disable or enable a dialog box control during the execution of a program with the Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC). The dialog box uses a dialog box template created by App Studio.

To disable or enable a control in a dialog box, the following steps can be performed:

Create a data member in the dialog box class that maps to a specific control (you can use Class Wizard to do this). For example:
```
      ...
      public:
      CButton     m_button;
      ...
				
```
Override CWnd::DoDataExchange(CDataExchange *pDX) in the dialog box class and call the appropriate DDX routine to hook the Windows control to the dialog class data member. For example:
```
      ...
      protected:
      virtual void DoDataExchange(CDataExchange* pDX);
      ...

      void CMyDlg::DoDataExchange(CDataExchange* pDX)
      {
        CDialog::DoDataExchange(pDX);
        DDX_Control(pDX, IDC_BUTTON1, m_button);
      }
				
```
NOTE: If you use Class Wizard to add a member variable in your dialog box class, it does this for you.
Call CWnd::EnableWindow() to disable or enable the control when needed. For example, you can disable a button when the dialog box is initialized. For example:
```
      CMyDlg::OnInitDialog()
      {
       ...
       m_button.EnableWindow(FALSE);
       ...
      }
				
```
An alternative method is to use the CWnd::GetDlgItem() function to get a CWnd * to the control and then call EnableWindow(). For example:
```
      CMyDlg::OnInitDialog()
       {
        ...
        GetDlgItem(IDC_BUTTON)->EnableWindow(FALSE);
        ...
       }
				
```

INFO: Dynamically Disabling/Enabling a Control in a Dialog Box

SUMMARY