API function to replace DoEvents?

I have subclassed my form.
And it picks up custom msgs.
One of them is a PING message...when it gets this it PINGs a msg back...which is fair enough.
It does this every 30seconds.

Now I have a loop in my app that runs for about 10-20mins.
While this is looping my form doesn't pick up the ping and thus the other component terminates itself.

I need someway of allowing Msgs through, but I don't want a user to be able to click on a button or menu, which is what doevents would allow me to do...
Any ideas?

Woka

Wouldn't Sleep do it?

VB Code:

Private Declare Sub Sleep Lib "kernel32" Alias "Sleep" (ByVal dwMilliseconds As Long)

Phreak

Duncan (i.e. MerrionComputing) has an API implementation of DoEvents as far as I know ...

Sleep has completely the opposite affect :)


Will see if I can chat to merrion...

I just want my main form to keep processing msgs, ie Paint and Move and resize etc, while my loop is running...but I don't want to be able to click a button on the form, which is what doevents will let me :(

Woka

Perhaps a simler solution would be to use DoEvents, but before the loop starts, you could disable all other controls on the form?

VB Code:

Option Explicit 
 
Private Type Msg 
    hwnd As Long 
    message As Long 
    wParam As Long 
    lParam As Long 
    time As Long 
    ptX As Long 
    ptY As Long 
End Type 
Private Declare Function GetMessage Lib "user32" Alias "GetMessageA" (lpMsg As Msg, ByVal hwnd As Long, ByVal wMsgFilterMin As Long, ByVal wMsgFilterMax As Long) As Long 
Private Declare Function TranslateMessage Lib "user32" (lpMsg As Msg) As Long 
Private Declare Function DispatchMessage Lib "user32" Alias "DispatchMessageA" (lpMsg As Msg) As Long 
Private Declare Function PeekMessage Lib "user32" Alias "PeekMessageA" (lpMsg As Msg, ByVal hwnd As Long, ByVal wMsgFilterMin As Long, ByVal wMsgFilterMax As Long, ByVal wRemoveMsg As Long) As Long 
 
Public Sub API_DoEvents() 
   Dim TMsg As Msg 
   Do While PeekMessage(TMsg, 0&, 0&, 0&, True) 
        TranslateMessage TMsg 
        DispatchMessage TMsg 
  Loop 
End Sub

Although this probably lets buttons be clicked etc. just as DoEvents does...

Yep, it will.

Surely you can just silently drop any messages you don't want in your WindowProc by simply not passing them to DefWindowProc?

Or disable your controls?

Not sure if this'll help, but it's some C++ code to remove all mouse messages - you should be able to translate/adapt it to your needs.

Code:

---

ZeroMemory(&tmpmsg,sizeof(tmpmsg));
        while(tmpmsg.message != WM_QUIT)
            if(!PeekMessage(&tmpmsg,NULL,WM_MOUSEFIRST,WM_MOUSELAST,PM_REMOVE))
                break;

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Merrion

VB Code:

Option Explicit 
 
Private Type Msg 
    hwnd As Long 
    message As Long 
    wParam As Long 
    lParam As Long 
    time As Long 
    ptX As Long 
    ptY As Long 
End Type 
Private Declare Function GetMessage Lib "user32" Alias "GetMessageA" (lpMsg As Msg, ByVal hwnd As Long, ByVal wMsgFilterMin As Long, ByVal wMsgFilterMax As Long) As Long 
Private Declare Function TranslateMessage Lib "user32" (lpMsg As Msg) As Long 
Private Declare Function DispatchMessage Lib "user32" Alias "DispatchMessageA" (lpMsg As Msg) As Long 
Private Declare Function PeekMessage Lib "user32" Alias "PeekMessageA" (lpMsg As Msg, ByVal hwnd As Long, ByVal wMsgFilterMin As Long, ByVal wMsgFilterMax As Long, ByVal wRemoveMsg As Long) As Long 
 
Public Sub API_DoEvents() 
   Dim TMsg As Msg 
   Do While PeekMessage(TMsg, 0&, 0&, 0&, True) 
        TranslateMessage TMsg 
        DispatchMessage TMsg 
  Loop 
End Sub

Although this probably lets buttons be clicked etc. just as DoEvents does...

---

Errr...If I use:

VB Code:

Option Explicit
 
Private Declare Function RegisterWindowMessage Lib "user32" Alias "RegisterWindowMessageA" (ByVal lpString As String) As Long
 
Public Property Get MSG_PING() As Long
Static lngMsgID     As Long
    If lngMsgID = 0 Then
        lngMsgID = RegisterWindowMessage("MSG_PING")
    End If
    MSG_PING = lngMsgID
End Property

Then is there a way to look through the msg que for that message and process it, WITHOUT affecting any other msg?

Woka

Doesn't this seem like a situation for multi-threading? One thread to handle messages, another for the function process.

Didn't somebody write something about that in this forum?

Hmmmmm....who could that have been....Oh yeah! It was YOU!

If you want the loop to run

AND

respond to system messages

AND

not respond to user initiated messages

WHILE

the loop is running


....why not disable all user input to the form, mouse and keyboard, while the loop is running and then re-enable it once the activity is completely? Or have I misunderstood your requirements?

Regards

Kaushik Janardhanan

Yes I am using my multithreading...new and improved too :D
What I want is for the threaded object to PING the client and vis versa...if my app crashes, or the thread object crashes then I don't want resources still being used in windows.
Thus if either thread ain't heard from each other then I terminate processes and stuff...

The problem is that while this huge loop is running the PING messages and not being intercepted, so the threaded object destroys itself :(

Woka

Use the filter params of Peekmessage thus:-

VB Code:

Option Explicit 
 
Private Type Msg 
    hwnd As Long 
    message As Long 
    wParam As Long 
    lParam As Long 
    time As Long 
    ptX As Long 
    ptY As Long 
End Type 
Private Declare Function GetMessage Lib "user32" Alias "GetMessageA" (lpMsg As Msg, ByVal hwnd As Long, ByVal wMsgFilterMin As Long, ByVal wMsgFilterMax As Long) As Long 
Private Declare Function TranslateMessage Lib "user32" (lpMsg As Msg) As Long 
Private Declare Function DispatchMessage Lib "user32" Alias "DispatchMessageA" (lpMsg As Msg) As Long 
Private Declare Function PeekMessage Lib "user32" Alias "PeekMessageA" (lpMsg As Msg, ByVal hwnd As Long, ByVal wMsgFilterMin As Long, ByVal wMsgFilterMax As Long, ByVal wRemoveMsg As Long) As Long 
 
Option Explicit
 
Private Declare Function RegisterWindowMessage Lib "user32" Alias "RegisterWindowMessageA" (ByVal lpString As String) As Long
 
Public Property Get MSG_PING() As Long
Static lngMsgID     As Long
    If lngMsgID = 0 Then
        lngMsgID = RegisterWindowMessage("MSG_PING")
    End If
    MSG_PING = lngMsgID
End Property
 
 
Public Sub API_DoPingEvents() 
   Dim TMsg As Msg 
   Do While PeekMessage(TMsg, 0&, MSG_PING, MSG_PING, True) 
        TranslateMessage TMsg 
        DispatchMessage TMsg 
  Loop 
End Sub

Wokawidget

You might want to consider a separate process for your pinging and then use xprocess messaging to the client to notify whatever action you want to take.

This works well for me when no xprocess drawing needs to occur.

However, I have yet to resolve (control) the drawing order of the graphics when drawing across a process. For example: when using a loop to receive a real-time data update which draws in a client pbox and at the same time time allowing the client to use
a toolbox of drawing tools in the same pbox.

How about:

Me.Enabled = False

..... do your stuff...

Me.Enabled = True

?

Bad bad bad bad *slap*

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Wokawidget
Bad bad bad bad *slap*

---

Your saying that to yourself in the sense that: how come I did not think of this ? or your saying that to me as in: no, that does not work ?

Sorry, I don't know the entire *woof* language :)