Introduction

 

Hello, mIRC scripter!

 

If you ever tried to create mIRC dialogs calculating all the coordinates manually you’ve already known what a pain it is. There exist some dialog editors for mIRC written in different programming languages but none of them can compete with professional tools by software giants.

 

Dialog Grabber offers you an alternative way to create mIRC dialogs: design them in your favorite application builder, compile fake executables and have DG convert them into mIRC dialog tables.

 

Installation

 

After having unzipped “DlgGrab.zip” you’ll find:

 

 

The source code can only be interesting for advanced users. You may find some of the examples useful as templates for your own dialogs.

 

DG doesn’t make any changes in the Windows registry, so uninstalling is simple – just delete everything you no longer need.

 

New in 5.82

 

Version 5.82 is a minor update of 5.81.

 

1.     Fixed the bug with combo and list boxes.

 

 

New in 5.81

 

Version 5.81 is final (bug-fix updates may follow). Something’s been added, something’s been fixed and something’s been removed since 5.8:

 

2.     More precise calculations.

3.     Removed the “DBU (Windows)” scaling mode.

4.     Removed the “Generate alias” and “Generate header” checkboxes.

5.     The code has been completely rewritten using the object-oriented approach.

6.     Removed the commas at the end of every dialog item line.

7.     Added support for multi-line text.

8.     Added support for menu resources.

 

Instructions

 

I’ll illustrate the process of creating mIRC dialog tables with DG assuming you use Visual C++:

 

  1. Create a new empty Win32 Application. Name it “First”.
  2. Insert a new dialog (IDD_DIALOG1) into the project (“Insert/Resource/Dialog -> New”), drop some controls onto it.
  3. Insert a new menu (IDR_MENU1) into the project (“Insert/Resource/Menu -> New”), add some menu items.
  4. Return to IDD_DIALOG1 and set it’s menu to IDR_MENU1.
  5. Create a new C++ source file as follows:

 

#include <windows.h>

#include "resource.h"

 

BOOL CALLBACK DialogFunc(HWND hWnd,UINT msg,WPARAM wParam,LPARAM)

{

if ((msg == WM_COMMAND) && (wParam == MAKELONG(IDCANCEL,BN_CLICKED)))

EndDialog(hWnd,0);

return 0;

}

int WINAPI WinMain(HINSTANCE,HINSTANCE,LPSTR,int)

{

     return DialogBox(0,MAKEINTRESOURCE(IDD_DIALOG1),0,DialogFunc);

}

 

  1. Save the resource definition script file as First.rc and add it to the project (“Add To Project -> Files”).
  2. Press Ctrl+F5 to compile and run your small application. If everything is OK, close Visual C++.
  3. Run Dialog Grabber, choose “Browse” and open your First.exe. In the listbox you’ll see the title of your dialog. Select it and choose “View”. Looks great, doesn’t it :).
  4. Click on the “Grab” button and select a file to append the mIRC dialog table to.

 

Limitations

 

1. Dialog Grabber calculates coordinates for icons (like “;icon id, x y w h,  noborder”) but it doesn’t extract them from the executable. You need to add the “filename” and the “index” yourself.

 

2. Tabs aren’t supported because Windows tab controls are different from mIRC ones – they don’t “contain” other controls.

 

3. Dialog Grabber can only extract standard Windows dialogs. Visual Basic, Delphi and some other RAD tools do NOT create Windows dialogs and DG won’t find anything. However, Visual C++ can import Visual Basic forms (“Insert/Resource/Dialog -> Import”).

 

It doesn’t mean DG forces you to use Visual C++, no. There must be tons of other (commercial and free) dialog editors for Windows.

 

Copyright

 

You are free to develop and modify the source code without any copyright restrictions.

 

necroman@europe.com,

irc://irc.undernet.org/mIRC

 

Necroman