How to SetFocus to a CButton so that the border and focus dotted line are visible?

Question

I created a simple dialog-based application, and in the default CDialog added three buttons (by drag-and-dropping them) using the Visual Studio editor.

The default OK and Cancel buttons are there too.

I want to set the focus to button 1 when I click button 3.

I set the property Flat to true in the properties for muy buttons.

I coded this:

void CbuttonfocusDlg::OnBnClickedButton3()
{
    // TODO: Add your control notification handler code here
    GetDlgItem(IDC_BUTTON1)->SetFocus();

    Invalidate();

}

But the boder in button1 is never drawn. The caret (the dotted line indicating focus) is only drawn if I pressed TAB any time before clicking button 3.

I want the button to look exactly as it looks after I click it. Showing the dotted line inside the button programatically, would be a plus.

What I want:

What I get:

Answer 1

This draws the thick border around the button:

static_cast<CButton*>(GetDlgItem(IDC_BUTTON1))->SetButtonStyle(BS_DEFPUSHBUTTON);

A more elegant way to do this would be to define a CButton member variable in CbuttonfocusDlg and associate it to the IDC_BUTTON1 control, and then calling

this->m_myButton.SetButtonStyle(BS_DEFPUSHBUTTON);

This makes the button to which I'm setting the focus the default button, but note that when the focus goes to a control (inside the dialog) that is not a button, the default button is once more the original default button set in the dialog resource, in this case the "Ok" button.

Answer 2

Use WM_NEXTDLGCTL.

See Reymond Chen's "How to set focus in a dialog box":

void SetDialogFocus(HWND hdlg, HWND hwndControl)
{
    SendMessage(hdlg, WM_NEXTDLGCTL, (WPARAM)hwndControl, TRUE);
}

Answer 3

By calling UpdateWindow, the button is being redrawn before the focus change can take effect. The Invalidate should be sufficient by itself, the window will get repainted when everything settles down.

Answer 4

I am following Joel's suggestion. But slightly different with the API used in that link, my one is :

PostMessage(WM_NEXTDLGCTL, (WPARAM)(pwnd->GetSafeHwnd()), TRUE);