How does one tell when the state of a child window changes in WTL?

Question

I've written a simple GUI using WTL:

I've got everything figured out as far as setting up the window is concerned, and also wired up the menus and such to call whatever I wish. But I need to know when, for example, someone checks one of the checkboxes in the list view, or when someone clicks on a button.

Do these child windows send a message to the main window notifying of the state change, and is that notification generally consistent between child window types?

Answer 1

Child notifications are typically sent to the parent window in the form of WM_NOTIFY or WM_COMMAND messages.

Some child notifications are common across most control types (e.g. NM_CLICK and NM_CUSTOMDRAW), but in general you'll need to look at the notifications reference for each control type on MSDN to see what's available. To start, the reference for listview notifications are here and the button notifications are here.