On Mon, 02 Jun 2008 12:35:03 -0700, usuenginerd
<us*********@discussions.microsoft.comwrote:
It seems to me that Microsoft has a base dialog box and then they
customize
it according to the operation.
They do. I have first-hand experience with that, back when the common
dialogs were first introduced (early 90's), and yes...the _unmanaged_
common dialog API does provide for customization of the dialogs. But: you
are posting to the C# newsgroup, and on the whole discussions here are
either about questions specifically pertaining to the use of the C#
language (the charter of the newsgroup) or to the use of the .NET
Framework (a de facto extension of the charter by the community).
Via _managed_ code, customization of these dialogs is basically not done
AFAIK. It'd just be too much of a hassle.
If you look in Office 2007 MSWord and look at
the differences from the 'Save As...' Dialog box and the 'Open' Dialog
box
there are some noticable differences.
Even using the .NET SaveFileDialog and OpenFileDialog, there are some
noticable differences. That's why .NET offers the two (and why Windows
also offers the two, used by each of SaveFileDialog and OpenFileDialgo).
But, I doubt that Word is using .NET to show those dialog boxes. Surely
they are using the unmanaged API, and in that context customization is
much easier (but off-topic in this newsgroup).
I don't know how this is but it would
seem to me that the dialog boxes should be able to be customized. I
guess
the other option that I have is to create a follow up dialog box to the
'Open' dialog box and allow the user to set some options there. This
would
be a custom dialog box.
From the .NET standpoint, if you can adjust your UI to take into account
additional user input in that way, that would definitely be the easiest
approach.
If not, it's not that you can't do what you're asking. It's just that
this newsgroup won't be the best place for you to get advice on how to do
it. You'll be much better off doing the customization without .NET, and
asking questions about said customization in a newsgroup pertaining to the
unmanaged Windows API.
Pete