CStatic subclassed Control fails to receive input messages

Question

I am using a MFC dialog based application and have a subclassed CStatic control. I would like to receive WM_MOUSEWHEEL and other messages inside my subclassed control but somehow those messages never arrive.

Here is how my Dialog looks like:

I'm only doing some really simple drawing and want to be able to move my list up and down by scrolling.

I did already:

Change the Tab-Order to ensure focus on the subclassed CStatic control first
Overwrote OnNcHitTest to give focus to the subclassed CStatic all the time
Added a scroll bar to the side
Wrote message handler for WM_MOUSEWHEEL, WM_LBUTTONDOWN, WM_KEYDOWN and WM_VSCROLL
Tried catching the messages in PreTranslateMessage

Sadly nothing ever gets called when I'm scrolling inside the Dialog / Pressing a key or clicking with my mouse. The messages just don't arrive.

Here is my Mousewheel handler for example:

class CFolderView : public CStatic
{
   ...
   afx_msg BOOL OnMouseWheel(UINT nFlags, short zDelta, CPoint pt);
   DECLARE_MESSAGE_MAP()
   ...
}

BEGIN_MESSAGE_MAP(CFolderView, CStatic)
    ON_WM_MOUSEWHEEL()
    ON_WM_KEYDOWN()
    ON_WM_LBUTTONDOWN()
END_MESSAGE_MAP()

BOOL CFolderView::OnMouseWheel(UINT nFlags, short zDelta, CPoint pt)
{
    MessageBox("Mouse Wheel moved!", "Debug", MB_OK);

    return CStatic::OnMouseWheel(nFlags, zDelta, pt);
}

I fail to understand why no input messages are being sent to my subclassed control. Is there some switch that enables input for a subclassed control?

Andrew already gave you a good answer, but I'd like to ask why you don't use a listbox to derive from instead? They can be heavily customized including icons and text together. — Ulrich Eckhardt

Andrew Komiagin Andrew Komiagin · Accepted Answer · 2015-10-25T08:03:50

You cannot handle WM_MOUSEWHEEL in CStatic because it cannot get focus by design.

From MSDN:

The WM_MOUSEWHEEL message is sent to the focus window when the mouse wheel is rotated

By looking at your screenshot I'd suggest subclassing CListBox instead.

CStatic subclassed Control fails to receive input messages

1 Answers