On 24/04/2007, Brian Stevens wrote:

> In the process of converting to CE (and probably shortly thereafter  
> to Nibs with CE), I"ll be phasing out the Appearance Window  
> statement and using CreateNewWindow (or via the Nib later). One  
> challenge of this approach is how to obtain the WindowRef for an  
> existing window. FB (when using Appearance Window) conveniently  
> stuffs it in the RefCon so it is available to for FB statements  
> like:  WINDOW (-_myWindow), WINDOW (_wndRef) and, of course,  
> directly via the Get Window statement. Many toolbox calls require a  
> WindowRef (fn IsWindowVisible is one example) that isn't readily  
> available when the window was created with CreateNewWindow.
>
> So here is my question:  Do I need to save the WindowRef (maybe  
> even stuffing it in the Refcon or using the window property) when  
> the window is created (again assume CreateNewWindow) or is there  
> some nifty TB call that returns the windowRef of specific (i.e. It  
> is possible to walk the existing window list with  
> GetFrontWindowOfClass and GetNextWindowOfClass but every window  
> needs to be inspected to decide if it is the target window) window?

Stuffing a WindowRef into the RefCon or a WindowProperty doesn't buy  
you anything; in order to retrieve the value you must already know it.

Fortunately, it is not normally necessary to cache a WindowRef  
anywhere. Window-related CarbonEvents (_kEventClassWindow) allow you  
to get the relevant window with:
dim as WindowRef @ w
call GetEventParameter( theEvent, _kEventParamDirectObject,  
_typeWindowRef, #0, sizeof( WindowRef ), #0, @w )

 From a mouse event handler you can get the window with:
call GetEventParameter( theEvent, _kEventParamWindowRef,  
_typeWindowRef, #0, sizeof( WindowRef ), #0, @w )

If you have a ControlRef (or HIViewRef), you can get its owning  
window with w = GetControlOwner( c ).

Robert P.