Good day -

Not sure why i wasn't brave enough to ask this before - but wouldn't it be cool to add custom icons directly into a dialog title? Very often all I need is a simple OK/Cancel. Its easy to use the embedded [X] on the dialog title bar as a cancel but what to do with an OK? or SAVE? etc... you have to add a button at the bottom or a custom toolbar underneath the dialog title bar. Microsoft apps very often place their own icons here.

Any way to hijack this area for custom icons?

For example - i would like to move the custom icons here onto the main dialog title bar:

This appears to be a kind of grey area. Microsoft strongly discourages messing with window design elements that are covered by the Themes, since any such customizations would definitely not conform to changes in the Theme designs. Yet the seem to do this themselves in some cases, although those are probably .Net applications. I'll try to do some further research.

A possible compromise would be to create your own standard mini-icon-buttons and insert them the upper right corner of the client area of the dialog. For example, here's how Herman approached it...

Sorry can you please re-send the example in a larger format? Trying to see exactly what he did here...

I can understand your point tho - ms doesnt want us to hijack this area for our own purposes. I could "fake" out a dialog creating a "frame" and add a custom title bar at the top to mimick the look but it would be draggable... not sure how big a deal that is but i'd rather not deviate that deeply.

Gotit. Basically just a different workaround. Is accessing the dialog title the "third rail" of windows programming???

I think it's not just the dialog title, but basically all of the "non-client" areas of both windows and individual controls. (We ran into the same issue awhile back with your attempts to change the way edit control backgrounds were rendered. While the background is actually part of the "client area", in that case the border spilled into the background and the border is part of the "non-client" realm.

Microsoft wants to control the non-client realm so they can manipulate it systematically in successive Windows updates to satisfy the fickle desires of fashion.