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Registering Window Classes

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A window class is supported by a window procedure. Your application can register a window class by using either RegisterClassA or RegisterClassW. New applications should typically use RegisterClassW.

If the application registers the window class using RegisterClassA, the function informs the operating system that the windows of the created class expect messages with text or character parameters to use a Windows (ANSI) code page character set. Registration using RegisterClassW allows the application to request the operating system to pass text parameters of messages as Unicode. The IsWindowUnicode function enables an application to query the nature of each window.

The following example shows how to register a Windows code page window class and a Unicode window class and how to write the window procedures for both cases. For the purposes of this example, all functions and structures are shown with the specific "A" (ANSI) or "W" (wide, Unicode) data types. Using the techniques explained in Using Generic Data Types, you can alternatively write this example to use generic data types, so that it can be compiled to use either Windows code pages or Unicode, depending on whether "UNICODE" is defined.

// Register a Windows code page window class.

WNDCLASSA AnsiWndCls;

AnsiWndCls.style         = CS_DBLCLKS | CS_PARENTDC;
AnsiWndCls.lpfnWndProc   = (WNDPROC)AnsiWndProc;
AnsiWndCls.cbClsExtra    = 0;
AnsiWndCls.cbWndExtra    = 0;
AnsiWndCls.hInstance     = hInstance;
AnsiWndCls.hIcon         = NULL;
AnsiWndCls.hCursor       = LoadCursor(NULL, (LPTSTR)IDC_IBEAM);
AnsiWndCls.hbrBackground = NULL;
AnsiWndCls.lpszMenuName  = NULL;
AnsiWndCls.lpszClassName = "TestAnsi";

RegisterClassA(&AnsiWndCls);

// Register a Unicode window class.

WNDCLASSW UnicodeWndCls;

UnicodeWndCls.style         = CS_DBLCLKS | CS_PARENTDC;
UnicodeWndCls.lpfnWndProc   = (WNDPROC)UniWndProc;
UnicodeWndCls.cbClsExtra    = 0;
UnicodeWndCls.cbWndExtra    = 0;
UnicodeWndCls.hInstance     = hInstance;
UnicodeWndCls.hIcon         = NULL;
UnicodeWndCls.hCursor       = LoadCursor(NULL,(LPTSTR)IDC_IBEAM);
UnicodeWndCls.hbrBackground = NULL;
UnicodeWndCls.lpszMenuName  = NULL;
UnicodeWndCls.lpszClassName = L"TestUnicode";

RegisterClassW(&UnicodeWndCls);

The following example shows the difference between handling the WM_CHAR message in a Windows code page window procedure and a Unicode window procedure.

// "ANSI" Window Procedure

LRESULT CALLBACK AnsiWndProc(HWND hWnd, UINT message,
                             WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam)
{

    // Dispatch the messages that can be received.

    switch (message)
    {
        case WM_CHAR:

            // wParam - the value of the key
            // lParam - (not used in this example)

            if (lstrcmpA("Q", (LPCSTR) wParam))
            {
                // ...
            }
            else
            {
                // ...
            }
            break;
        // Process other messages.
    default:
        return DefWindowProc(hWnd, message, wParam, lParam);
    }
    return 0;
}

// Unicode Window Procedure

LRESULT CALLBACK UniWndProc(HWND hWnd, UINT message,
                            WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam)
{

    // Dispatch the messages that can be received.

    switch (message)
    {
        case WM_CHAR:

            // wParam - the value of the key
            // lParam - (not used in this example)

            if (lstrcmpW(L"Q", (LPCWSTR) wParam))
            {
                // ...
            }
            else
            {
                // ...
            }
            break;
        // Process other messages.
    default:
        return DefWindowProc(hWnd, message, wParam, lParam);
    }
    return 0;
}

All text in messages received by AnsiWndProc is composed of Windows code page characters. All text in messages received by UniWndProc is composed of Unicode characters.

Using Unicode and Character Sets