How to compute the actual height of the text in a static control - windows

Question

My simple Win32 DialogBox contains two static text controls (IDC_STATIC_TITLE and IDC_STATIC_SECONDARY), here's what it looks like in the resource editor:
At run time, the text first string is updated dynamically. Also, the font of the that text string is replaced such that it's bigger than the IDC_STATIC_SECONDARY string below it. The resulting text string might span a single line, two lines, or more.
I want the other static control holding the secondary text to be placed directly underneath the title string at run time. However, my resulting attempt to re-position this control in the WM_INITDIALOG callback isn't working very well. The second string is overlapping the first. I thought I could use DrawText with DT_CALCRECT to compute the height of the primary text string and then move the secondary text string based on the result. My code is coming up a bit short as seen here:
DrawText returns a RECT with coordinates {top=42 bottom=74 left=19 right=461} Subtracting bottom from top is "32". That seems a little short. I suspect I'm not invoking the API correctly and/or an issue with the different mappings between logical and pixel units.
Here's the relevant ATL code. The CMainWindow class just inherits from ATL's CDialogImpl class.
CMainWindow::CMainWindow():
_titleFont(NULL),
_secondaryFont(NULL)
{
LOGFONT logfont = {};
logfont.lfHeight = 30;
_titleFont = CreateFontIndirect(&logfont);
}
LRESULT CMainWindow::OnInitDialog(UINT uMsg, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam, BOOL& bHandled)
{
CString strTitle;
RECT rectDrawText = {}, rectTitle={}, rectSecondary={};
CWindow wndTitle = GetDlgItem(IDC_STATIC_TITLE);
CWindow wndSecondary = GetDlgItem(IDC_STATIC_SECONDARY);
this->GetDlgItemText(IDC_STATIC_TITLE, strTitle);
wndTitle.SetFont(_titleFont); // font created with Create
wndTitle.GetWindowRect(&rectTitle);
wndSecondary.GetWindowRect(&rectSecondary);
ScreenToClient(&rectTitle);
ScreenToClient(&rectSecondary);
rectDrawText = rectTitle;
DrawText(wndTitle.GetDC(), strTitle, strTitle.GetLength(), &rectDrawText, DT_CALCRECT|DT_WORDBREAK); // compute the actual size of the text
UINT height = rectSecondary.bottom - rectSecondary.top; // get the original height of the secondary text control
rectSecondary.top = rectDrawText.bottom; // position it to be directly below the bottom of the title control
rectSecondary.bottom = rectSecondary.top + height; // add the height back
wndSecondary.MoveWindow(&rectSecondary);
return 0;
}
What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

Despite what its name may make it sound like, wndTitle.GetDC() doesn't return some pointer/reference that's part of the CWindow and that's the same every call. Instead, it retrieves a brand new device context for the window each time. (It's basically a thin wrapper for the GetDC() Windows API call, right down to returning an HDC instead of the MFC equivalent.)
This device context, despite being associated with the window, is loaded with default parameters, including the default font (which IIRC is that old "System" font from the 16-bit days (most of this screenshot)).
So what you need to do is:
Call wndTitle.GetDC() to get the HDC.
Call SelectObject() to select the correct window font in (you can use WM_GETFONT to get this; not sure if MFC has a wrapper function for it), saving the return value, the previous font, for step 4
Call DrawText()
Call SelectObject() to select the previous font back in
Call wndTitle.ReleaseDC() to state that you are finished using the HDC
More details are on the MSDN page for CWindow::GetDC().