Creating ownership between windows

Window objects are self-sufficient by default, and are independent of other windows in the application. Sometimes, however, it's useful to connect two (or more) windows in an owner-owned relationship. An owned window obeys the following rules:

  • Closed automatically if its owner is closed
  • Minimized automatically if its owner is minimized
  • Always appears on top of its owner, but unconstrained to its surface (unlike traditional Win32 child windows)
  • Never shown in the task bar if it's currently minimized

In this recipe, we'll see how to create such ownership and show a typical use case.

Getting ready

Make sure Visual Studio is up and running.

How to do it...

We'll create a tool-like window that is owned by the main window, ...

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