Idle Event

This document covers the following topics:


Applies To

Dialog.

Description

Occurs during idle-time processing in situations where the user interface may need to be updated, which is after each time a key or mouse button is pressed or released.

Note:
Mere mouse movement does not normally cause idle events to be raised, because this would be too slow. An exception is when the mouse pointer is moved away from a tool bar, in order to allow the program to update the status-bar text.

In addition to allowing the program to update the status-bar with an idle message (e.g., "Ready"), the idle event may also be used for monitoring user interface changes. For example, the idle event of an MDI frame dialog can query the active MDI child dialog and show or hide individual tool bars appropriately if necessary.

Note:
The idle event handler is called frequently, and therefore should return as quickly as possible. For this reason, database access (for example) should be avoided in this event.