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.NET Forum / Windows Forms / WinForm General / December 2006MessageBox.Show(text) has blank caption - why?
MessageBox.Show() provides an overload where you supply only the text. I figured that, like MFC and similar frameworks, the caption would be the application name, which is 99% of the time what you would want. But no...the documentation even states that the caption is blank. But when would it ever be considered acceptable in a Windows application that follows all the relevant GUI standards to have a blank title bar (no caption)? Even under the raw Win32 API for MessageBox, the caption is the word "Error" if you don't supply one. I can't think of any reasonable justification for supplying this overload given its current behaviour. As opposed to your supposition that 99% of the time you would want the application name as the messagebox's caption, I would say that 99% of the time you wouldn't. I believe that Microsoft agrees and has changed the .NET MessageBox() class to reflect that. > MessageBox.Show() provides an overload where you supply only the text. > I figured that, like MFC and similar frameworks, the caption would be [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > reasonable justification for supplying this overload given its current > behaviour. "Scott M." <s-mar@nospam.nospam> schrieb: > As opposed to your supposition that 99% of the time you would want the > application name as the messagebox's caption, I would say that 99% of the > time you wouldn't. I believe that Microsoft agrees and has changed the > .NET MessageBox() class to reflect that. I have to disagree. A window's title bar carries important information, leaving it blank is IMO a bad idea in general. Personally I do not see any reason for using a blank title bar text.  SignatureM S Herfried K. Wagner M V P <URL:http://dotnet.mvps.org/> V B <URL:http://dotnet.mvps.org/dotnet/faqs/> I didn't say that leaving it blank was the way to go. What I said was that 99% of the time I want to put application specific data into the caption and so, I wouldn't want the application name there. IMHO, leaving it blank it MS's way of leaving the door open for the developer to put whatever they want there without forcing something (the generic application title) that you probably don't want. > "Scott M." <s-mar@nospam.nospam> schrieb: >> As opposed to your supposition that 99% of the time you would want the [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > leaving it blank is IMO a bad idea in general. Personally I do not see > any reason for using a blank title bar text. I get the impression that the 2 overloads of the MessageBox.Show method that do not take a caption parameter have been provided so that we developers can display a 'quick and dirty' message dialog when debugging without the need to satisfy various other parameters of the other overloads of the method. That is certainly the only situation where I use either of those 2 overloads. Note also that with those 2 overloads, the dialog does not display an icon. It would be very rare that I use MessageBox.Show, (except when debugging/troubleshooting), without specifying an icon and therefore I must supply a value for caption. (Certainly, I could supply an empty string to get a blank title bar if I wanted that, but I can't think of a situation where I would want to.) >I didn't say that leaving it blank was the way to go. What I said was that >99% of the time I want to put application specific data into the caption [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] >> leaving it blank is IMO a bad idea in general. Personally I do not see >> any reason for using a blank title bar text. > I get the impression that the 2 overloads of the MessageBox.Show method that > do not take a caption parameter have been provided so that we developers can [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > get a blank title bar if I wanted that, but I can't think of a situation > where I would want to.) I agree - in fact I think it should use a default "error" icon too, which is what MFC does. It may be intended as a "quick and dirty" method, but I see no reason why it can't assume some sensible defaults that will actually allow it to be of real use in a genuine app (my application in this case is an in-house license key generator, so I don't care too much, but a message box with no title looks like some weird resource problem to me). But my whole point is that it is behaving 'sensibly'. If I use either of those 2 overloads I don't want the framework second-guessing me. You may not care what your applications look like (even if they are only for in-house use) but I sure as hell do! >> I get the impression that the 2 overloads of the MessageBox.Show method >> that [quoted text clipped - 22 lines] > in-house license key generator, so I don't care too much, but a message > box with no title looks like some weird resource problem to me). Free MagazinesGet these publications absolutely FREE for up to 12 months. There are no hidden fees and no obligation. Simply choose a title, complete the application form and submit it. Read more ...
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