I needed to replace the Easymail IMAP client component that my company uses because it doesn’t support imbricated forwarded attachment ( an attachment which is a mail containing an attachment which is mail containing an attachment which is a mail, …)

I found different IMAP clients :

1. The one which looked better a first was the n-software Ip*Works solution (www.nsoftware.com). This IMAP component is really well designed and support imbricated attachments. However, it appeared that it is not thread safe. Calling a method of the IMAP class from a thread different from the one in which the class was instanciated causes strange behaviour ( slow answer from the server). The n-software support confirmed it’s a known issue, and that it cannot be fixed. What a pity 🙁
2. I tried the Chilkat IMAP component (www.chilkatsoft.com/). It was presented as thread safe, and stress tested in ASP farms. Although the component is not really well designed, I tried it. But it appeared that it didn’t work with all the IMAP servers I tried (especially the Vircom Modus one), and in some cases it throws exception (access violation)  when the documentation said it shouldn’t. Moreover, in the very simple demo application I wrote. I had memory leaks even when only doing a login logout… I may have been unlucky with my tests, but I will avoid this component.
3. Finally, I tested a IMAP client from Hunny Soft (http://www.hunnysoft.com/mailpp/index.htm). First, I noticed that it was possible to purchase the source code of this component. And finally, this is the BIG WINNER ! It really is well designed, easy to use, efficient. It looks like it can be used in a multi thread context without problems. That’s the one I will recommend !

In the following sample, we catch the WM_RBUTTONDOWN message. This would work for any windows message :

1. In the AFX_MSG section of your .h file, add the declaration of your message handler function :
    //{{AFX_MSG(CMyCtrl)
   // NOTE – the ClassWizard will add and remove member functions here.
   afx_msg LRESULT OnRBtnDown(WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam); // handler function
   //}}AFX_MSG
2. Add the body of your function in your .cpp file :
   LRESULT CMyCtrl::OnRBtnDown(WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam)
   {
   AfxMessageBox(“WM_RBUTTONDOWN caught”);
   return 0;
   } // LRESULT CMyCtrl::OnRBtnDown
3. In the message map of your .cpp file, add the following :
   BEGIN_MESSAGE_MAP(CMyCtrl, CWnd)
   //{{AFX_MSG_MAP(CFilteredListCtrl)
   // NOTE – the ClassWizard will add and remove mapping macros here.
   ON_MESSAGE(WM_RBUTTONDOWN, OnRBtnDown)
   //}}AFX_MSG_MAP
   END_MESSAGE_MAP()

However, some shortcuts allows you to take care of standard messages. For example, the WM_RBUTTONDOWN message can be caught with :

1. //{{AFX_MSG(CMyCtrl)
   // NOTE – the ClassWizard will add and remove member functions here.
   afx_msg void OnRButtonDown( UINT nFlags, CPoint point );
   //}}AFX_MSG
2. void CMyCtrl::OnRButtonDown( UINT nFlags, CPoint point )
   {
   CWnd::OnRButtonDown( nFlags, point );
   } // void CMyCtrl::OnRButtonDown
3. BEGIN_MESSAGE_MAP(CMyCtrl, CWnd)
   //{{AFX_MSG_MAP(CMyCtrl)
   // NOTE – the ClassWizard will add and remove mapping macros here.
   ON_WM_RBUTTONDOWN()
   //}}AFX_MSG_MAP
   END_MESSAGE_MAP()

You can apply the same approach to many WM_XXX messages.

Looking at a way to sort elements in a CCtrlList, I had a look at the sample given by the MSDN.

That’s the second time in a week I find a mistake in the MSDN. Must be unlucky… The first one concerned the “__cplusplus” preprocessor variable definition. I copied a sampe in which there was 1 “_” instead of two. Obviously, the sample didn’t work.

This time, it’s the sort items sample which is problematic.

Here is the MSDN sample :

(see http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vclib/html/_mfc_clistctrl.3a3a.sortitems.asp)

This codes implies that lParam1 and lParam2 contains the index of the items to compare, which is not true since they are the item’s data field, which is not initialized to the index of items.

Moreover, even if you initialize the data of items with the corresponding index, the sort function will work only once, since after the first sort the real item index and the one stored in the data field won’t match anymore…