User events and event IDs

About event IDs

An event ID connects events related to user actions or system activity to a system message. PocketBuilder defines (or maps) events to commonly used event IDs, and when it receives a system message, it uses the mapped event ID to trigger an event.

User-defined events do not have to be mapped to an event ID. See “Defining user events”.

The PocketBuilder naming convention for user event IDs is similar to the convention Windows uses to name messages. All PocketBuilder event IDs begin with pbm_.

Event IDs associated with Windows messages

Several Windows messages and notifications map to event IDs.

For Windows messages that begin with wm_, the PocketBuilder event ID typically has the same name with pbm_ substituted for wm_. For messages from controls, the event ID typically has the same name but begins with pbm_ and has the Windows prefix for the control added to the message name. For example:

To see a list of event IDs to which you can map a user-defined event, select Insert>Event and display the Event ID drop-down list in the Prototype window that displays.

Windows messages that are not mapped to an event ID map to the pbm_other event ID. The PocketBuilder Message object is populated with information about system events that are not mapped to event IDs. For more information about the Message object, see the online Help.

For information about Windows messages on Windows Mobile or Windows CE devices, see the Microsoft Web site.

Event IDs associated with PocketBuilder events

PocketBuilder has its own events, each of which has an event ID. For example, the PocketBuilder event DragDrop has the event ID pbm_dragdrop. The event name and event ID of the predefined PocketBuilder events are protected; they cannot be modified. The event IDs for predefined events are shown in the Event List view.

Figure 8-1: The Event List view for a window

Shown is the Event List tab page of the Window painter. It displays a list of predefined events and their syntaxes, but can also display user defined events and syntaxes.