How to use the Windows "hook function" with Perl Win32::GUI? - perl

Question

I am working on Windows XP SP 3, Strawberry Perl.
I would like to let the user of my Perl program select a file; but when using Win32::GUI::GetOpenFileName(), I would like the Windows file selection dialog to open in the "Details" file list option, and not in the default "List" file list option.
Googling on the Net, it seems that I have to use the Windows "hook" function, and send certain messages to the file selection control. The documentation about that is MSDN, and I don't seem to master how to apply it in Perl.
Can anyone recommend what should be the right call syntax in Perl?
Here is my code sample, where the file selection dialog opens with the (default) "List" option:
use strict;
use warnings;
use 5.014;
use Win32::Console;
use Win32::GUI();
use autodie;
use warnings qw< FATAL utf8 >;
use Carp::Always;
use Win32API::File::Time qw{:win};
use Image::ExifTool qw(:Public);
use Date::Parse;
# ...
my ( $FileName, $ImageDir, $DIR, $TopDir);
# ...
$TopDir = 'D:\My Documents';
$ImageDir = Win32::GUI::BrowseForFolder( -root => $TopDir, -includefiles => 1,);
unless ($ImageDir) {
say '$DirName not defined after calling Win32::GUI::BrowseForFolder, ',
'Photo date set line'.__LINE__;
exit;
}
else {
say "Identified directory: $ImageDir";
}
# now select a file
$FileName = Win32::GUI::GetOpenFileName( -title => 'Select an image file', -directory => $ImageDir,
-file => "\0" . " " x 256,
-filter => ["Image files (*.jpg)" => "*.jpg;*.jpeg", "All files", "*.*", ],);
unless ($FileName) {
say '$FileName not defined after calling Win32::GUI::GetOpenFileName, ',
'Photo date set line'.__LINE__;
}
else {
say "Identified image file: $FileName";
}
# ...
Note: (somewhat) similar post at: http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=989418

Answer 1

Unfortunately the Win32::GUI API exposes neither the OFN_ENABLEHOOK flag bit or the lpfnHook field of the GetOpenFileName options.
You could perhaps get it working using the Win32::API module to work at an even lower level, but you would have to build the entire OPENFILENAME structure yourself using pack and write some XS code for the hook handler.