IShellFolder::CreateViewObject method (shobjidl_core.h)

Article
10/13/2021

Requests an object that can be used to obtain information from or interact with a folder object.

Syntax

HRESULT CreateViewObject(
  [in]  HWND   hwndOwner,
  [in]  REFIID riid,
  [out] void   **ppv
);

Parameters

[in] hwndOwner

Type: HWND

A handle to the owner window. If you have implemented a custom folder view object, your folder view window should be created as a child of hwndOwner.

[in] riid

Type: REFIID

A reference to the IID of the interface to retrieve through ppv, typically IID_IShellView.

[out] ppv

Type: void**

When this method returns successfully, contains the interface pointer requested in riid. This is typically IShellView. See the Remarks section for more details.

Return value

Type: HRESULT

If this method succeeds, it returns S_OK. Otherwise, it returns an HRESULT error code.

Remarks

To support this request, create an object that exposes the interface indicated by riid and return a pointer to that interface.

The primary purpose of this method is to provide Windows Explorer with the folder object's folder view object. Windows Explorer requests a folder view object by setting riid to IID_IShellView. The folder view object displays the contents of the folder in the Windows Explorer folder view. The folder view object must be independent of the Shell folder object, because Windows Explorer may call this method more than once to create multiple folder view objects. A new view object must be created each time this method is called. Your folder object can respond in one of two ways to this request. It can:

Create a custom folder view object and return a pointer to its IShellView interface.
Create a system folder view object and return a pointer to its IShellView interface.

This method is also used to request objects that expose one of several optional interfaces, including IContextMenu or IExtractIcon. In this context, CreateViewObject is similar in usage to IShellFolder::GetUIObjectOf. However, you call IShellFolder::GetUIObjectOf to request an object for one of the items contained by a folder. Call IShellFolder::CreateViewObject to request an object for the folder itself. The most commonly requested interfaces are:

We recommend that you use the IID_PPV_ARGS macro, defined in Objbase.h, to package the riid and ppv parameters. This macro provides the correct IID based on the interface pointed to by the value in ppv, which eliminates the possibility of a coding error in riid that could lead to unexpected results.

Requirements

Requirement	Value
Minimum supported client	Windows XP [desktop apps only]
Minimum supported server	Windows 2000 Server [desktop apps only]
Target Platform	Windows
Header	shobjidl_core.h (include Shobjidl.h)
DLL	Shell32.dll (version 4.0 or later)