Background Information: I'm developing an Windows 10 app. Within my app, I'm working with nested consoles. I'm familiar with GetSystemMetrics() and using some of it's parameters to define my console physical appearance (i.e. SM_CXBORDER, SM_CXDLGFRAME, etc).
Snip: Nested Child Console
Problem: What parameter should I look into if I want my nested child consoles (i.e. child's child console) to be resizable? My current logic output a user cmd onto this console. Overtime, the outputs accumulate. For example, if a user inputs the cmd Time 10 times then he/she will need to start scrolling through the outputs to see any previous output. In the desired scenario, the user can input the cmd Time 10 times without having to scroll which can be done by extending the console vertically. As a user, I rather extend the console than scroll through the outputs. This is purely for better visibility and less congestion.
Attempt: I tried altering DLGFRAME, DLGWINFRAME, RESIZEFRAME, and SCROLL. However, I didn't have much success.
There is no layout engine in the classic Windows API that will make your window extend size automatically
"Fit window size to text" is a feature that is implemented only in more sophisticated GUI toolkits.
If you insist on using the classic Windows API for your GUI (kind of like using stone age tools) - the only option is to calculate how big your rendered text is going to be (either assume it is always one line or use DrawText with the DT_CALCRECT flag) and extend your main window and text control by that amount.
On the whole you would be far more wise to switch to a real GUI toolkit, than wrestle with WINAPI and reinvent extremely complex wheels
BTW don't call it a console - because console is a term used to refer to Windows console terminals that use a different API - your question is confusing with existing terminology
Related
Is it possible to create a keyboard shortcut to switch between the monitor and portion selection of this wacom preferences window, via a c++ console program?
Sorry if this is poorly worded, I've had trouble trying to find the right words to search for ways to do it.
I think it should be possible, although a bit tedious. You should be able to use the Windows API, and try to EnumWindows/EnumDesktopWindows to identify the respective application Window, and its respective controls (which are also Windows).
You should identify the window title, and class ids, for the app window, and the checkbox button controls, then when you enumerate through all the desktop windows, you can identify the ones you are interested in.
Then you can use the SendMessage() API to send messages to the controls (Windows) of interest to manipulate them.
It's a bit tedious, but sounds possible.
An example of use here to get an idea:
http://www.cplusplus.com/forum/windows/25280/
I am trying to add text input functionality into existing DirectX application that was being ported to Windows Store / Phone 8.1. The problem is that I can't even get the sample code provided by microsoft in this article to compile:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/jj247546%28v=vs.105%29.aspx
I am using Universal App project as a base and I have no acces to Windows::Phone::UI::Core (there is no Core namespace at all!)
I was trying to add dummy textbox and hid it somewhere but without luck as to appear the software keyboard you need to focus the textbox - the moment it receives focus it appears on the screen (we draw our own controls so I don't want the system one) despite the fact being set to Transparent, both foreground and background and width to 0.
How can I manipulate SIP to show/hide and retrieve input from the keyboard without having to hack my way through XAML and stuff?
On Windows Phone (but not Windows) apps can request the InputPane hide and show programmatically by calling InputPane.TryShow and TryHide.
If you want the InputPane to show automatically then you need to set focus to a control which identifies itself as a text control to the automation system (see the Touch Keyboard documentation on MSDN. Windows Phone works essentially the same as Windows 8 here).
There are two ways to do this in a DirectX app:
As the other thread describes and as you've tried, you can use a Xaml TextBox on top of your DirectX surface. This has the advantage of being easy as the Xaml controls already implement the accessibility and IME interfaces needed for full text support. It has the disadvantage of being external to the DX scene so it can require some care to place it nicely. You can't really hide the TextBox and divert the input, but need to use the TextBox for input. I prefer to do the full interactive form in Xaml rather than trying to merge a single TextBox into a full scene.
The other option is to implement a text control in DirectX. Windows uses the UI Automation API to identify and interact with text controls. If you implement the TextPattern and focus for your control within DirectX then the keyboad will automatically invoke when the user sets focus to it. There's a sample at Input: Touch keyboard sample which demonstrates the necessary interfaces within a custom Xaml control context. It won't apply directly to DX, but will give the general idea. The UI Automation Provider Programmer's Guide has more in depth information on implementing UI Automation interfaces. Again, while these docs target Windows they will also apply to Windows Phone.
I'm not sure exactly which code didn't compile for you. The linked pages are a bit out of date (SwapChainPanel is now preferred over SwapChainBackgroundPanel), but the classes and techniques involved should be valid for Windows Phone Runtime apps.
I'm working with 2 friends in a class project to make a D&D game. so far for the assignments I've been doing character creation stuff and strutting on the command line.
Now we're bringing or part together and I need to output ny dice rolls on a console and a few things on another one that will have to become the main view or tab or whatever it's called when it requires input/attention.
Problem is I never learned MFC yet because I didn't need it. How hard would it be to make a sample MFC console all that I can give to the teammate in charge of the GUI?
Could anyone point me to some instruction on making a console for an MFC app and how to give it output and receive output?
First, you can't. for both Unix/Linux and Windows, there is a one console/process limit. If you want another console, you have to create another process, that writes and reads the other console, while you send and receive the data.
You can use a NamedPipe http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa365590%28v=vs.85%29.aspx to send data between processes, and the CreateProcess() function lets you create a process with a separate Console window.
Alternatively you can just write a Console-Look-a-Like window in some GUI.
In linux and when installing packages etc. There are some installers that have a progress bar and a dos window which shows the files being extracted etc. How can i add this window to my C++ Win32 programs so that i can have it showing the tasks im doing? I cannot find any documentation on MSDN.
Question: How can i add a console window (if that's what its called, sure looks like one) in my program to show the details of the task at hand being done?
Here is a window with what i am asking.. (personal info so I erased the details. :]
You cannot embed a real console window inside another window (although a windowed process can have a separate console window). While it looks like a console window / command prompt, it is just a matter of appearances. What you want to do is create a sub-window/control with similar characteristics as a console window and then redirect the console output from the application(s) being run to append to that sub-window. For more information on how to do redirect the console output in Windows, see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/190351.
That "dos window" is a regular edit control: CreateWindow(ES_MULTILINE, EDIT, ...
However, it has the font set to a fixed-width one (Looks like courier). This is done by sending WM_SETFONT to the edit control.
#user995048 says "You cannot embed a real console window inside another window". But "cannot" is a strong word! I can run an entire virtualized computer in a window if I wish. :) So one can quite reasonably intuit that there are ways of doing what you say.
Sure, it is true that what you've seen are almost certainly cases of output redirection into a custom widget, designed to mimic the simple appearance of a terminal. However...if you want to embed one application's window inside another, there are things you can look into which might fit. Cooperative methods exist like GtkPlug, for instance:
http://developer.gnome.org/gtk/2.24/GtkPlug.html
To actually capture a not-designed-to-cooperate app's window and throw it in your app would be trickier. But possible, just as screen captures and virtual machines are possible. Probably best to avoid that sort of thing unless there's really a cause for it, though...
Try this
http://www.codeguru.com/cpp/misc/misc/article.php/c277/
link. I think the solution provided is what you need.
I tried it many years ago and it worked. I have not tried it in newer versions of windows though.
I always wondered how software such as iTunes, Winamp etc is able to create its own UI.
How is this accomplished under the Windows platform? Is there any code on the web explaining how one would create their own custom GUI?
WinAmp doesn't usually supply its own GUI at all -- it delegates that to a "skin". You can download dozens of examples and unless memory fails me particularly badly, documentation is pretty easily available as well.
From the looks of things, I'd guess iTunes uses some sort of translation layer to let what's basically written as a native Mac UI run on Windows (the same kind of thing that Apple recently decided was so evil that they're now forbidden on the iPhone and apparently the iPad).
Since saying anything that could possibly be construed as negative about Apple is often treated as heresy, I'll point to all the .xib files that are included with iTunes for Windows. An .XIB file (at least normally) is produced by Apple's Interface Builder to hold resources for OS/X programs, and compiled to a .NIB file prior to deployment. Windows doesn't normally use either .XIB or .NIB files at all, and it appears likely to me that Apple includes a compatibility layer to use them on Windows (though I've never spent any time looking to figure out what file it's stored in or anything like that).
Edit: (response to Mattias's latest comment). Rendering it is tedious but fairly straightforward. You basically take the input from the skin (for example) and create an owner draw control (e.g. a button) and render the button based on that input.
The easiest way to do this is to have fixed positions for your controls, and require the user to draw/include bitmaps for the background and controls. In this case, you just load the background bitmap and display it covering the entire client area of your application (and you'll probably use a borderless window, so that's all that shows). You'll specify all your controls as owner-drawn, and for each you'll load their bitmap and blit it to the screen for that control. Since there won't (usually) be a visible title bar, you'll often need to handle WM_NCHITTEST (or equivalent on other systems) to let the user drag the window around.
If you want to get a bit more complex, you can add things like allowing them to also specify a size and position for each control, as well as possibly specifying that some controls won't show up at all. Again, this isn't really terribly difficult to manage -- under Windows, for example, most controls are windows, and you can specify a size and position when you create a window. If the user loads a different skin at run-time, you can call MoveWindow to move/resize each control as needed.
I'm assuming that you mean creating a GUI application as opposed to a GUI framework.
There are lots of GUI frameworks available for Windows.
Some are
wxWidgets (www.wxwidgets.org)
Qt (http://qt.nokia.com/products)
And of course the venerable MFC framework (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/d06h2x6e%28VS.90%29.aspx)
If you want a more complete list, look at the Wikipedia article for MFC (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/d06h2x6e%28VS.90%29.aspx) and scroll to the bottom.
Each of these GUI frameworks is amply documented on the web.