Background
I am woefully inexperienced with MFC and C++.
I have a set of dialogs that all have a small section with the same set of controls and extremely similar code.
I would like to separate that small section of controls from all dialogs move the code from all the dialog classes into a single class.
Problem
I'm not sure how to go about it. All my ideas all seem to have their own problems because I am so inexperienced.
Could I make a super class these dialogs inherit from that creates the controls dynamically given an (x, y) and that hooks up all the connections and communicates the few specifics through virtual methods?
The problem is I don't know the specifics:
Where would the super class inherit from? (CWnd? CDialog?)
Where would I create the controls in the super class? (OnInit? Constructor?)
Where would I initialize the super class in its subclasses? (OnInit? Constructor?)
Would I just have two message maps? One for the super class and one for the sub class?
Are there any other pitfalls I should watch out for?
The small section that you want to reuse can be an ordinary modeless dialog, derived from CDialog. You can create its controls with the resource editor - just like any other dialog - so they won't have to be created dynamically. The trick is to turn off the dialog's titlebar style (in the resource editor) so it will not be visually apparent that this section is a separate dialog. It will blend right in with the parent dialog.
For each place you want to reuse this dialog just create it and place it on the parent dialog with (x, y) coordinates using SetWindowPos.
Related
I searched on the forum and I don't find a solution for my issue. So I hope you can help me :)
I work on a personal project for SFC designing (Sequential functional chart) and I'm working with visual studio in SDI(I'm using MFC library). If you see the "design" of an SFC you can see the different elements needed to compose this. So you can find Step, Transition, and more. If I take a step for explaining my issue, after double click on the step a popup dialog is opened with the elements to define this step (actions on this step, and more). The issue is here, I can't see two or more step elements at the same time. I want to reuse the existing concept on other software, see this.
Step close
Step open
Dialog to add
My question is, how I can implement a dialog with my graphic element in mainframe (In this case, a step)? I don't know how I can insert a dialog with my element, I think I need to use CFormView, but I don't know.
This dialog needs to be resizable and reduce directly by the step graphic.
any idea?
Thank you in advance! Sorry for my English ..
Sorry, I think my request is not clear .. (Thank you for your answer)
The context, it's an SDI application with the Document/View architecture. Actually the view is derived from CScrollView.
So, in the document class, you have the different lists of components for make SFC (Steps, transitions and symbols ..). I'm working today on Step element.
The user inserts a new step, the step is draw on the view like this :
enter image description here
And now the user want change the events on this Step, for this after double click on the step the events editor is opened at right of step draw, like this :
enter image description here
For this, I've created a new dialog resource and create the class by wizard in CForwView derived class. In step attribute, you can find one instance of this derived class (The derived class of dialog).
But this doesn't work correctly, I think my method is bad. At the first try, I have sent the pointer of the current document to the "CFormView::Create" function for having the "Save" button active with the focus on the FormView. But after destroying the step, the instance of FormView is destroyed and the document with the instance of formview ...
No problem, you can use "Create" within CCreateContext a null pointer. But with the document or without I have a lot of problems (graphic design not correct in FormView, regularly (not systematic I have assert fail on Proc exchange (for differents reason)). But the "concept" is good, the editor follows the draw if I scroll, I can open or close the editor at any time and on any elements.
For the old capture, it's my SFC designer "model". My application is a complement to this application, so I want a similar design. I don't know how work my model application ..
On my application all is draw by MFC GDI, I don't use ActiveX or other tools.
So what is the correct way to implement one instance of editor by instance of step ?
For the implementation on this FormView I have :
- Make new dialog in ressource
- Create a derived class of CFormView with the created dialog
- Add one instance in attributes of Step element
- "OnDbClickOnStep" -> Call "Create" with the good position / size, pointer of mainview (in my case the CSrollView derived class)
- Done, FormView inserted in a mainview, I can edit my step events.
? Not done, I lost save button and other function linked to the document with the focus on a control in FormView. The app want a document with this view, how to override this ?
? Error in Proc exchange, for different reason...
You have an idea ?
You normally don't draw anything in the "main frame" (or the "MDI clild frames", in the case of a MDI application), this is done by the library, and imo sufficiently so. You display your data in a CView-derived class.
CView is the base class of all other MFC view classes. It's a simple graphical class - you need to paint it yourself in the OnDraw() member.
CScrollView is a descendant of CView, adding scrolling functionality (scroll-bars are automatically displayed if the scrollable area is bigger than the visible window area).
CFormView is a descendant of CScrollView, displaying a dialog resource-script, containing "controls" (edit-boxes, check-boxes, images, ActiveX etc).
As in your case the "controls" won't be initially known (except maybe for some few special cases) and rather programatically created, the resource script will most likely be empty, so using either CFormView or CScrollView will basically be the same. I would suggest starting with CFormView, and "downgrade" it to CScrollView if CFormView is not necessary or causes you troubles.
What are those "Step" items shown in the pics? ActiveX controls, child dialogs maybe? These work best as child controls on a dialog window. Are they already implemented, or they are just pics of some other software? Btw ActiveX is a way to define controls that can be used in other projects too, without having to include them in the project source.
I need to extend an existing MFC app with a UI that will end up very cluttered unless I use a tab control. However, the nature of the UI is that there are some controls that are global, and only some that can be localised to a particular tab.
The standard use of tab controls (CPropertySheet + CPropertyPage) more or less expects there only to be CPropertyPage instances (tabs) visible on the CPropertySheet object, and nothing else. There is a Microsoft Example Project that shows a single additional window painted outside the area occupied by the tab control... but it's not immediately clear how it is created/drawn/handled, and it is only one single additional window that generates few events (I guess it is painted, so there must be a WM_PAINT event handler lurking somewhere).
Is it possible to lay out a bunch of controls with the MS Dialog Editor, including a tab control, and create the CPropertySheet using that template, hook up event handlers in a nice way, etc... or some equivalent way of getting the MFC framework to do as much of the creating, drawing and event handling as possible when it comes to a situation like this?
Yes it is possible to create dialog templates and use them in a CPropertyPage.
Each CPropertyPage behaves nearly like a dialog and handles all events for the controls on it.
Also there are features like OnApply that help you to manage the data exchange between the controls and your internal storage.
The central CPropertySheet only creates the dialog that get active. So OnInintDialog for a page is called the first time when the page gets active.
In the MFC since 2010 are more possibilities than a CPropertySheet. You can create tabbed views, that again may be CFormViews. I don't like CDialog based applications so I would prefer a tabbed view in a standard frame with toolbar and menus if appropriate for the application. So another method to unclutter your UI is to choose the MDI interface with tabbed documents... but multiple documents maybe isn't what you want.
Here is a sample of an SDI application with multiple tabbed views.
Also Coeproject shows some more samples here and with splitters and tabs here.
There are at least three solutions paths:
Try to squeeze the situation into the CPropertySheet + CPropertyPage framework which does not naturally allow for additional dialog controls on the CPropertySheet object, and so you will get no framework support this
Place a tab control on an ordinary dialog, and then use the TCN_SELCHANGE messages to fire code that manually hides & shows individual dialog controls subject to the tab control (again no framework support, but this time "within" the tab control instead of outside it)
Follow Mark Ransom's observation that if you can embed one kind of CWnd-based control on a CPropertySheet then you can probably embed any such object, including a CDialog-based object that has been developed in the MFC Dialog Editor
All of these approaches are going to encounter challenges, and it will depend on the specifics of the situation as to which is better. But first you should really consider whether there is a cleaner UI design which would lend itself to a simpler solution.
In my specific case, I saw no cleaner design alternatives, and found it easiest to take the second approach. It left me with some reasonably simple calls to ShowWindow() to show/hide the controls inside the tab control.
I'm turning mad with a little problem with Visual Studio 2008 and MFC. I'm working on a project actually and I'm trying to create an SDI Application. Right, now I want to add a dockable DialogBar. Well, the first time I added it with the resource view, I could create the bar without problems.
But... I want to add some controls like a couple of ListBox, buttons and so on. The program doesn't allows me to create member variables for these controls. The option appears in grey.
Searching a little, I found that it's mandatory to create a new class derived from CDialogBar and "enhance" it with the Message handler and so on. I've been reading some tutorials and it didn't work for me.
Can you please help me? I'm starting to get nervous, the use of dialogbars is mandatory in my design and I've never implemented them before.
Thank you very much, and sorry for my poor english.
You can add a control member variable by hand instead of using the wizard. All it takes is a call to DDX_Control in the dialog bar's DoDataExchange function.
But CDialogBar-derived classes do not handle control clicks. The CDialogBar class forwards all of those messages to the dialog bar's parent window. So be prepared to add the message handlers to the parent (usually CMainFrame).
For learning purposes you might try creating your dialog bar as a CDialog first, to see the proper code lines and message map entries supplied by the wizard. Then you can copy/move these details as appropriate into your actual code project.
I've derived a custom control from ATL::CWindowImpl<CMyCustomControl> and declared DECLARE_WND_CLASS(_T("CMyCustomControl")).
I've also made a dialog resource with a custom control with the class name CMyCustomControl.
How do I go about registering the control properly so I can display it on the dialog?
There are thre typical way to create custom controls in WTL.
DECLARE_WND_CLASS/DECLARE_WND_SUPERCLASS + RegisterClassEx API to register class by name + custom control reference in dialog template to instantiate control through class name
Implement window class, esp. inheriting from CWindowImpl, and create control manually, esp. from OnCreate/OnInitDialog
Implement window class, instantiate standard control through dialog template, and subclass the control instance to alter its behavior (e.g. static with hyperlinks, custom list view, edit control with color highlighting etc)
With all three you need to do more than just a macro in class definition. You will find great examples here: http://www.viksoe.dk/code/all_wtl.htm under "Controls" section.
Certainly the fourth method is implementing an ActiveX control.
I want to make a custom made component (a line chart), that would be used in other applications.
I don't know 2 things:
Where should I use (within component class!) the methods for drawing, like FillRect
or PolyLine? In OnPaint handler that I should define and map it in MESSAGE MAP? Will
it (OnPaint handler) be called from OnPaint handler of the dialog of the application
or where from?
How to connect the component, once it is made, to the test application, which will
for example be dialog based? Where should I instantiate that component? From an
OnCreate method of the MyAppDialog.cpp?
I started coding in MFC few days ago and I'm so confused about it.
Thanks in advance,
Cheers.
Painting the control is handled exactly like it would be if it wasn't a control. Given that you're using MFC, that (at least normally) means you do the drawing in the View class' OnDraw (MFC normally handles OnPaint internally, so you rarely touch it).
Inserting the resulting ActiveX control in the host application will be done like inserting any other ActiveX control. Assuming you're doing your development in Visual Studio, you'll normally do that by opening the dialog, right clicking inside the dialog box, and clicking "Insert ActiveX Control..." in the menu that pops up. Pick your control from the list, and it'll generate a wrapper class for the control and code to create an object of that class as needed. From the viewpoint of the dialog code, it's just there, and you can use it about like any other control.
For create new component in MFC, you must create a class from the window class (CWND),
after that you can have your MessageMap for the component and your methods and also can override CWND::OnDraw method to draw the thing you want.
Before that I suggest you to take a look to device context
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/azz5wt61(VS.80).aspx
Good Luck friend.