I am writing a C++ application and I have a Login Box that's shown in a regular Dialog Box Frame. I see that some people can SKIN the entire dialog box and makes it look really nice. I was wondering if anyone can give me some pointers as to how to do that.
I'd need more details to give you a good answer.
The answer very much depends on which OS you're using and how you're programming your GUI (for example on Windows - plain Win32, MFC, ATL, Qt, Windows Forms, WPF etc etc).
If you're just using the Windows API here's a link to get you started.
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/dialog/skinstyle.aspx
Beware: custom skinning dialog boxes can be a very large task if you want to customise the look of every control as you end up writing very complicated custom controls.
Alternatively do you just want to make sure that your dialogs appear with Windows XP visual style rather than pre-XP style? This will require changes to your application to use the new common controls and visual style. Note that this changes the behaviour of some Windows APIs and can potentially have side effects (see ISOLATION_AWARE_ENABLED).
Related
I would like to create a Windows application (for Windows 10) using the C++ and the Windows API. I already have some basic knowledge of using the built-in windows controls to create a basic application, but would now like to expand into custom controls . Since I have no need for my application to be compatible with anything but Windows 10, and would like to use a reliable API which supports transparency and anti-aliasing but is also fast enough to render a GUI, I have chosen to use Direct2D.
The MSDN documentation says:
'Your application should create render targets once'
Bearing this in mind, should each child window use one ID2D1HwndRenderTarget which renders only to the parent window (and doesn't respond to the child windows' WM_PAINT messages), or should there be a single ID2D1DCRenderTarget which would draw to each control using the device context from the WM_PAINT message (using bindDC() - although I would still like to be able to use transparency, and am not interested in GDI interoperability)? Should I even be using Direct2D at all?
I would like to use the Windows API, so a solution involving QT or MFC wouldn't work. I haven't got a specific application in mind, but would eventually like to create a simple library that would enable me to quickly produce GUI applications that have a custom look.
I have spent hours scouring the web for answers, but have found nothing conclusive. MSDN itself seems particularly unhelpful, it just teaches you to draw an ellipse and stops there. Please forgive me if I have accidentally broken the rules of asking questions - as you can probably tell I am new to Stack Overflow - and if any other information is needed, I will of course include it (I am using C++ with Visual Studio Community 2019).
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 have a WIN32/C++ app and I want to create child windows in it that cannot be dragged out of the parent window. I want these windows to be owner-drawn, if it matters anyway. Should be simple enough; I'm looking for some basic guidance and tips regarding the subject.
It seems that you want to make an MDI app. This is much easier using a higher level framework such as MFC, WinForms, VCL etc., but can, of course, be done with plain Win32.
The MSDN documentation can be found here: Multiple Document Interface.
What you are looking for is called Multiple Document Interface (MDI).
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.
I'm developing an application in C++ that's partially driven by touch-screen on Windows XP Embedded. Some text entry will be necessary for the user. So far we've been using the standard Windows On-Screen Keyboard (osk.exe), but there are two main problems:
It's rather small on a higher resolution screen which will probably make it hard for users to hit the right keys
It's too "ugly" for the customer, who'd like a slicker on-screen keyboard that integrates better with the custom look-and-feel of the application so far.
Therefore I'm looking for alternatives for the Windows On-Screen Keyboard (osk.exe) that allow a larger size of buttons and can be skinned. Ideally it would have a BSD-like license for unburdened integration into a commercial app, but a royalty-free commercial solution could work.
Do you know of any such applications, or have you had a similar project where you solved the issue in another way?
We are using Click-N-Type for our systems. It is completely resizable. It has some customization possibilities, but I never tried them. We use it on "normal" Windows XP, but it should work on Windows XP embedded also.
I know this question is tagged 'c++', but here's an option for .Net that I found and integrated with less than 5 minutes work. (I've looked, and there isn't a .Net flavour of this question, and I guess it could be ported to C++ with very little effort too).
It uses the standard Windows On-Screen Keyboard (osk.exe), resizes it, docks it to the bottom of the screen and removes the title and menu bars, all from one call in your application.
The Code Project - Manage Windows XP On Screen Keyboard
The download is a single VB.Net class.
please check WPF Component(http://fpscomponents.com/Product.aspx?id=8) that is fully customizable by inbuilt editor. So programmer can fill it with own language and define layout!
Check johngnazzo code:
http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread4548.html#
Why not write your own keyboard UI? This would (should) be relatively trivial and give you complete control over its look and feel.
I programmed a On Screen Keyboard in Java.
This is working very fine when you want to tip into Java components and Java frames.
When you want to tip in every open window you have to send the key event by implementing Robot sender. The problem i have is that the focus owner get the sended key and when you open the keyboard the keyboard has the focus.
You can not realy implement a global Java keyboard, as far as i know.
When you only want to use the Keyboard for Java, use Java.
Otherwise you should use another language.
You should use a native language where you can handle the OS focus owner or a language where you can completly disable the keyboard focus but also can bring the keyboard to the front of the screen
Take a look at chessware virtual keyboard.
http://hot-virtual-keyboard.com/