When you start the VCPP6 application, you get what it
is called the "development environment", where you can find toolbars,
panes, and the editor area. The pictures here shown are from an empty project.
The workspace
pane will deserve much of your attention, while you are creating
your VCPP 6 programs. From the workspace pane you can access the "class
view", the "resource view" and the "file view".
class view allows you to take an organized,
hierarchical view, at the classes of your C++ project. If you are doing
a plain C progam, not using the class data type, this view will still
be very interesting, showing your functions, variables, constants and
their scope.
resource view shows you the "resources"
your project is using, and that means your dialog windows, icons, menus,
bitmaps, cursors and so on.
file view is of great importance
to big projects, holding information of all your files: source files,
header files and resource files. Any file on your project's folder that
is NOT listed by this view is not being considered, while building the
project. From this view it is also very easy to navigate / edit from file
to file.
The output
pane will show you all the messages that VCPP6 wants you to know
about. It will display warnings and erros, resulting from the compilation
/ build processes; it will also be used by the debugger to show the values
of the identifiers you choose to watch. This pane is also organized in several
views, that you can switch to... some of these views, offer you the power
to search files for identifiers, review build errors, etc...
The editor
area is where your eyes will "rest" :) most of the
time. You will edit your files, from windows that will be on this area. This
is also where you will design your application's windows, using the "window
/ icon painter". I call "editor area" to everything on the
VCPP6 environment, that is not panes, menus or toolbars.
When you first start VCPP6, there are some toolbars available;
you can customize their buttons and locations, or you can create your own toolbars.
The "default" toolbars are the "Standard Toolbar", the "WizardBar",
and the "Build MiniBar".
The Standard
Toolbar has the buttons for most file and clipboard functions: open,
save, save as, copy, cut, paste, and so on...
The WizardBar
is very related to the powerful Class Wizard, a VCPP 6 tool that makes
it easier to relate design resources to code. Class Wizard deserves
much attention, but for now I'll stick only to the "it exists" knowledge.
The Build
MiniBar is kind of a shortcut to the build and run commands. Somehow,
I've never get used to it, and I prefer to use the correspondent menu.
Genuine
Windows application #1
On the first lesson of
our VCPP6 tutorial, we built a full console application in standard C. This
means that that application will run on any computer where you can compile ANSI
C. That is a good thing, but we must go farther and build software native to
the Windows OS, which is the purpose of the VCPP6 environment...
So, now that you've familiarized yourself with the basics
of the VCPP6 interface, we will build our first genuine Windows application.
Follow these steps, from VCPP6:
#1 - choose FILE
/ NEW and then MFC AppWizard (exe) - check the picture here.
#2 - choose a folder where to store the project's
files and a project name. For example, if you want to call this project "002_winapp1"
[as I did call him], enter that string as the project's name; and if you want
the whole stuff to be in a folder "\vccp.prj", go ahead and type that
as the folder. The VCPP6 environment will auto-create folders when needed - check
the picture here.#3 - Click the next button. Now you will have
to choose what kind of MFC [Microsoft Foundation Classes] project you want to
create. Options are "single document", "multiple document"
and "dialog based". Choose "dialog based" - check the picture
here.#4 - Click the next button and face the next
dialog box; there you have to choose some features your application will / will
NOT use... for the sake of our first simple example, uncheck the "ActiveX
Controls" and keep everything else as it is. For short, we will be creating
an application with just an "About" dialog box, with 3D buttons. "3D
buttons" is just a fancy name for the buttons you are used to: the ones that
go down on depth, when clicked :) - check the picture here.
By default the title of the application's window you
are creating, will be the name of the project - "002_winapp1"... if
you want some other name, such as "my first winapp", go ahead and
type it.
#5 - Click the next button and handle the
pre-final dialog box! Just leave everything at their defaults. This last dialog
box allows you to choose if VCPP6 will generate comments for the code in the files,
and some another "tech" option, related to DLLs, which are something
we will learn about later - check the picture here.#6 - Click the next button and see the names
that VCPP6 will give to the classes it needs. There will be two classes: one for
the "About" dialog box, and another for the application itself - check
the picture here. You can change the name
of the application's class, but don't do it. Notice how VCPP6 follows the convention
of starting the identifier of classes, with a uppercase "C". Click the
finish button.#7 - What follows is a review of your project options.
Read the dialog box and click OK.
Notice how the development environment
animates; the workspace pane gets a life and should
show you the resources of the project or some of its other panes. The editor
area should display a graphical editor of your application's window. The "TODO"
label means "to do". Build the application.You
should get no errors. Run [!] the application.
Now, learn how to modify the design of the application.
From the workspace pane choose the resource view
and double-click [activate] the resource that corresponds to the application's
main window. Every resource has a name. Every dialog box is suggested to have
a name, starting with IDD [IDentifier Dialog]. The name of the application's
main window depends on the name of the project. If you have followed this tutorial's
name, you will be looking for resource named IDD_MY002_WINAPP1_DIALOG.
#8 - Rearrange the look / design of the window, until
you are happy with it. I did my changes by accessing the properties of the controls
on the window. Do that yourself by secondary-clicking on the objects, such as
the buttons. Try to change the button's names. You can also change the button's
internal IDs, but don't do that now. Delete the "TODO" label; to do
that, just press "delete" on your keyboard, after clicking on that text
control.
Call the "OK" button something like "HELLO!"
and call the "CANCEL" button "CLOSE".
Recompile and re-run the application. Watch how everything
works how it did before, just with a different look.
#9 - Change the ID of the "HELLO!" button.
Recompile and re-run the app. Notice how the HELLO button does NOTHING. Why?-
Because MFC applications have macros in the auto-generated source code that associate
some IDs to some events and functions to happen when the events [such as a left
button click] occur. When you changed the ID of the once called IDOK button, you
changed the ability of that button to close its parent window, which was the application's
main window!
Lets fix that and add new code to our app. We want the
app to show a message, when the HELLO button is activated [left-clicked, by
default].
#10 - By secondary-clicking on the HELLO! button,
change its ID to IDHELLO; then choose ClassWizard [CW]. The CW allows you
to associate messages to objects; this means that when the OS receives the message,
it sends it to the selected object. Then you must add a "member function"
to the object that will handle the message. Check the picture here.
You are supposed to add a OnHello member function,
to the IDHELLO object, that handles the BN_CLICKED message. In
plain english, you want the button to display a message, when being clicked.
Lets do that... Choose "edit code".
#11 - The code you are to edit, will first look like
this:
void CMy002_winapp1Dlg::OnHello (){
};
This is the signature of the method OnHello, of
the class CMy002_winapp1Dlg. This method returns nothing (void) and has
no parameters. For now it is also empty on code... Add the code:
MessageBox ("We're done. Lesson #2 ends!");
Remember that C and C++ are case-sensitive!
Recompile and re-run the application. Have fun with editing
the icon and adding minimize / maximize buttons to the main window, by editing
the properties of that window.
If you want the message box to display a caption different
from the application's name, just use a 2nd parameter; for example:
