Introduction to Windows Programming

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Introduction to Windows Programming

• Jim Fawcett
• CSE 681 Software Modeling and Analysis
• Fall 2005

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References

• Developing Professional Applications for Windows
  95 and NT Using MFC, Marshall Brain and Lance
  Lovett, Prentice Hall, 1997.
• Now out of print, but some copies still available
  on-line.
• Practical Visual C 6, Jon Bates and Tim
  Tompkins, Que, 1999.
• Currently available through Barnes Noble,
  Borders, and Amazon.com.
• Programming Windows with MFC, Jeff Prosise,
  Microsoft Press, 1999.
• This is a large, effective book, used in CSE 778
  Advanced Windows Programming, but overkill for
  this course.
• Windows Forms Programming in C, Chris Sells,
  Addison-Wesley, 2004
• Comprehensive and very well written.

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The Simplest Classical Windows Program

• Output from the MINWIN program is shown on the
  next slide. The program
• Creates a frame window
• Paints a fixed text message in the window
• Reacts to left mouse button clicks by creating a
  MessageBox
• You will the program code, minwin.cpp, and
  project workspace, minwin.dsw in the folder
  MINWIN. www.ecs.syr.edu/faculty/fawcett/handouts
  /CoreTechnologies/WindowsProgramming/code/basicWin
  dows/Minwin

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The Simplest MFC based Program

• Output from the MFCWIN program is shown on the
  next slide. The program
• Creates a frame window
• Paints a fixed text message in the window
• Reacts to left mouse button clicks by creating a
  MessageBox
• You will the program code, mfcwin.cpp, and
  project workspace, mfcwin.dsw in the folder
  MINWIN.www.ecs.syr.edu/faculty/fawcett/handouts/
  CoreTechnologies/WindowsProgramming/code/basicWind
  ows/MfcWin

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Dialog Based Applications

• A dialog is an opaque window, called a form, on
  which are embedded a collection of smaller
  windows called controls.
• The main dialog form is wrapped in a dialog
  class, derived from MFCs CDialog class.
• Each control is a window with a self contained
  set of functionality that dialog designers use
  as-is, or modify in limited ways.
• Controls are placed on the dialog form by
  dragging from a palette in the dialog resource
  editor.
• Controls are hooked into the application
  processing by providing message handlers in the
  main dialog class that access the controls using
  CDialogGetDlgItem() and CDialogSetDlgItem()
  member functions.

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Structure of MFC Dialog based Application
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Frame Window Applications

• A frame window application consists of a window
  that supports a large client area in which text
  and graphics are displayed, embedded in a frame
  that supports menus and perhaps some controls.
• All text and drawing in the client area are
  supported by the Graphics Device Interface Object
  (CGDIObject) and Device Context (CDC) classes.
• Most frame window applications use the Single
  Document Interface (SDI) or Multiple Document
  Interface (MDI) architectures. These follow
  document/view architecture structure
• Documents provide all the support for managing
  the programs data, including reading and writing
  from persistent storage.
• Views provide all the support for displaying one
  or more views of the data and most user
  interactions with the program.

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WinForms

• WinForms were introduced with .Net and are very
  similar to Visual Basic RAD Forms in Visual
  Studio, version 6.0.
• Forms are used for both Frame Window and Dialog
  Applications.
• You get a dialog application by pulling lots of
  controls onto a form and setting the Form
  properties to have dialog behavior.
• You get a Frame Window by painting the Form your
  self, with the help of the .Net Graphics Device
  Interface (GDI)
• Forms are quite easy to build with the Visual
  Studio Designers
• Lots of controls are available in the toolbox
• Intellisense and the Object Browser make learning
  very fast.

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Simple Text Editing Demo

• It is relatively easy to build Forms that
• open and save files using a FileDialog.
• Read files from Streams and edit text in a
  TextBox.
• The Stream and TextBox do almost all the work.
• Uses menus to interact with files or set program
  behaviours.
• www.ecs.syr.edu/faculty/fawcett/handouts/CSE681/co
  de/project2HelperF05

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Programs with Communicating Forms

• Often we want to use more than one Form in a
  program.
• That means that we have to provide a way for them
  to communicate.
• Each Form that needs to contact another must have
  a reference to it.
• That happens automatically for the parent. The
  parent creates a Child Form attached to a
  reference it holds onto for later use.
• For the Child to talk back, the Parent must pass
  it a reference to itself, usually in the Childs
  constructor.
• For these conversations to be useful, both Parent
  and Child must provide functions for the other to
  call.
• www.ecs.syr.edu/faculty/fawcett/handouts/CSE681/co
  de/project2HelperF05

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An Example Form with
Browse Control

• If our program needs more than a simple
  FileDialog provides, we may wish to build a more
  sophisticated or specialized control.
• On the next page you will see an example of a
  Form, written in managed C invoking the
  services of a Browse Control, written in C.
• www.ecs.syr.edu/faculty/fawcett/handouts/CoreTechn
  ologies/WindowsProgramming/code/demoCppWinForm

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Frame Window based on Form

• The next slide illustrates a WinForm application
  that behaves like a Frame Window
• It paints is client area with
• An image
• A drawn text caption
• A line
• But it also has inserted a control, showing mouse
  coordinates. This illustrates that controls can
  be used on Frame Windows
• They paint their own surfaces
• They can react to event messages from their
  parent window.
• www.ecs.syr.edu/faculty/fawcett/handouts/CoreTechn
  ologies/WindowsProgramming/code/CSharpWinForm

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End of Presentation