This book shows you how to make MFC do the things you want it to do. Ever wanted to change how a list box works? Want to customize serialization? How about allow editing during print preview? Its all in here. If you've had one of my MFC courses, you'll like this book. If you haven't, its probably the next best thing to taking the class!
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Look at all you get...
Chapter 1 - The Architecture
This chapter reviews basic MFC concepts and principles. Key topics:
 | Manually managing message maps |
| Command routing |
| Creating new document types |
| Using private documents |
| Cascading File|New menus |
| Inhibiting File New on startup |
| Parsing the command line |
| Attaching multiple views to a single document |
| Calculating view sizes |
| Using collections and typedef |
Chapter 2 - Serialization
Usually, you don't care much about serialization because it often does just what you want it to do. What about the other times? In this chapter you'll learn how to customize file prompt dialogs, utilize existing file formats, serialize to places other than a file, and handle multiple versions of files.
Chapter 3 - Printing
Printing is a feature users expect, and MFC gives it to you for free, right? Well, sometimes. Most real programs won't find MFC's default printing very useful. This chapter shows you:
| Controlling the print dialog |
| Scaling printing |
| Printing and viewing different representations of the document |
| Headers and footers |
| Customizing print preview's toolbar |
| Editing during print preview (and other customizations) |
Chapter 4 - Windows, Views, and Controls
This is a major chapter full of ways to customize MFC's behavior. Although the examples are specific, the techniques are widely applicable. You'll find:
| Improving CListCtrl |
| Setting styles |
| Using custom window classes |
| Restricting window size |
| Setting window titles correctly |
| Using CScrollView |
| Keyboard scrolling |
| Optimizing scrolling |
| Breaking the scroll limit on Windows 95 |
| Using CEditView |
| Using multiple CEditViews with a single document (yes, you can) |
| Using splitters with CEditView |
| About CRichEditView |
| The secret connection between CFontDialog and CRichEditView |
| Owner (or self) drawn controls and menus |
| Bitmap buttons |
| Editing tree and list view items in dialogs |
| Nesting splitter windows (including a bug fix) |
Chapter 5 - Dialogs
Dialogs are the easiest way to interact with the user. MFC makes dialogs easy via DDX/DDV. However, you can customize DDX/DDV and the common dialogs to make things even better. This chapter shows you how to add your own DDX/DDV routines and incorporate them directly into Class Wizard. It also shows you how to validate data on the fly (not just during UpdateData calls). You'll learn about dialog bars, customizable tool bars, and how to alter the common dialogs (even the explorer-style file open dialog). Find out about the bug in the common color dialog and what to do about it.
Chapter 6 - Property Sheets and Wizards
Property sheets (or tabbed dialogs) really do make complex dialogs more manageable. This chapter shows you the basics. It also covers how to use a single dialog template for more than one page, and using modeless property sheets. You'll also find out about MFC's wizard-mode property sheets which make it simple to create wizards. Finally, you'll see how to create custom app wizards that simplify making new projects to your specifications.
Chapter 7 - DLLs and MFC
DLLs are the core of Windows. In this chapter, you'll find out how to create and use DLLs. How to share data or make it private. You'll also learn how to extend MFC using DLLs.
Chapter 8 - ActiveX
ActiveX (formerly known as OLE) is much simpler to do when you use MFC. Topics include:
| Making an IDispatch interface |
| Interpreting CLSIDs, PROGIDs, and the registry |
| Creating and debugging ActiveX controls |
| Allowing VB or Web developers to initialize your ActiveX control |
| About ATL |
| Adding Property Sheets |
| Using ActiveX controls in MFC programs |
Chapter 9 - MFC and the Internet
Who isn't interested in the Internet these days? You'll read about:
| Sockets |
| MFC stream sockets |
| WinInet |
| The Internet transfer control |
| MFC ISAPI extensions and filters |
| When not to use ISAPI |
| An object-oriented approach to ISAPI |
Chapter 10 - MFC and Databases
Many programmers deal with databases regularly. MFC can simplify things considerably. This chapter looks at MFC's database support. Topics include using ODBC and DAO, datasources, binding fields to variables and controls, manipulating records, and working with computed fields.
Chapter 11 - Multithreading
MFC supports multithreading, if you know how to take advantage of it. You'll learn about the two types of MFC threads and how to create them. You'll also learn about synchronization of threads and idle processing as an alternative to threads.
Chapter 12 - The End of the Road
A wrap up chapter, with a bit of my crystal ball reading.
Extras
There are also two extras at the end of the book: a section on shell icon handlers (this explains the details for the example used to make custom app wizards), and a cross reference for the MFC source code.