Skip to main content

The Framework

Instead of creating an application using "raw" Win32 classes and functions, the MFC library simplifies this process by providing a mechanism called the framework. The framework is a set of classes, functions, and techniques used to create an application as complete as possible with as few lines of code as possible. To provide all this functionality, the framework works behind the scenes with the CWinApp class to gather the necessary MFC classes and functions, to recognize and reconcile the Win32 classes that the application needs. This reconciliation is also made possible by a set of global functions. These functions have names that start with Afx... Some of these functions are:
  • AfxFormatString1
  • AfxFormatString2
  • AfxMessageBox
  • AfxFreeLibrary
  • AfxGetApp
  • AfxGetAppName
  • AfxGetInstanceHandle
  • AfxGetMainWnd
  • AfxGetResourceHandle
  • AfxInitRichEdit
  • AfxLoadLibrary
  • AfxMessageBox
  • AfxRegisterWndClass
  • AfxSocketInit
  • AfxSetResourceHandle
  • AfxRegisterClass
  • AfxBeginThread
  • AfxEndThread
  • AfxGetThread
  • AfxWinInit
We will come back to some of these functions and we will see many other MFC macros in later lessons.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Creating a File

Although the most popular files used in Microsoft Visual C++ are header and source files, this IDE allows you to create various other types of files that are not natively C++ types. To create a file, if a project is currently opened: On the main menu, click Project -> Add New Item... This would open the New dialog box from where you can select the desired type of file and click Open. By default, the new file would open in the Source Code Editor. If you want to open the file otherwise, after selecting it in the New dialog box, click the arrow of the Open As combo box. In the Solution Explorer or the Class View, right- click the name of the project, position the mouse of Add, and click the option you want
Post a Comment
Read more

A Window's Instance

When you start an application such as Notepad, you are said to have created an instance of the application. In the same way, when you declare a variable of a class, an instance of the class is created and made available to the project. The WinMain() function also allows you to create an instance of an application, referred to as the hInstance argument of the WinMain() function. The instance is created as an HINSTANCE . The CWinApp class provides a corresponding instance variable called m_hInstance . This variable can let you get a handle to the instance of your application. Alternatively, to get a handle to the instance of your application, you can call the AfxGetInstanceHandle() global function. Its syntax is: HINSTANCE AfxGetInstanceHandle(); Even more, to get a handle to your application, you can call the Win32 API's GetWindowLong() function. Suppose you have opened Notepad to view the source code of an HTML document. This is said that you have an instance of Notepad. Imag...
Post a Comment
Read more

Introduction to Win32

Win32 is a library made of data types, variables, constants, functions, and classes (mostly structures) that can be used to create applications for the Microsoft Windows family of operating systems. A typical application is made of at least two objects: a control and a host object on which the control is positioned. To create a Win32 application using Microsoft Visual C++: On the Start Page, you can click New Project On the main menu, you can click File -> New Project... On the Standard toolbar, you can click the New Project button You can press Ctrl + N Any of these actions would display the New Project dialog box. From there, select Win32 Project item. Just like a C++ program always has a main() function, a Win32 program uses a central function called WinMain . The syntax of that function is: INT WINAPI WinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance, HINSTANCE hPrevInstance, LPSTR lpCmdLine, int nCmdShow ); To support international characters, Microsoft Windows provides anot...
Post a Comment
Read more