I have a questoin about the resources...

[Zaph-0]

Hi,

When I create a Dialog and put some Edit-Controls on it and connect them to a CEdit member variable, where exactly does the program create that CEdit member variable ?

There is no code in my Dialog for the creation and initalisation of the CEdit (position, WS_VISIBLE, etc...) , so I suppose it happens in some Windows-class/-function when I call DoModal() in the main program. I want to catch the creation of those controls and modify them, but therefore I need to know where I should to this...

And I need to do this before they are being created. Creating my own controls is also no solution since I want to use those in the "dialog.rc" which have been placed with the Visual Studio Resource Editor.

Any help or advice on this would be very appreciated...

[Zim327]

the control variable should appear in CDialog class
and I believe you override PreCreateWindow to modify the dialog
to initialize the dialog override OnInitialDialog

I hope this helps,

[Ajay Vijay]

Actually all settings to these controls are stored in .rc file and is embedded as "application-resource" into binary bundle. It is specific to Windows which reads that resource automatically. We just pass the ID of dialog itself into constructor (or to Create - if modeless dialog is being created) -the rest is done by MFC and Windows.

Further, if you need to setup controls before they "appear" you can do so in "OnInitDialog" (WM_INITDIALOG message). All the settings (most of) can be set in resource editor itself.

[MikeAThon]

...Creating my own controls is also no solution since I want to use those in the "dialog.rc" which have been placed with the Visual Studio Resource Editor.
...

You can create your own controls, like a CMyEdit that's derived from a CEdit, and use them without difficulty on a dialog. That's precisely what the MFC framework is designed to do.

It works seamlessly, with almost no work on your part. For VC++ version 6.0, derive your CMyEdit class first, and in the resource editor for the dialog, add an edit control (let's say its resource ID is IDC_EDIT_FIRST). Then, from the ClassWizard for the dialog class, add a variable corresponding to IDC_EDIT_FIRST, select "control" from the drop-down box (as opposed to "variable"), and then from the drop-down box underneath select "CMyEdit" (as opposed to "CEdit"). That's it.

Mike

PS: Maybe you knew this already (if so, then sorry) and you truly did want to include the control's name in the *.rc file. You should understand that MFC relies on a system called "window sub-classing" to assign a C++ MFC object to an actual Windows window object. These two things are distinct, and one of the benefits of MFC is that it makes them appear to be the same. Anyway, sub-classing is used to assign the Windows "EDIT" class window to an MFC CEdit object, and as far as MFC is concerned, it doesn't care if it's assigned to a CEdit or to a CMyEdit.

[kirants]

Hi,

When I create a Dialog and put some Edit-Controls on it and connect them to a CEdit member variable, where exactly does the program create that CEdit member variable ?

MFC does not do anything with creating CEdit member variable. It is all done by your code when you add a DDX_Control for the edit. So, as soon as you create an instance of the dialog class , you are creating instances of edit control C++ objects etc... Now, what MFC does is to associate the C++ objects to the appropriate window handles. This is done by subclassing.

I want to catch the creation of those controls and modify them, but therefore I need to know where I should to this...

And I need to do this before they are being created. Creating my own controls is also no solution since I want to use those in the "dialog.rc" which have been placed with the Visual Studio Resource Editor.

What exactly do you want to change ? Note that, some properties cannot be changed once created.. if that is so, the only option for you is to NOT have it in resource, but create it dynamically. So, if you can do something or not depends on what you intend to do.