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This is very much a noob question, and for that I apologize.
I want to make a dialog in visual c++ 2008. Apparently I must use the "MFC Wizard". When I click new project, this does not come up as one of the options :(
So, how do I add custom dialogs to vc++2008 project?
There are lots of ways to create dialogs, but if the MFC wizard isn't appearing, I suspect your compiler is the express edition, no?
Express edition doesn't come with MFC.
You'd either have to choose another of many methods or upgrade.
Thanks for replying.
So, what are the other ways? Are there any ways to do it visually in the express edition?
I'm not all that familiar with the express edition, but without MFC all you're going to have is the dialog editor. That is, you can create a dialog resource, but there will be no MFC automation tying code to controls - that would be otherwise manual.
In wxWidgets, there's a couple of dialog editors that work outside the IDE - I don't recall if they're free or not.
If you move into .NET, you might have more luck with leverage, but you'd be better of considering C# than C++ for that.
QT also has it's own, though I don't recall if it's more integrated into the IDE than the wxWindows approach. Both QT and wxWidgets are platform independent concepts, and the Windows resource editor, used to edit dialogs among other things, doesn't create portable data, so they work outside that.
Overall, would it be a better choice to just upgrade then?
Yes, for the short answer.
It sounds like what you're looking for is the automated approach that's based on tying code in MFC to the dialog controls, so the minimal step up from the express is your first step, and probably no more expensive than any of the other options.
A number of developers use several compilers and platforms, so the utility of the Wizard approach is limited for them. If your targets are exclusively Windows win32, and if MFC is the preferred framework, your choice is made.