Property Sheet as the View Window of a CFrameWnd

The Psview.exe sample illustrates a technique of having a PropertySheet- like view inside a CFrameWnd-derived class.

The following files are available for download from the Microsoft Download Center:


Psview.exe (http://download.microsoft.com/download/vc40pro/sample1/1/win98/en-us/psview.exe)

For additional information about how to download Microsoft Support files, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: Microsoft scanned this file for viruses. Microsoft used the most current virus-detection software that was available on the date that the file was posted. The file is stored on security-enhanced servers that help to prevent any unauthorized changes to the file.

NOTE: Use the -d option when running Psview.exe to decompress the file and recreate the proper directory structure.

The PropertySheet-like view is a window that has the look of PropertySheet. It contains a row of tabs; clicking each tab will load the appropriate page (or dialog template).

NOTE: This article does not make use of either the Property Sheet or the Property Pages like the SNAPVW sample. Because of this, the frame window that contains the PropertySheet-like view can be resized as it normally would. However, controls inside a page (or dialog template) need to be moved manually to fit the page as they appear in a regular dialog box.

The picture below shows the general layout of the frame window when it is first running:

CFrameWnd-derived class As the picture shows, a frame window (CFrameWnd-derived class) contains the following child windows:

• toolbar (CToolBar)
• view (CView-derived class)
• status bar (CStatuBar)

The view window has tab control (CTabCtrl) as its child window, and tab control has one or more modeless dialog boxes (CDialog-derived class) as its child windows. In other words, the tab control will occupy the whole client area of the view window and the modeless dialog boxes (or pages) will occupy the display rectangle inside the tab control. However, there can be only one page visible at any given time.

For simplicity, all pages in the sample code are created after the tab control is successfully created in the view window. (The code for page creation can be found in the CreatePages() function in tabview.cpp file.) These pages will not be destroyed until the application shuts down. When the view window receives the input focus (when the application is first running), the page for the first tab will be the visible page in the display area of the tab control.

Whenever a tab is selected from the tab control, both TCN_SELCHANGING and TCN_SELCHANGE notification codes will be sent to the parent window (the CView-derived class). The first notification code is to notify the parent window that the currently selected tab is about to change. It is a good place to put code to hide the currently visible page. On the other hand, displaying the newly-selected page may be handled in the second notification code.

The following list shows the general steps to have a PropertySheet-like view in an AppWizard-generated application:

1. Create all pages (or dialog boxes) for the tab control in dialog resource editor. Each page has a caption (for the tab text), a child style, and a thin border.
2. Create the header and implementation files for all pages (or dialog boxes) using ClassWizard.
3. Make the following changes to the header file (.h) of your CView-derived class:
   
   
   • Include "afxtempl.h" at the beginning of your .h file. It contains all the declarations for a template class variable, m_DlgArray in the CView-derived class.
   • Add the following two member variables to your CView-derived class:

          // Tab control is a child of tab view window.
          CTabCtrl*   m_TabCtrl;
     
          // Array of all the property-page dialogs
          CTypedPtrArray<CObArray, CDialog*> m_DlgArray;
       
     								

   • Add a CreatePages() function prototype to your CView-derived class:

          // Call this function to create all pages for the tab view window.
          void CreatePages();
        
     								

   • Add a HandleKeyDownMsg() function prototype to your CView-derived class. This function will be called in the PreTranslateMessage() function of your CWinApp-derived class:

          // Call this function to handle all WM_KEYDOWN messages. It
          // returns TRUE if message is being handled; FALSE otherwise.
          BOOL HandleKeyDownMsg(MSG* pMsg);
        
     								

   • Use ClassWizard to add handlers for the following messages that are sent to your CView-derived class:
     
     WM_CREATE - to create tab control and all pages for the tab control.
     WM_SIZE - size the tab control to cover up your entire view.
     WM_SETFOCUS - show page for the first tab in the tab control.
   • Add the following function prototypes to your CView-derived class for handling all notification codes sent by the tab control:

          afx_msg void OnTabSelChanging(NMHDR* pnmhdr, LRESULT* pResult);
          afx_msg void OnTabSelChange(NMHDR* pnmhdr, LRESULT* pResult);
        
     								

4. Make the following changes to the implementation file (.cpp) of your CView-derived class:
   
   
   • Define the identifier (id) for the tab control, such as:

          #define ID_TABCTRL  1111            // id for the CTabCtrl
        
     								

   • Add the following ON_NOTIFY macro to the message map table:

          BEGIN_MESSAGE_MAP(CTabView, CView)
            //{{AFX_MSG_MAP(CTabView)
            ON_WM_CREATE()
            ON_WM_SIZE()
            ON_WM_SETFOCUS()
            ...                              // other message macros
            //}}AFX_MSG_MAP
            ON_NOTIFY(TCN_SELCHANGE, ID_TABCTRL, OnTabSelChange)
            ON_NOTIFY(TCN_SELCHANGING, ID_TABCTRL, OnTabSelChanging)
            ...                              // other message macros
          END_MESSAGE_MAP()
        
     								

   • Initialize member variable m_TabCtrl to NULL in the constructor function.
   • Perform clean-up in the destructor function of your CView-derived class. Refer to the destructor function sample in tabview.cpp file.
   • Create tab control and then call the CreatePages() function in the OnCreate() function. The tab control is a child window of your view window. Refer to the sample OnCreate() function in tabview.cpp file.
   • Call MoveWindow() to size the tab control in OnSize() function so the tab control will cover up the entire client area of your view window. Refer to the sample OnSize() function in tabview.cpp file.
   • Call OnTabSelChange() in OnSetFocus() function to show page for the first tab in tab control. Refer to the sample OnSetFocus() function in tabview.cpp file.
   • Implement OnTabSelChange(), and OnTabSelChanging() functions: (Sample code can be found in the tabview.cpp file.)
     
     OnTabSelChange - hide the current visible page.
     OnTabSelChanging - show the newly selected page.
   • Implement HandleKeyDownMsg() function to process CTL+TAB and SHIFT+CTRL+TAB, ENTER and ESCAPE keydown messages. These keystroke combinations are used to activate a tab that is either before or after the currently selected tab. Refer to the sample HandleKeyDownMsg() function in tabview.cpp file.
   • Include header files for all pages (CDialog-derived class) for the tab control.
   • Implement the CreatePages() function to create all pages for the tab control(CTabCtrl). Refer to the sample CreatePages() function in tabview.cpp file.
5. Use ClassWizard to add the PreTranslateMessage() function to your CWinApp-derived class. In the body of this function, call the view's HandleKeyDownMsg() function so it gets a chance to handle any keystroke messages that are relevant to its tab control. For messages that are not handled by the view, pass them to the default handler. Please refer to the sample PreTranslateMessage() in psview.cpp file.

The Readme.txt file included with the sample explains in more detail how the sample is created in AppWizard and what files are included.

Please refer to Visual C++ Books for information about the classes mentioned in the article and ClassWizard usage for creating .h and .cpp files for all pages.