Auto Property Sheet in FormView

This article was contributed by Richard Shide.

This project provides derived MFC classes for painlessly implementing Property Sheets in a CFormViews.  This implementation puts the Property Sheet at the bottom of the view as shown in the following image:

Four derived MFC classes are used in this implementation.

• CPropPgFormView: a CFormView derived class.
• CPropPgFormDoc: a CDocument derived class.
• CViewPropertyPage: a CPropertyPage derived class.
• CViewPropertySheet: a CPropertySheet derived class.

The property sheet is managed by CPropPgFormView, moving the sheet below the template-based controls of the CFormView derived class.  Resizing the frame resizes the Property Sheet accordingly.

What CPropPgFormView gives you:

• Scrolling sizes are managed for you.
• Tab order is enabled across the CFormView controls and the Property Sheet.
• Hotkeys work for the page tabs.
• Page changing can be disabled.
• Property page controls can be disabled.
• Auto-centering of controls within each property page.
• Adjustable distance between the bottom-most template-based control and the Property Sheet.
• Form notification of page activation

To use these classes, follow these steps:

• Base your property pages on CViewPropertyPage instead of CPropertyPage.
• Base your form view class from CPropPgFormView instead of CFormView.
• Register the document template with the correct classes in your apps InitInstance():
      CMultiDocTemplate* pDocTemplate;
      pDocTemplate = new CMultiDocTemplate(
          IDR_SHEETITYPE,
          RUNTIME_CLASS(CPropPgFormDoc),
          RUNTIME_CLASS(CChildFrame),
          RUNTIME_CLASS(CMyFormView));      // your CPropPgFormView class
      AddDocTemplate(pDocTemplate);
• Add the property pages in your view’s Create() and create the sheet:.
  BOOL CMyFormView::Create(LPCTSTR lpszClassName, LPCTSTR lpszWindowName,
    DWORD dwStyle, const RECT& rect, CWnd* pParentWnd, UINT nID, CCreateContext* pContext)
  {
  if (!CPropPgFormView::Create(lpszClassName, lpszWindowName,
     dwStyle, rect, pParentWnd, nID, pContext))
  return FALSE;

  m_PropSheet.AddPage(&m_Page1);
  m_PropSheet.AddPage(&m_Page2);
  m_PropSheet.AddPage(&m_Page3);

  // create a modeless property sheet
  if (!m_PropSheet.Create(this)) {
  DestroyWindow();
  return FALSE;
  }

  return TRUE;
  }
  

… and that’s it.

Methods and members:

CPropPgFormView
void ResizeForNewControl() – resizes the Property Sheets after programmatically adding new controls
void SetPropertySheetOffset(int iOffset  = PS_Y_OFFSET, BOOL bRedraw  = FALSE) – sets distance between bottom-most form control and top of the Property Sheet
void ResizeParentFrame() – resizes frame window to most efficiently encompass all controls and Property Sheet, and sets scroll sizes
CViewPropertySheet    m_PropSheet – the Property Sheet

CViewPropertySheet
BOOL Create(CWnd *pParentWnd, DWORD dwStyle, DWORD dwExStyle) – creates the Property Sheet
void CenterControls(BOOL bCenter /* = TRUE */) – centers the controls on all pages
virtual void AllowPageChange(BOOL bAllowPageChange = TRUE) – allow/disallow changing to a different page

CViewPropertyPage
void EnableControls(BOOL bEnable) – enable/disable all controls on a page

CPropPgFormDoc
Nothing

In addition, the WM_NOTIFY TCN_SELCHANGE  page change notification message is reflected to the derived CPropPgFormView window.

Please look at the provided project for a better understanding of the implementation details.

Downloads

Download demo project – 39 Kb

History

Date Posted: December 11, 1999