OpenGL Win32 AppWizard

• Download binaries for VC++ 6.0 - 19 Kb
• Download source for VC++ 6.0 - 33 Kb
• Download appwizard for VC++.NET - 24 Kb

An example of a generated application

Installation (VC6 version)

Copy OGLWiz.awx and Oglwiz.hlp to your Custom AppWizard directory (probably "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\Common\MSDev98\Template").

Overview of the generated project (VC6 version)

Projects generated with this AppWizard contains two classes:

• CApp
• CMainWnd

There is a global instance of CApp (gApp) that owns an instance of CMainWnd (m_pMainWnd). CApp creates the main window, initializes OpenGL, maintains the message pump and manages screen updates. CMainWnd encapsulates the main window and its OpenGL rendering context. CApp notifies CMainWnd of different phases of the OpenGL RC life cycle (by calling CMainWnd::InitScene(), CMainWnd::KillScene() and CMainWnd::DrawScene()). CMainWnd::Tick() is called (by CApp) each time the windows message queue is empty.

This may not be the most elegant OO solution; some of the code in CApp really belongs in CMainWnd, like window creation and (some of the) message handling. But the idea is to let CApp do the grunt work of Win32API and OpenGL setup and leave CMainWnd free to concentrate on what's displayed in the client area.

Using the wizard

Chose to create a new project, selecting "OpenGL Win32 Application" from the list of project types, enter a project name and press OK.

The following options to customize the project are available:

Application

Menu: Check this box to add a menu to the main window.
Keyboard accelerator: Adds a keyboard accelerator resource and processes accelerator keys.
About box: Creates an about dialog and a dialog callback routine. Also adds an About command to the menu (if available).

Main window

Select appearance of the main window.

Window: Creates an overlapped main window with default size.
Fullscreen: Creates a topmost popup window that occupies the entire screen.
Both: Appearence is determined with a switch: If FULLSCREEN is not #defined, the application runs in a window.
Show FPS in caption: Adds code to show Frames Per Second on regular intervals. (Not available in fullscreen mode)

OpenGL Support

Use OpenGL: Adds code to initialize and maintain an OpenGL RC. If this box is not checked, a plain Win32 application is created.
Sample code: Adds code that renders a simple OpenGL scene (spinning cube).
Double buffering: Creates a double-buffered pixel buffer.
Color depth: Number of color bitplanes in each color buffer.
Z-buffer depth: Bit-depth of the Z-buffer.
Background color: Press the button to select background color for main window.

Notes on the VC++.NET appwizard

In VC++.NET, appwizards are no longer compiled plugins, but rather a collection of scripts and template files, with a HTML-based UI. See Readme.txt for installation instructions.

I took the opportunity to change the object model into something that, IMO, is a bit cleaner. Instead of having one class for the window and one class for the application, there is now one abstract base class, CApp, that takes care of window creation, OpenGL initialization etc. The "meat" of the generated app goes in a derived class that overrides a number of virtual functions of CApp. For example, InitScene(), DrawScene() and KillScene() are virtual.

Other than that, the VC++.NET version of the AppWizard behaves basically the same as the VC++6 version.

History

• 20 May 2003 - Updated VS.NET download