Highlight view with focus

Many times it would be nice to have some visual feedback as to which pane in a split view currently has the focus. This is very useful if you have multiple view types and different keyboard strokes cause different actions in each.

NOTE: This uses an undocumented feature in MFC so be careful in the future.

Step 1) Derive your own SplitterWnd class.
Step 2) Override the undocumented OnDrawSplitter function.
Step 3) Replace the CSplitterWnd instance in the child frame with your splitter.

This example draws in red but you can adjust the color and width of the frame by altering the define values.

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// MySplitterWnd.h

class MySplitterWnd : public CSplitterWnd
{
public: 
    int cRow;
    int cCol; 
    MySplitterWnd();
    void OnDrawSplitter(CDC* pDC, ESplitType nType, const CRect& rectArg);
    void RefreshSplitBars(void);
};

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// MySplitterWnd.cpp

#include "StdAfx.h"
#include "MySplitterWnd.h"

#define FOCUS_HILIGHT_COLOR_ULO RGB(180, 75, 25)
#define FOCUS_HILIGHT_COLOR_LRO RGB(245, 5, 25)
#define FOCUS_HILIGHT_COLOR_ULI RGB(145, 95, 75)
#define FOCUS_HILIGHT_COLOR_LRI RGB(220, 65, 40)

#define FOCUS_HILIGHT_SHOW TRUE

#define SPLITTER_CX 4
#define SPLITTER_CY 4
#define SPLITTER_GAPX 4
#define SPLITTER_GAPY 4

void MySplitterWnd::RefreshSplitBars(void)
{
    CRect rectInside;

    GetInsideRect(rectInside);
    DrawAllSplitBars(NULL, rectInside.right, rectInside.bottom);
}

MySplitterWnd::MySplitterWnd()
{
    cRow = 0;
    cCol = 0;

    m_cxSplitter = SPLITTER_CX;
    m_cySplitter = SPLITTER_CY;
    m_cxSplitterGap = SPLITTER_GAPX;
    m_cySplitterGap = SPLITTER_GAPY;
}

void MySplitterWnd::OnDrawSplitter(CDC* pDC, ESplitType nType,
                                   const CRect& rectArg)
{
    if ((FOCUS_HILIGHT_SHOW) && ((GetRowCount() > 1) || 
        (GetColumnCount() > 1)) && (nType == splitBorder))
    {
        int pRow = 0;
        int pCol = 0;
        if (rectArg.top)
        {
            pRow = 1;
        }
        if (rectArg.left)
        {
            pCol = 1;
        }
        if ((cRow == pRow) && (cCol == pCol))
        {
            if (pDC == NULL)
            {
                RedrawWindow(rectArg, NULL, RDW_INVALIDATE|RDW_NOCHILDREN);
                return;
            }
            ASSERT_VALID(pDC);
            CRect rect = rectArg;
            pDC->Draw3dRect(rect, 
                FOCUS_HILIGHT_COLOR_ULO, FOCUS_HILIGHT_COLOR_LRO);
            rect.InflateRect(-GetSystemMetrics(SM_CXBORDER), 
                             -GetSystemMetrics(SM_CYBORDER));
            pDC->Draw3dRect(rect,
                FOCUS_HILIGHT_COLOR_ULI, FOCUS_HILIGHT_COLOR_LRI);
            return; 
        }
    }

    CSplitterWnd::OnDrawSplitter(pDC,nType,rectArg); 
}

This article has no explicit license attached to it but may contain usage terms in the article text or the download files themselves. If in doubt please contact the author via the discussion board below.

A list of licenses authors might use can be found here