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Having more or less identify the controls to do, should we also create a standard design of those controls? e.g. round-edge list controls, tree controls, buttons, etc.
Can they allow transparent backgrounds? The drawing style of controls? i.e. How would the controls look? Flat with thick borders? or 3d with thin ones?
Also, are we going to build these controls from scratch  or deriving them from some of mfc class or whatever? 
Just some of my thoughts.
Weiye, Chen
When pursuing your dreams, don't forget to enjoy your life...
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I personally like thin borders, or fancy ones. But as I mentioned below, I want owner-drawing to be built in from the start.
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." - Jesus
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi
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I was thinking that these controls should be totally skinnable. There would have to be a default "non-skin" of course, but something along the lines of this recent article: CSkinProgress[^]
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![Rose | [Rose]](https://codeproject.global.ssl.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/rose.gif) standard way of owner-drawing controls:
interface IDrawingHandler
method MeasureItem
method DrawItem
method MeasureElement
method DrawElement
property Parameters
...etc
standard base for items in a control - something like this:
interface IItem
property OwnerContol
property Text
property ImageIndex
property Selected
interface IHierarchialItem : IItem
property Parent
property Children
property NextSibling
property PrevSibling
....etc - you get the idea.
(BTW, these could be abstract classes instead.)
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." - Jesus
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi
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Just a thought - wouldn't it be nice if we could just type:
:property: for a property icon
:method: for a method icon
:class: for a class icon
...etc? That's how I have things in MS Word.
*J Dunlap heads off to the Suggestions forum*
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." - Jesus
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi
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I just realised that we need to answer some more funamental questions. Like what are we going to write this library for... MFC? ATL/WTL? COM? or just pure Win32?
I think we also need to make a decision on whether this project is going to be just a big bag of controls, or whether we're gonna make Control-Bar based advanced UI stuff. Or better still a bit of both!! As in BCGControlBar.
*¨¨`)
¸¸.·´ ¸.·*¨¨`)
(¸¸.·* ¸ .·*
¸¸.·*
(¸¸.~~> Joel Holdsworth.
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Well, we had originally talked about doing it in more than one language. (BTW, I'm a C# guy myself.)
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." - Jesus
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi
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I hope you don't mind me butting in on your project, but here's my wishlist:
It seems to me that any project of this nature is going to require a front-end form designer. Why not start with that first. God only knows I could really use a lean and mean form designer. I don't need all that code generation crap, either--control creation, parameter setting, event handlers. I just want something that lets me SPECIFY the damn GUI, not code it. For some reason Microsoft has found it absolutely necessary to muddle specification with implementation. Idiots.
Minimum things:
1. the graphical representation of the control comes from some formal specification, including how it can be sized;
2. the properties of the control (thus necessitating a property editor)
Generate an XML file that describes the layout, and pop that into a form generator for whatever language/framework you want.
Marc
Help! I'm an AI running around in someone's f*cked up universe simulator.
Sensitivity and ethnic diversity means celebrating difference, not hiding from it. - Christian Graus
Every line of code is a liability - Taka Muraoka
Microsoft deliberately adds arbitrary layers of complexity to make it difficult to deliver Windows features on non-Windows platforms--Microsoft's "Halloween files"
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I like that idea, but how long would it take to implement?
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." - Jesus
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi
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If I were working on this by myself full time, I'd say no more than 80 hours for a solid framework and definition of basic controls. I tend to approach these things with the KISS principle in mind. It would be nice to have the form designer include a zoomable grid capability and some alignment tools, but that's about it.
Ummm, were you asking me?
Marc
Help! I'm an AI running around in someone's f*cked up universe simulator.
Sensitivity and ethnic diversity means celebrating difference, not hiding from it. - Christian Graus
Every line of code is a liability - Taka Muraoka
Microsoft deliberately adds arbitrary layers of complexity to make it difficult to deliver Windows features on non-Windows platforms--Microsoft's "Halloween files"
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My, wouldn't that be useful for design prototypes of all sorts! If we got it done, that is.
I think we could do it without this, but it would indeed be much nicer if we could use it.
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." - Jesus
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi
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jdunlap wrote:
I think we could do it without this
From one perspective, I disagree. The complaint I've gotten about the AAL is there's no pansy GUI-based designers. The book "Software Development On A Leash" got criticized for that. A book submission that I made on an AAL'ish subject got shot down because the reviewers felt no one would use it if it didn't have an IDE. Sadly, I think something like this has to cater to the masses.
Besides, what could be a better demonstration project for a GUI framework than coding a designer using the framework?
I guess I'm more of a Unix-head than I like to admit.
Marc
Help! I'm an AI running around in someone's f*cked up universe simulator.
Sensitivity and ethnic diversity means celebrating difference, not hiding from it. - Christian Graus
Every line of code is a liability - Taka Muraoka
Microsoft deliberately adds arbitrary layers of complexity to make it difficult to deliver Windows features on non-Windows platforms--Microsoft's "Halloween files"
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Folks almost all of Marc's requests are already part of the VCF.
The frameworks handles properties for a control, has property designers, and component designers, all of which can be extended dynamically at runtime. In addition there is a form layout format(called a .vff file that is a simple ascii format, but not XML based, though there is not reason it couldn't be) that can be loaded to create the form dynamically at runtime. My goal was to able to write and IDE (called the VCF Builder) that could match most of the design time features of Delphi/VB/VS.Net IDE's. I realize that's a bit different than Marc's original request, but all the core support for this kind of thing is already built in and ready to go.
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire!
Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)!
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HI Roger,
I have good analytical skills and would love to be a part of the ugly library .
Waiting to be included
Jagdeep 
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Hello Mr. Roger Allen
I am Intersted your VB code for print richtext directly.
I was do that by Visual Foxpro by calling API32 functions.
I have several problem for that.Please help me:
1)
I want to have same view of context with richedit (rich32.ocx editor ) with the preview context (That create with metafile and use api dll to print direct to metafile`s hdc)
I am solve this problem with add chr(13)+chr(10) to each line of richedit and the line and number of words in each line in preview is same with line and number of words in richedit control.
But my technique is slow for 600 line up to ...
Please help me to give me a technique to doing that best.
2)
I can`t use watermark print with the metafile`s HDC .Becuase the metafile`s HDC mixed with the richedit output that create by api code.
And the richtext output no exept transparent.
And also Please help me about that.
Mr. Roger Allen I had to have a code that use API founctions.
My address in yahoo is alimehrolhassani@yahoo.com.
Thanks regards
Sincerely Yours,
Ali Mehrolhassani
Computer Engineer
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If you have any ideas, then you should post them to me!
Roger Allen
Sonork 100.10016
I think I need a new quote, I am on the prowl, so look out for a soft cute furry looking animal, which is really a Hippo in disguise. Its probably me.
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Hi Roger
It would be nice to write an article that clearly explained how to print something like:
Print from record 1 to record 8 from a database.
(Supose that the user can get the values by himself)
Only show how to print in diferent pages.
Best regards
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Hi Rodger,
I have some queries about the printing API's . Can you help me ?
-Himanshu
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Roger:
Here is an article I'd like to see. Have you done the two-part printing yet? In other words, print to a file, and then send the file to a printer? I've been looking around for some ideas/inspiration, but haven't found anything yet. Any help would be appreciated, whether in the form of an article or not.
And thanks for being the "local printing guru" !!
John Ribar
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I would sure be interested in a few things having to do with adding to the Print Dialog.
I would like to be able to add page size and orientation selection to the main print dialog without having to go into printer properties to set them.
Changing the dialog template is well covered, but I haven't been able to make either of those two items persist by changing the devmode in the print dialog (m_pd.hDevMode).
Thanks,
Lowell Walmsley
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