QuickWin - Turn a console application into a Windows program

Introduction

QuickWin is a Windows application that spawns a Win32 console application that redirecte its stdin, stdout and stderr handles to a window. The console application is hiden and all I/O operations are made through QuickWin.

This is a very useful program to spawn script programs or console applications in a Window environment without opening a DOS box.

How QuickWin works

QuickWin contains one or two windows depending on if you want the same stdout view for stderr output or another view. stdin is in the same view as stdout. The view is a CRichEditView window and is not limited in space for the output. Commands like cut, copy, paste, find are also available. QuickView can spawn console applications, shell (COMMAND.COM or CMD.EXE) or batch files. You start the console application from the command line or browse your disk. You can also stop and restart the console application many times. The content of the output view can be saved to file. The last 10 programs are saved into the registry and available for quick start.

The following parameters are available:

Full or Half duplex.

In full duplex, characters are send to stdin and displayed into the view. In half duplex, they are only send to stdin.

Enter.

The enter key (CR) can be translated into CR, LF or CR+LF.

Close on Exit.

If the console application is terminated, QuickWin will terminate.

Show Child window.

You can display the DOS box child window. If you want to write into this "Console", open the "CON" file and write into it.

OEM -> Ansi.

Normally, we must translate characters for console application.

Use Input buffer.

If it is not necessary to send each character one at a time to the stdin. Characters can be stored in an input buffer until CR is pressed.

Command line.

For COMMAND.COM or CMD.EXE, the command is echoed to stdout. This option removes the typed command.

Options for COMMAND.COM or CMD.EXE.

Fullduplex, CR->CR+LF,Oem->ANSI, Use input buffer and Command line.

For standard applications, remove the Command line option.

Main points of interest in the source code

A CRedirect class that can be used in any WIN32 or MFC applications. This class contains four virtual functions for notification.

virtual void OnChildStarted(LPCSTR lpszCmdLine);
virtual void OnChildStdOutWrite(LPCSTR lpszOutput);
virtual void OnChildStdErrWrite(LPCSTR lpszOutput);
virtual void OnChildTerminate();

The main program is an MFC application that uses the CRedirect class. PostThreadMessage is used to post commands in a multithread environment. WM_COPYDATA is used to post messages to the window.

The MFC print preview bug is not corrected!

Thanks to Paul DiLascia for some pieces of code from TraceWin.

History