Using WinForms controls in an MFC dialog






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This article is a simple introduction to using the CWinFormsControl MFC class to put a Windows Forms control on an MFC dialog.
Introduction
A few days ago, someone asked on the Code Project VC++ forum whether he can use the Dundas WinForms controls on his MFC dialogs. The answer is - yes, that's entirely possible, and pretty easy to do with VC++ 2005.
This article is a simple introduction to using the CWinFormsControl
MFC class to put a Windows Forms control on an MFC dialog. The article demonstrates this using a small dialog based application that has a .NET MaskedTextBox
control placed on it. The MaskInputRejected
event is handled through a function declared in the MFC dialog class.
Steps to put the .NET control in the MFC dialog
-
Create a fresh MFC dialog based application using VC++ 2005. And turn on /clr compilation.
-
Add the following header file include to your stdafx.h
#include <afxwinforms.h>
-
Modify your dialog resource so it has the controls shown in the screenshot above, with one change. Where you see the
MaskedTextBox
control in the screenshot, put a static control. You should end up with the following controls.IDC_MASKED_EDIT1
We'll map this to the MaskedTextBox
controlIDC_EDITMASK
CEdit m_Mask
IDC_BUTTONMASK
ON_BN_CLICKED
->OnBnSetMask
IDC_EDIT_STATUS
CEdit m_StatusEdit (DDX)
IDC_STATIC
"Set Mask" IDC_STATIC
"Enter Text" Table 1 : The controls that you need to add to the dialog resource
-
Add the
CWinFormsControl
variable to your dialog header file :CWinFormsControl<System::Windows::Forms::MaskedTextBox> m_MaskedEdit;
The
CWinFormsControl
class provides the functionality to host a .NET control in an MFC application. -
In your dialog class's
DoDataExchange
, add a call toDDX_ManagedControl
:void CDialogFormsDlg::DoDataExchange(CDataExchange* pDX) { CDialog::DoDataExchange(pDX); DDX_ManagedControl(pDX, IDC_MASKED_EDIT1, m_MaskedEdit); . . . }
This creates the .NET control and associates it with that resource ID.
-
Add the event handler declaration your header file.
void OnMaskInputRejected(System::Object^, System::Windows::Forms::MaskInputRejectedEventArgs^);
-
Setup the delegate map in a public section of your dialog class declaration.
BEGIN_DELEGATE_MAP( CDialogFormsDlg ) EVENT_DELEGATE_ENTRY( OnMaskInputRejected, System::Object^, System::Windows::Forms::MaskInputRejectedEventArgs^ ) END_DELEGATE_MAP()
The delegate map allows us to use an MFC class function as a delegate by calling
MAKE_DELEGATE
on it. -
Setup the
OnBnSetMask
function.void CDialogFormsDlg::OnBnSetMask() { CString strMask; m_Mask.GetWindowText(strMask); m_MaskedEdit->Clear(); m_MaskedEdit->Mask = gcnew System::String(strMask); }
-
Setup the
MaskedTextBox
control inOnInitDialog
.m_MaskedEdit->PromptChar = L' '; m_Mask.SetWindowText(L"00/00/0000"); OnBnSetMask(); m_MaskedEdit->MaskInputRejected += MAKE_DELEGATE( System::Windows::Forms::MaskInputRejectedEventHandler, OnMaskInputRejected);
-
Add the
OnMaskInputRejected
function to the dialog class.void CDialogFormsDlg::OnMaskInputRejected(System::Object^, System::Windows::Forms::MaskInputRejectedEventArgs^ args) { if(m_MaskedEdit->MaskFull) { m_StatusEdit.SetWindowText(L"You've hit the max length of the mask."); } else if(args->Position == m_MaskedEdit->Mask->Length) { m_StatusEdit.SetWindowText(L"You are at the end of the mask."); } else { m_StatusEdit.SetWindowText(L"Bad entry. Check your input!"); } }
-
That's it. We are all done. Build and run the application. What you see is an MFC dialog that contains a WinForms control.
Conclusion
This should help you reuse your existing MFC applications and at the same time use new hyper looking .NET UI controls that are released in the market. Please use the article forum to provide feedback about the article or to post any questions you may have.
History
- Dec 20, 2005 - First published.