MFC Wrapper Class for MCIWnd

• Download source files - 35 Kb
• Download demo project - 42 Kb

Introduction

A recent small project required the use of MFC and it also needed to be able to play an AVI file. The Microsoft 'Video for Windows' technology seemed like the easiest route to go. To make the project coding cleaner, I built a MFC wrapper class CMCIWnd for the MCIWnd functions.

Using the code

There are no licensing restrictions on the use of the source code. This is completely an exercise in giving something back to a community that has helped me often when I needed some quick code.

To use the wrapper class in your own project, add MCIWnd.cpp and MCIWnd.h to your project. In your project settings, link to Vfw32.lib and Winmm.lib. Create a variable of type CMCIWnd and then call CMCIWnd::Create() to create the window, CMCIWnd::Open() to open an AVI file, and CMCIWnd::Play() to play the file.

The demo application shows how to do all this. I elected to keep the demo application very simple so you could quickly see how the CMCIWnd wrapper class would be used in an MFC project. Take a look at MCIWndWrapperDlg.cpp and its CWrapperDlg::OnPlayAVI() function. It shows how to use the CMCIWnd wrapper class to play an AVI file. Just in case you need to know how to do it, I also added MFC message handlers for the notifications that the MCIWnd window sends to a parent window.

Points of Interest

I did manage to make one improvement in the wrapper class that is not offered out of the box by MCIWnd. While you can set the MCIWnd to repeat/loop the playing of an AVI, the standard MCIWnd Play() function does not recognize this setting and will only play the AVI one time. I did a bit of digging in the mciSendCommand() function and came up with a way for the wrapper class's CMCIWnd::Play() function to recognize the repeat setting and have the AVI loop if CMCIWnd::GetRepeat() is TRUE.

History

• 12/25/2002 Created.