At a broader level, I'm converting a MFC application (MFC 6.0) into Windows Forms application (Visual Studio 2013). I read certain blogs that describes that this conversion is possible. By this conversion I can re-use code written in MFC, only I will need to create UI. However I will need to understand the previous code and may need to re-write it a bit.
I got the motivation from here and here.
I have performed following steps so far.
Opened Visual C++ 6.0 project in Visual Studio 2013.
Build it successfully.
Then added CLR support to it, and fixed errors.
Added a Windows form, and added controls to it. As mentioned here.
Added functionality and build it successfully.
Now when I run this application, then it still point to old MFC window.
I'm missing certain settings which will change the rendering window from MFC to WindowsForm. What am I missing here?
Addition to that, I see problem with this approach as described by #Roger in comments, and I understand that. So, I wanted to know for any tool/utility which may convert legacy code into C#. Does such utility available?
TIA.
The code you are referring to seems suitable for amending a MFC application with a few forms as child windows to make use of .NET features. However, the main window is another story. You wrote the application is huge, so I suppose you don't want a simple form as your main window and rather have some kind of MDI interface in mind. If you replace the CMainFrame in the legacy MFC application, it just doesn't make sense to maintain an old CWinApp class. Anyway, if you are hell-bent on going down that path, you may want to have a look at an old CodeProject articel (.NET1.x, .NET2.x) to get a better grasp at the whole concept.
But as Roger already suggested, it would be a wise choice to find a nice GUI framework, perhaps even WPF instead of WindowsForms, and do a GUI rewrite -- especially if one part of the motivation for the conversion is to move to newer UI concepts. If your C++ program logic is well separated in your MFC project, put it in a COM server and make use of interoperability.
Related
Is it possible to add custom buttons (or) User defined buttons inside Message Box in Visual Studio Windows Forms application ?
Here's a quick guide to making a custom dialog box, which is going to be the ideal solution for you in this scenario, in my opinion.
The simple answer is: no it's not.
The long answer is that it's not possible using the managed API but it may be possible using the Win32 API. Here's a good tutorial on using Windows Hooks to customize the operating system message box dialog.
The .net MessageBox class does not offer such functionality. However, the native Win32 API does so through the TaskDialog API. The main advantage of this approach, as opposed to writing a custom dialog, is that you will be using a native system component and so your dialog will feel at home on the platform.
A very simple example of the task dialog looks like this:
And there is lots of scope for much more complexity, as is explained in the link above.
You'll need to p/invoke to this function. It's one of the more messy functions to call so expect a little work before you have a working solution. You can find some C# code to wrap it up here, but I can't say that I personally have experience of this.
I normally code with PHP, I am used to opening up my editor of choice and going away at it, coding classes,methods, etc. It is fairly easy as there is no GUI to worry about.
Last night I spent the whole night following a couple tutorials with C# in Visual Studio, it's turning out to be harder then I thought it would be. Once thing that I am not use to is, all the tutorials have you add a form object like a text box or button, then have you double clikc it to get to the code part, you then enter some code for that method. Then back to the form and re-peat
This seems very hard as you are never really working on "just the code" so 1 question is, is it always like that or just because i'm new and following tutorials?
Another question, when I see source code online to do certain functions, say I see a class I would like to try using, how can I use that class in the existing form class created by VS, do you somehow import other classes or do you add them right to the form code you are working on?
I'm sure that didn't make much sense but hopefully it does to someone, i'll try wording it better if not.
I should add that this was with WPF, also I feel like you have to learn 2 languages, the C# which has very similar syntax to PHP so that doesn't seem too difficult and the for GUI that's like a whole diff language
You can download the classes you are interested into.
Then you go to the Solution Explorer panel and you add existing items.
This will COPY the files to your project.
In order to use those classes you need to declare that you wan to use them.
So, what you have to do is to say something like
using FooNamespace;
Then you are ready to use the classes.
The name space is declared right before any class. You can go edit it.
Now about the forms. Each form is a Class and it consists of three files
ClassForm.cs
ClassForm.designer.cs
ClassForm.resx
You ONLY need the first one. Right click and view code. You can go there and use it.
Many questions, Many answers
Difficulty and Repetition
you can add form objects via the designer or you can hit the source button (CTRL-PgDn). From there you can edit elements in asp and html just like any php IDE. I do most of the work in source. I am a real programmer so I can never do the drag and drop. With intelligence and time you learn the properties and what to do.
to make complex pages you just have to know what you are doing.
What I started with VS I had the same feelings as you, but i have gotten into the flow of it.
As far as the code behind, you are just hooking methods up to the asp elements that get called by the built in code. You can add your own classes, functions, everything in the code behind or in separate files, just like c++, php, whatever.
Hope that helps, VS is really powerful and runs smooth when you learn where things are, been using it for years now and I'm still learning. Bottom line, never use drag and drop and just play with it.
unfortunately the .net world love drag-drop controls. so most tutorials are designed around this concept. drag a textbox on the to form. drag a button onto the form. double click button image to get the click handler.
it's not needed, it's just the approach for most people using visual studio. being that this is a WPF project everything can be done from code, or xaml markup. you don't need the WYSIWYG editor.
as for adding/referencing classes first you need to reference the assembly the class is located in. your core .net types (part of the BCL, base class library) are automatically included as references. then you add a using statement to the appropriate namespace. then you can instantiate the object.
There are ways to have a C# interactive window; see this question. Alternatively, you don't need to use a form, but you could also create a command-line application.
As for the second question, you can add a new class to your project and then use it in your form. There's really no additional step, except that if the namespaces are different, then it is easier if you import that namespace (via using).
Partly, yes, because you're new and using tutorials.
Partly, no, because you're working with forms, and you really don't want to hand-code those by hand.
If you just want to play with C#, and not concern yourself with forms and display, look for information on Console application. Instead of worrying about buttons and textboxes, your worst nightmare will be Console.WriteLine();
Here are some console-based C# tutorials:
C# Station tutorial
C# Yellow Book - it's a PDF. It's good.
Yes, it is exactly because you are following the video tutorials which are almost always tailored for beginners... Most of us making a living working in VS, developing WPF solutions do not even use the visual editor but instead work directly with XAML to build our UI and have very little or no code in the code behind files following the MVVM pattern.
To answer your second question, most of your classes that "do stuff" which is not directly intertwined with the UI should be in a separate class library (dll file) and should not even be referenced directly by your main UI project (in order to facilitate loose coupling) but instead accessed using some form of Dependency Injection, typically utilizing Interfaces.
The code that responds to user interaction should be in your ViewModel classess which are typically a data context for your views and these VM classes are typically using service agents which implement different Interfaces in order to use code stored in the class libraries mentioned in the previous paragraph.
Now, it is possible to just double click on a button and write all your code in that method created for you in the code behind file just like with Winforms, but just like in the Winforms world that leads to code that is hard to maintain, that is tightly coupled to your user interface and very difficult to test so try to resist that instant gratification and invest some time in learning the MVVM pattern, DI and OO design patterns which facilitate code reuse, decoupling and testability...
Hope this helps...
It really depends on what you are trying to learn. I don't think I would start off with WPF if I was using C#. I would start off with a console application to get the basics of the language down, then move down to a simple WinForms application, and finally to WPF where you started.
But yes, your questions about how the editor works is correct. It's how that platform works.
I would like to make a support plug-ins in my program.
For example in my program there are several tabs in one tab is the editor in which the code is written also in that tab has a button run.
After pressing the button run occurs a compilation of source code and its execution.
The results of work are displayed in the other tab.
I would like to find such a component in which there are:
Syntax Highlighting, Debugger, Analogue of solution explorer
Thank you very much for your answers.
I would like to bring more of clarity to my question.
I want to do something similar to that is shown in the screenshots below
On a single tab there is the editor and at the other tab displays the results.
To write plug-ins I'd like to use C #.
I guess the best place to start is AvalonDock from CodePlex, specifically what you are trying to do is a Tabbed User Interface.
Keep in mind that even with a TabbedWindows framework build/debug and syntax highlighting are not for free and you will have to find icons and design the UI mostly yourself.
for code coloring there are also many components, also free, like Scintilla .NET
You obviously understand that Visual Studio is a very complex application, so rewriting portions of it will be difficult. There are components available to help you, like the ICSharpCode text editor. In fact, that whole project is probably quite valuable.
However, when thinking of plugins and actually writing code for it, I'd personally go down the MEF route. In fact, this is the very framework that VS.NET 2010 uses for extensibility. Provide your user/developer with a set of libraries to code against (like an SDK), and let them use a Visual Studio Express edition to write proper code :)
As source code editor you can use AvalonEdit (it is great, in some aspects even better than VS code editor), solution explorer is fairly easy to create and debugger is way too language-specific to be a reusable component (you didn't specify what language are you developing for!).
The whole thing can be packaged into AvalonDock, so you get the draggable and dockable panels - it even has VS 2010-like skin (and again - is very easy to implement even with only very basic WPF knowledge).
Or you can use the Visual Studio Isolated Shell - it allows you to use the Visual Studio interface in your program (the end users don't have to have VS installed!), but it requires extensive knowledge of VS API (if you ever developed VS extension you know what I am talking about). For example Civilization V used this approach for it's modding environment, but the result smells as stripped VS with custom splash screen, not as professional product. There are many buttons and config. options that don't work, some features that would be expected from such program (and easy to do in custom app) didn't get in because it would be nigh impossible to implant them into the VSIS etc...
EDIT: You may also eventually be interested in this.
How does Visual Studio and other similar programs display a form in their IDE?
Is it possible to achieve the same or a similar effect using C# or VB.NET?
Please see the picture below to get what I mean.
If you are talking about hosting a Winforms editor in your code, it is entirely possible and is actually built in to the .NET framework!
The Essence is the IDesignerHost interface. The whole system is complicated, but can be done (I have done it in production code for runtime layout configuration editing). There is a sample of code from Microsoft here.
I'm sure if you search fir 'IDesignerHost' you'll find enough reference material to figure it out.
Are you speaking about UI creating tools?
Refer to http://www.icsharpcode.net/opensource/sd/ - SharpDevelop for deep dive. It's open sourse, so you'll be able to find out more details.
I believe what you want is a multiple document interface (MDI) see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms973874.aspx for more info.
how do I enable visual styles when my project is a class library and it's being loaded into a program that does not have Application.EnableVisualStyles() set. I have been struggling with this for 2 days now. This is in C# (I've seen some examples for older C++ and some things that may work for VB, but nothing has been clearly laid out for C# and if it's even possible).
I have tried to run Application.EnableVisualStyles() from my Class Library before creating any controls, but it seems that needs to be done before an Application.Run() is done, and I don't have control when an Application.Run() is called since this is going into a 3rd party app as a plugin (VMware's Virtual Infrastructure Client).
I have tried to create a manifest file and after compiling the class library I link in the manifest file to my ProgressBar.dll with:
mt.exe -manifest ProgressBar.dll.manifest -outputresource:ProgressBar.dll;2
Except this doesn't work. If I make a dummy Application that uses my ProgressBar class library and link the manifest to that Application's exe, then the visual styles come up (basically it's doing the long way of specifying the Manifest file in the Project Properties, Application section).
Right now my buttons look ugly, but the biggest thing that is irritating is that the ProgressBar control doesn't work in Marquee style. I'm very soon going to have to resort to making my own Marquee-style ProgressBar or just throwing in an animated GIF in it's place. With regards to the buttons, I guess I can start using Infragistics buttons in order to get a more consistent result.
Please and thanks as always!
How can you be sure that there are no controls created yet when you call Application.EnableVisualStyles? Created does not necessarily mean that the controls are also visible on a form.
Since you are working with a closed 3rd-party component I would invest my time rather in creating my own controls if the look and feel is that important.
You'll have to use the OpenThemeData Win32 api in your control:
MSDN: Using Windows XP Visual Styles