List Control and Property Grid with the MFC Feature Pack

Therefore the question pops up: is it worth it the time to learn them? Well as long as you do not use them, not really. Nevertheless, if you intend to put them to work in your code source and you already have strong pre-feature pack knowledge of the MFC, this article will definitely be the one to skim through.

If you missed or are interested in the other MFC feature pack controls, you can find them under my profile. I've already written three other articles treating this subject. I will continue to use the project entitled New Controls present on the MSDN here. Anyone who may want to follow along with my work will need Visual Studio 2008 installed with service pack one.

First, add a classic list control item in the resource editor. Then add a new class to your project via the editor. Inside the code source generated, replace the CListCtrl item with a CMFCListControl. If you populate it with a couple of simple items you will have already a working Excel-like list.

Customize the list control

Nevertheless, in order to make it a little more interesting we will extend our class a little. Derive from the CMFCListCtrl and we will overwrite three classes, as I show in the following lines:

class CMyListCtrl: public CMFCListCtrl

{

virtual COLORREF OnGetCellTextColor (int nRow, int nColum);

virtual COLORREF OnGetCellBkColor (int nRow, int nColum);

virtual HFONT OnGetCellFont (int nRow, int nColum, DWORD dwData = 0);

public:

BOOL m_bColor;

BOOL m_bModifyFont;

};

There are two major improvements over the old version. First, you can see what column is sorted by the arrow that is automatically drawn above it, according to what we sort. Second, it is possible now to do the data sorting on multiple columns at the same time.

Moreover, you can use font and color changes to better illustrate this. First we overwrite the function responsible for the text color, then for the cell's background color, and finally the one that will change the font used for text. To keep this simple, we will just make the current font bold.

COLORREF CMyListCtrl::OnGetCellTextColor (int nRow, int nColum)

{// do we set the color or we leave for the def implementation

if (! m_bColor)

{

return CMFCListCtrl::OnGetCellTextColor (nRow, nColum);

}

return (nRow % 2) == 0? RGB (128, 37, 0):

RGB (0, 0, 0);

}

COLORREF CMyListCtrl::OnGetCellBkColor (int nRow, int nColum)

{// if we set the colors return the corresponding colors

if (! m_bColor)

{

return CMFCListCtrl::OnGetCellBkColor (nRow, nColum);

}

// One color for the sorted columns and one for the others

if (m_bMarkSortedColumn && nColum == m_iSortedColumn)

{

return (nRow % 2) == 0? RGB (233, 221, 229):

RGB (176, 218, 234);

}

return (nRow % 2) == 0? RGB (253, 241, 249):

RGB (196, 238, 254);

}

HFONT CMyListCtrl::OnGetCellFont (int nRow, int nColum, DWORD /*dwData* = 0*/)

{// if we are choosing the font return the corresponding handle

if (! m_bModifyFont)

{

return NULL;

}

if (nColum == 2 && (nRow >= 4 && nRow <= 8))

{

// just use a bolded font of what we have

return afxGlobalData.fontDefaultGUIBold;

}

return NULL;

}

Of course we also need to make some initializations for the controls before all this can work:

//Constructor Initialization

m_wndList.m_bColor = TRUE;

m_wndList.m_bModifyFont = TRUE;

// Populate the list with items during the initialization

m_wndList.InsertColumn (0, _T ("#"), LVCFMT_LEFT, 20);

int nColumn;

for (nColumn = 1; nColumn < nColumns - 1; nColumn++) {

m_wndList.InsertColumn (nColumn,

CString ((TCHAR) (_T ('A') + nColumn - 1)), LVCFMT_LEFT, 70) ;}

for (int i = 0; i < nRows; i++)

{

CString str;

str.Format (_T ("%d"), i);

m_wndList.InsertItem (i, str);

m_wndList.SetItemData (i, i);

for (nColumn = 1; nColumn < nColumns - 1; nColumn++)

{

str.Format (_T ("Item (%d, %d)"), nColumn - 1, i);

m_wndList.SetItemText (i, nColumn, str);

}

}

//Select the style we use

m_wndList.SendMessage (LVM_SETEXTENDEDLISTVIEWSTYLE,

0, LVS_EX_FULLROWSELECT | LVS_EX_GRIDLINES);

// Use the new feature

m_wndList.EnableMarkSortedColumn ();

Finally, I have also implemented a few check boxes so you can turn these options on and off. During this, we just change a bool variable and call for the enable/disable function. The update of the variable is done automatically due to the data bind. The update date command will synchronize what you see on the screen with what you see inside the memory.

void CPage5::OnMarkSortedColumn ()

{

// Enable/Disable the new feature

UpdateData ();

m_wndList.EnableMarkSortedColumn (m_bMarkSortedColumn);

}

void CPage5::OnColorRows ()

{ // Enable/Disable enabling the coloring of rows

UpdateData ();

m_wndList.m_bColor = m_bColor;

m_wndList.RedrawWindow ();

}

void CPage5::OnModifyFont ()

{ // Enable/Disable enabling the custom font feature

UpdateData ();

m_wndList.m_bModifyFont = m_bModifyFont;

m_wndList.RedrawWindow ();

}

In the table that follows this paragraph you will see a short description of the other functions you may use. With this, implementing the sort for multiple columns should be child's play. I will leave this task to you.

Property Grid

In order to make a grid control we need to invest a little more time. First we need a place to create all this. A CStatic object will suffice for this task. Use one of these in the resource editor. Once you have created the class, you need to add a CMFCPropertyGridCtrl variable. This will be the proper item. In the initialization, get the position of the static item and create the list there:

CRect rectPropList;

m_wndPropListLocation.GetClientRect(&rectPropList);

m_wndPropListLocation.MapWindowPoints(this, &rectPropList);

m_wndPropList.Create(WS_CHILD | WS_VISIBLE | WS_TABSTOP | WS_BORDER, rectPropList, this, (UINT)-1);

Now for this plethora of functions there are four main properties: a general one (CMFCPropertyGridProperty), one used to select a color value (CMFCPropertyGridColorProperty), one that you can use to select a file (CMFCPropertyGridFileProperty) and one that you can use to select a font (CMFCPropertyGridFontProperty).

Naturally, extending any of these and rebuilding them to suit you needs is also an option. During the initialization part we can call many of these functions to configure our grid control to look as we want it to. Now the MSDN example creates one of each type of the four properties.

However, I will not do the same, as this would go beyond the purpose and size of this article. I will present one for the color and custom item. The other properties follow the same template; you just need to provide different contextual data at the time of creation.

Properties

A property grid contains multiple groups (or just one), and within that, multiple properties (or just one). Before we add any property, we need to create a group. For this, use the CMFCPropertyGridProperty class. Within this you can add items with the AddSubItem function. You can add a property group to the grid control with the AddProperty function.

//create a new item

CMFCPropertyGridColorProperty* pColorProp =

new CMFCPropertyGridColorProperty(

_T("Window Color"),RGB(210, 192, 254), NULL, _T("Specifies the default dialog color"));

// A little customization

pColorProp->EnableOtherButton(_T("Other..."));

pColorProp->EnableAutomaticButton(_T("Default"), ::GetSysColor(COLOR_3DFACE));

// Add a new group

CMFCPropertyGridProperty* pGroup3 = new CMFCPropertyGridProperty(_T("Misc"));

// Add the new item into this

pGroup3->AddSubItem(pColorProp);

// And finally add the end result to the grid control

m_wndPropList.AddProperty(pGroup3);

Creating a custom item is not that hard. You need to know which functions to overwrite and derive from one of the properties. We will create one that will have one accept and one cancel button near an edit box:

//Definition of a class

class CTwoButtonsProp : public CMFCPropertyGridProperty

{

public:

CTwoButtonsProp(const CString& strName,

const COleVariant& varValue);

protected:

virtual BOOL HasButton() const { return TRUE; }

virtual void AdjustButtonRect();

virtual void OnClickButton(CPoint point);

virtual void OnDrawButton(CDC* pDC, CRect rectButton);

CImageList m_images;

};

//Constructor

CTwoButtonsProp::CTwoButtonsProp(const CString& strName,

const COleVariant& varValue) : CMFCPropertyGridProperty(strName, varValue)

{

// Load image and create a list from it

CBitmap bmp;

bmp.LoadBitmap(IDB_BUTTONS);

m_images.Create(14, 14, ILC_MASK | ILC_COLOR8, 0, 0);

m_images.Add(&bmp, RGB(255, 0, 255));

}

// Change the size of the button

void CTwoButtonsProp::AdjustButtonRect()

{

CMFCPropertyGridProperty::AdjustButtonRect();

m_rectButton.left -= m_rectButton.Width();

}

//Action to take upon button click

void CTwoButtonsProp::OnClickButton(CPoint point)

{

BOOL bIsLeft = point.x < m_rectButton.CenterPoint().x;

AfxMessageBox(bIsLeft ? _T("Left button clicked") :

_T("Right button clicked"));

}

// How to draw the buttons

void CTwoButtonsProp::OnDrawButton(CDC* pDC, CRect rectButton)

{

for (int i = 0; i < 2; i++)

{

CMFCToolBarButton button;

CRect rect = rectButton;

if (i == 0)

{

rect.right = rect.left + rect.Width() / 2;

}

else

{

rect.left = rect.right - rect.Width() / 2;

}

// Acquire some visual studio style

CMFCVisualManager::AFX_BUTTON_STATE state = CMFCVisualManager::ButtonsIsHighlighted;

CMFCVisualManager::GetInstance()-> OnFillButtonInterior(pDC, &button, rect, state);

m_images.Draw(pDC, i, CPoint(rect.left, rect.top), ILD_NORMAL);

CMFCVisualManager::GetInstance()-> OnDrawButtonBorder(pDC, &button, rect, state);

}

}

//Finally in the initialization create an instance of this

pGroup5->AddSubItem(new CTwoButtonsProp(_T("2 Buttons"), _T("text")));

The result speaks for itself:

And I will show you some of the other properties and styles you can create. For now this will be only in pictures:

This will be all for this piece on the MFC Feature Pack. I would like to thank you for reading my article. I hope you have learned a lot and you will rate my article as you think it's worth. If you have any questions feel free to put them up here on the blog or over our friendly community at DevHardware. Live With Passion!