Visual C++ 6 Unleashed

By MICKEY WILLIAMS and David Bennett

• Table of Contents
  • Copyright
  • About the Authors
  • About the Contributors
  • Acknowledgments
  • Tell Us What You Think!
  • Introduction
  • How to Use This Book
  • What You Need to Use This Book
  • What's New in Visual C++ 6.0
  • Contacting the Main Author
  • Part I: Introduction
  • Chapter 1. The Visual C++ 6.0 Environment
    • Developer Studio
    • The Project Workspace
    • The Workspace Window
    • Project Configurations
    • Converting Older Projects
    • Working with Multiple Projects
    • Working with Resources
    • Editing Resources
    • MFC AppWizard
    • ClassWizard
    • Component Gallery
    • Integrated Debugger
    • Command-Line Tools
    • Other Tools
    • Summary
  • Part II: MFC Programming
  • Chapter 2. MFC Class Library Overview
  • Chapter 3. MFC Message Handling Mechanism
  • Chapter 4. The Document View Architecture
  • Chapter 5. Creating and Using Dialog Boxes
  • Chapter 6. Working with Device Contexts and GDI Objects
  • Chapter 7. Creating and Using Property Sheets
  • Chapter 8. Working with the File System
  • Chapter 9. Using Serialization with File and Archive Objects
  • Part III: Internet Programming with MFC
  • Chapter 10. MFC and the Internet Server API (ISAPI)
  • Chapter 11. The WinInet API
  • Chapter 12. MFC HTML Support
  • Part IV: Advanced Programming Topics
  • Chapter 13. Using the Standard C++ Library
  • Chapter 14. Error Detection and Exception Handling Techniques
  • Chapter 15. Debugging and Profiling Strategies
  • Chapter 16. Multithreading
  • Chapter 17. Using Scripting and Other Tools to Automate the Visual C++ IDE
  • Part V: Database Programming
  • Chapter 18. Creating Custom AppWizards
  • Chapter 19. Database Overview
  • Chapter 20. ODBC Programming
  • Chapter 21. MFC Database Classes
  • Chapter 22. Using OLE DB
  • Chapter 23. Programming with ADO
  • Part VI: MFC Support for COM and ActiveX
  • Chapter 24. Overview of COM and Active Technologies
  • Chapter 25. Active Documents
  • Chapter 26. Active Containers
  • Chapter 27. Active Servers
  • Chapter 28. ActiveX Controls
  • Part VII: Using the Active Template Library
  • Chapter 29. ATL Architecture
  • Chapter 30. Creating COM Objects Using ATL
  • Chapter 31. Creating ActiveX Controls Using ATL
  • Chapter 32. Using ATL to Create MTS and COM+ Components
  • Part VIII: Finishing Touches
  • Chapter 33. Adding Windows Help
  • Part IX: Appendix

Component Gallery

Object-oriented programming is intended to promote the reuse of existing software components. To make it even easier to reuse your classes, Developer Studio provides the Component Gallery, which allows you to insert many predefined classes into your project and also provides a handy way to catalog and store your own classes for use in other projects. To start the Component Gallery, as shown in Figure 1.25, choose Components and Controls from the Project, Add to Project menu.

Figure 1.25 The Components Gallery.

The components included in the gallery are organized in a directory tree structure. When you first install Visual C++ 6.0, you will see Visual C++ Components, which contains standard Visual C++ components, and Registered ActiveX Controls, which contain any ActiveX controls registered on your machine as top-level directories. You may also add your own controls in their own directory structures. After you open one of these folders, you will see a list of available components, as shown in Figure 1.26.

Figure 1.26 Visual C++ components.

The predefined components in Component Gallery can be used to add a wide variety of functionality to your applications, ranging from simple controls that can be used in dialog boxes, to ActiveX controls that can add some very complex capabilities to your application with a minimum of effort. Some of the components, such as palette support, add support for functions simply by providing handlers for a few messages.

Many of the components in the gallery might seem a bit cryptic at first glance, but there is a good deal of help available. When you select a component, a short description will appear next in the dialog box. If you click on the More Info button, you will see a much more detailed description of the component. Note that this help is available only if it has been entered by whoever created the component. Most of the predefined components include help, but you might consider adding help for your own components so that others can more easily reuse them.

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