Guides & Tutorials (beta)

Adding a docking pane to your application

by Kirk Stowell Visual C++ Created on 11/16/2007  |  Updated on 07/31/2024 0/5 ( 0 votes )

The following is a tutorial on how to create an MDI application with Docking Pane using the Visual Studio 6.0 Application Wizard. The same technique can be used for later versions of Visual Studio . NET as well.

Create a simple MDI application using the MFC AppWizard:

  1. From Visual Studio select ‘File’ then ‘New’ and select the ‘Projects’ tab.
  2. Choose MFC Appwizard(exe) as your project type and enter ‘MDISample’ as the project name.
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  3. For the first step, make sure that "Multiple documents" is selected then press the ‘Finish’ button.

Add Empty Docking Pane

  1. Add the following line to your StdAfx.h file:

    Toolkit Pro users:
     #include <XTToolkitPro.h> // Toolkit Pro components
    
    Docking Pane users:
     #include <XTDockingPanePro.h> // Docking Pane components
    
  2. Add CXTPDockingPaneManager member to CMainFrame class.
     // Attributes
     public:
         CXTPDockingPaneManager m_paneManager;
    
  3. Add string resources for the titles of the future panes
        IDR_PANE_OPTIONS 61446 "Options"
        PROPERTIES       61447 "Properties"
    
  4. Add following to CMainFrame::OnCreate.
         // Initialize the docking pane manager and set the
         // initial them for the docking panes.  Do
         // this only after all control bars objects have been
         // created and docked.
         m_paneManager.InstallDockingPanes(this);
         m_paneManager.SetTheme(xtpPaneThemeOffice);
    
         // Create docking panes.
         CXTPDockingPane* pwndPane1 = m_paneManager.CreatePane(
             IDR_PANE_OPTIONS, CRect(0, 0,200, 120), dockLeftOf);
         CXTPDockingPane* pwndPane2 = m_paneManager.CreatePane(
             IDR_PANE_PROPERTIES, CRect(0, 0,200, 120),
                 dockBottomOf, pwndPane1);
    
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Attach CWnd derived class to the panes:

  1. Add Cwnd derived class as member of CMainFrame.
    // Attributes
    public:
    
        CStatic m_wndOptions;
        CEdit m_wndProperties;
        </pre>
    
            <li>Add OnDockingPaneNotify handler.</li>
            <pre class="code">
            BEGIN_MESSAGE_MAP(CMainFrame, CMDIFrameWnd)
                //{{AFX_MSG_MAP(CMainFrame)
                ON_WM_CREATE()
                //}}AFX_MSG_MAP
                ON_MESSAGE(XTPWM_DOCKINGPANE_NOTIFY,
                    OnDockingPaneNotify)
            END_MESSAGE_MAP()
    
            LRESULT CMainFrame::OnDockingPaneNotify(WPARAM
                wParam, LPARAM lParam)
        {
            if (wParam == XTP_DPN_SHOWWINDOW)
            {
                CXTPDockingPane* pPane =
                        (CXTPDockingPane*)lParam;
    
            if (!pPane->IsValid())
            {
                switch (pPane->GetID())
                {
                case IDR_PANE_PROPERTIES:
                    {
                        if (
                        m_wndProperties.GetSafeHwnd() == 0)
                        {
                            m_wndProperties.Create(WS_CHILD|
                                ES_AUTOVSCROLL|ES_MULTILINE,
                                CRect(0, 0, 0, 0), this, 0);
                        }
                        pPane->Attach(&m_wndProperties);
                        break;
                    }
                case IDR_PANE_OPTIONS:
                    {
                        if (m_wndOptions.GetSafeHwnd() == 0)
                        {
                            m_wndOptions.Create(_T("\n\nOptions"),
                                WS_CHILD|WS_CLIPCHILDREN|
                                WS_CLIPSIBLINGS|SS_CENTER,
                                CRect(0, 0, 0, 0), this, 0);
                        }
                        pPane->Attach(&m_wndOptions);
                        break;
                    }
                }
                }
                return TRUE;
            }
            return FALSE;
        }
    
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Add image to pane.

  1. Create Bitmap with icons for created panes:
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  2. Add to CMainFrame::OnCreate.
         nt nIDIcons[] = {IDR_PANE_OPTIONS, IDR_PANE_PROPERTIES};
         m_paneManager.SetIcons(IDB_BITMAP_ICONS, nIDIcons,
             _countof(nIDIcons), RGB(0, 255, 0));
    
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Add Save/Load State

  1. Add following to the OnCreate function for CMainFrame. This will restore the previous state of docking panes.
    int CMainFrame::OnCreate(LPCREATESTRUCT lpCreateStruct)
    {
        ...
    
            // Load the previous state for docking panes.
            CXTPDockingPaneLayout layoutNormal(&m_paneManager);
        if (layoutNormal.Load(_T("NormalLayout")))
        {
            m_paneManager.SetLayout(&layoutNormal);
        }
        return 0;
    }
    
  2. Add the OnClose message handler to CMainFrame and the following before the call to the base class. This will save the current state of your docking pane.
    void CMainFrame::OnClose()
    {
        // Save the current state for docking panes.
        CXTPDockingPaneLayout layoutNormal(&m_paneManager);
        m_paneManager.GetLayout(&layoutNormal);
        layoutNormal.Save(_T("NormalLayout"));
        CMDIFrameWnd::OnClose();
    }
    

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