The MFC Answer Book: Solutions for Effective Visual C++ Applications (Paperback)

by Eugene Kain (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Getting the most out of your Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC) applications is the goal of Eugène Kain's The MFC Answer Book. Though it does not cover newer Internet Explorer-style enhancements, this title offers some indispensable tips for writing more attractive MFC applications in Visual C++.

The book begins with an excellent tour of the MFC document/view architecture. As the author notes, Visual C++ wizards let you generate simple, functional multiple-document interface (MDI) applications, but you're on your own after that. To remedy this gap, the author shares his expertise for building better MDI applications. He includes how to manage more than one view, as well as how to save and reload files effectively.

The same question-and-answer approach is used for such topics as views, dialog boxes, and property sheets. Standout tips here include how to size and control views, as well as how to change the color and font used for dialog controls. The author also shows you how to create applications that run in full-screen mode, just like in Microsoft Word 97. Toolbars, menus, and printing functions round out the tour.

Throughout this text, Kain provides plenty of short, clear programming examples that show exactly how to solve some of the most perplexing and common problems faced by the working MFC programmer. There's little doubt that The MFC Answer Book can save you hours of experimenting on your own; it can help you create significantly more responsive and appealing MFC programs. --Richard Dragan

Review
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The MFC Answer Book is organized as a large collection of frequently asked questions (FAQs) and programming problems accompanied by the detailed description of how the MFC classes (and the Visual C++ wizards) can be leveraged to build effective solutions. The questions are divided into categories based on the main class, the MFC-specific mechanism, or the user-interface feature they can be more closely associated with. Among the many categories you can find manners to customize the infamous document/view paradigm, manage documents, customizing dialog box elements, operating menus, toolbars and status bars, and coping with common issues of the printing and print preview mechanisms. For every FAQ, the question is first formulated in a concise format. Subsequently, the author provides the theoretical explanation of what the question really means and how the MFC machinery can accomplish it. Then the equivalent source code is presented in its entirety, coupled by both inline comments and step-by-step instructions. Occasionally, this part is followed by a section that delves deeper into the MFC architecture and unearths its interaction with the Windows APIs, obviously aimed at the more curious readers who wish to learn why the solution would work like it does. Eventually the "See Also" section suggests other FAQs covered by the book that are strictly related, and therefore would probably be a profitable read as a companion to the current one. --Davide Marcato, Dr. Dobb's Journal -- Dr. Dobb's Journal

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Product Details

• Paperback: 704 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional (August 22, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201185377
• ISBN-13: 978-0201185379
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.3 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (57 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #296,252 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Should be in every MFC programmer's library, November 26, 1999

By	Howard Trickey (New Jersey, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I now own four Visual C++ books, and after a year or so of programming with MFC, this is often the book I turn to first. When you've used MFC for a while, you realize that if your application fits exactly into the mold forseen by the MFC programmers, your job is a snap. But I've never had an application quite like that. There is always something that has to be different from the straight-and-narrow path. This book is the first line of defence for how to deal with those tweaks.

Many of the questions that this book answers cannot be answered by reading Microsoft's documentation (this is not particularly a slam at Microsoft: the system is just too huge to document everything to the last detail), and the only real way to answer them is to read the source code for MFC. Luckily for us, Eugene Kain has done this. A great feature of the book is that he gives both cookbook recipes to achieve a required tweak, AND an explanation of the relevant source code, so that you gain an understanding of how you might do something similar-but-not-quite-the-same.

My only complaint is that I want volume II, volume III, ...!

I recommend this book to all the (Unix background) programmers in my center that are starting to use Visual C++.

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ever wondered how to do this with MFC, January 21, 2000

By	Christopher Hugh Sam (Atlanta, GA) - See all my reviews

Audience: Intermediate and above.

Chapter 0 - Terminology and Conventions

Chapter 1 - Document/View Architecture Backgrounder

Chapter 2 - Documents and Document Templates

- Managing Document Templates

- Managing Documents

- Managing the Recent Files list (MRU)

- Miscellaneous Items

Chapter 3 - Views and Frame Windows

- General Topics

- Opening and Closing Views and Frame Windows

- Managing Sizes and Positions

- Managing Caption, Icons, Cursors, and Backgrounds

- Form Views

- Splitter Windows

- Switching Views

- Miscellaneous Items

Chapter 4 - Dialog Boxes

- General Topics

- Managing Controls in a Dialog Box

Chapter 5 - Property Sheet

- General Topics

- Managing Tabs

- Embedding Property Sheets

Chapter 6 - Toolbars and Status Bars

- Toolbars

- Status Bars

- General Control Bar Topic

Chapter 7 - Menus

Chapter 8 - Printing and Print Preview

Appendix A - Utility Functions and Classes

This book is not about teaching MFC basics or fundamentals, it's all about hints and tricks that answers the question ... have you ever wondered how to do this in MFC? I sat down over the week-end for about several hours looking though the book and found it to be very helpful. It doesn't bog you down with large sample code, but it gives you snippets of code that just goes straight to the point.. Be aware this book is not for beginners, but you don't have to be an expert on MFC to understand this book either. This is definitely a keeper for me and I suspect that some time in the future will come in handy as a good reference book.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent walkthrough, May 27, 2000

By	Georg Egger (Austria) - See all my reviews

I have EVERY bible on MFC. professional mfc, windows withh mfc visual c++ inside but I found this book the most valuable. Instead of bombarding you with jargon and theorie this book can help you learn a lot better than others, for a great deal i do not care about mfc internals casue I DO NOT HAVE THE TIME to learn everything MFC is suppposed to be a library to USE not to completle dissect , sometimes you just have to accept certain things and work wiht them, I wont deny that I just copy and pase a lot from the examples..but even then its easy to see where you are heading and whats actually happening as the source is very good commented, the author even helped me wiht a serious problem.. you wwant somethign else than the usual boring looking mfc stuff..check this one out...