C++ All-In-One For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

Chapter 2. Creating an MFC Dialog Box Project

In This Chapter

• Working with the MFC Dialog Box project template

• Defining a simple MFC Dialog Box application

• Providing a user interface for the MFC Dialog Box application

• Making the user interface functional

• Considering essential GUI application windows

Say "dialog box" and many developers immediately think of the message boxes that appear everywhere in Windows applications. A message box is certainly a special kind of dialog box application, but it hardly scratches the surface of what you can do with dialog box applications. In fact, some applications consist solely of one or more dialog boxes. For example, most utility applications are dialog boxes. Configuration tools commonly appear as dialog box applications as well.

Dialog boxes appear just about everywhere in Windows. When you view the properties of the Windows display, you're viewing a dialog box. The icons in the notification area often display dialog boxes where you can discover more about the associated service. Even the properties pages used to configure some types of controls in your application are a kind of dialog box, so it's easy to see how important a dialog box application can be.

This chapter doesn't show everything you can do with the dialog box application — you'd need an entire book to do the topic justice. However, you'll see how to create and use a simple dialog box application that you can expand later as needed for your C++ development projects. In most cases, all ...