Scrolling credits dialog

This article was contributed by Mark Findlay.

The credits dialog is a neat way to display a scrolling credits window like you see in the movies or in some of the Microsoft product credits that popup when you hit a hidden key sequence.

This dialog displays text in user defined colors and fonts and also displays bitmaps in the scrolling display! You simply type the text you wish to appear in the static array defined in the cpp file and use user defined escape sequences to designate different fonts, colors etc.

You can have a spiffy looking credits window in about 10 minutes!

The credits go through their cycle and wrap around to the beginning again for a never ending show!

Steps.

1. Create a dialog using the resource editor and set its style to WS_POPUP | WS_VISIBLE | WS_CLIPSIBLINGS | WS_CAPTION Put an OK button on it so the user has a way of dismissing the dialog.
2. Create the credits display window (make it a good large size :) as a text box. Call the text box IDC_DISPLAY_STATIC (or whatever name you like, but if you use a different name you will need to change the IDC_DISPLAY_STATIC name used in the source code provided here.
3. Use the ClassWizard to generate a class wrapper for the dialog. For purposes of this example we will use the names credits.cpp and credits.h as the files generated by the class wizard and CCredits as the class name to generate. Base the class on CDialog.
4. Add the following data members to the credits.h file (or copy and paste them from the credits.h file provided)

   	#define DISPLAY_TIMER_ID		150		 timer id
   
    	RECT		m_ScrollRect,r;			// rect of Static Text frame
   	int		nArrIndex,nCounter;		// work ints
   	CString		m_szWork;			// holds display line
   	BOOL		m_bFirstTime;			// first time boolean
   	BOOL		m_bDrawText;			// drawing text or bitmap?
   	int		nClip;				// clip amount
   	int		nCurrentFontHeight;		// current font height
   
   	CWnd*		m_pDisplayFrame;		// output display wnd
   
   	CBitmap		m_bmpPIE;
   	CBitmap		m_bmpWork;
   	CBitmap* 	pBmpOld;
   	CBitmap*	m_bmpCurrent;
   
   	HBITMAP 	m_hBmpOld;
   
   	CSize 		m_size;
   	CPoint 		m_pt;
   	BITMAP 		m_bmpInfo;
   	CDC 		m_dcMem;
   	BOOL 		m_bProcessingBitmap;
   

5. Create the following message handlers and functions using the class wizard:

   	virtual void OnOK();
   	afx_msg void OnPaint();
   	virtual BOOL OnInitDialog();
   	afx_msg void OnTimer(UINT nIDEvent);
   	afx_msg void OnDestroy();
   

6. Cut and paste the functions from the credits.cpp file provided into your newly created functions.
7. From another module (your About... dialog perhaps) , invoke the credits dialog:

   	CCredits dlgCredits;
   	dlgCredits.DoModal();