Tabbed Views

First we create a CWnd-derived class

class CTabWnd : public CWnd
{
 // Construction
 public:
  CTabWnd();
 
 // Generated message map functions
protected:
 //{{AFX_MSG(CTabWnd)
 afx_msg BOOL OnEraseBkgnd(CDC* pDC);
 afx_msg void OnPaint();
 //}}AFX_MSG
DECLARE_MESSAGE_MAP()
}

BOOL CTabWnd::Create(DWORD dwStyle, CWnd* pParentWnd, UINT nID)
{
 CRect rect, parent;
 ASSERT(pParentWnd);

 if (!CWnd::Create(NULL, "SealiteTabWnd", WS_CHILD|WS_VISIBLE, rect, pParentWnd, nID, NULL))
  return FALSE;

 m_dwStyle=dwStyle;
 return TRUE;
}

Next, we add a linked list of views and a CreateView function to add views in it.

typedef struct
{
 CWnd *pWnd;
 char szLabel[32];
 int x_min, x_max;
}

CList <TABWND_MEMBER*,TABWND_MEMBER *> m_viewList;
BOOL CreateView(LPCTSTR lpszLabel, CRuntimeClass *pViewClass, CCreateContext *pContext);

The created views have to be resized whenever the parent window resize, so we add a handler for WM_SIZEPARENT.

LRESULT CTabWnd::OnSizeParent(WPARAM, LPARAM lParam)
{
 PostMessage(WM_TABRESIZE);
 return 0;
}

The next thing to do is handle the WM_PAINT message to draw the selector and the WM_LBUTTONUP message to switch the views. The SetActiveView function is used to make sure that the window/command messages are routed to the active view. When the current tab is changed both the view thats going to be selected and the one thats going to be unselected are sent the WM_TABCHANGED message.

This is a rather complex subject and it is imposible to throughly cover it in a few pages. For more information you should go through the CTabWnd (you can download the project and source files by clicking the link at the beginning of this page) and CSplitterWnd.

Download demo project - 25 KB

Date Last Updated: April 3, 1999