Creating a Rollout Panel

Environment: VC6, Win95-XP

Introduction

This control works like “Rollout panel” in 3dsmax: When you click on a checkbox, some additional controls are shown. Another click on a checkbox will hide controls. Notice that other controls in a dialog are also moved and the dialog itself is resized. I tried to find something like this on the CodeGuru site, but the only articles I found were about expanding dialogs, which have limited functionality in comparison with this. So I decided to write my own class for this control.

How to Integrate It into Existing Code

1. Create a dialog and place controls on it.
2. Encircle the controls you want to be dynamically shown or hidden with static box and set their text to an empty string. Also, place a checkbox in the corner of it, as it is shown in the picture.
3. Set the proper IDs for the checkbox and static (do not use IDC_STATIC because it will not work!). Let’s say you have used ID’s IDC_CHTYPE (for checkbox) and IDC_STTYPE (for static box).
4. Associate variables with these two controls using ClassWizard. They should be of type CButton.
5. Copy the “ExpandingCheck.h” and “ExpandingCheck.cpp” files into your source files directory.
6. In your dialog’s .h file write:

   #include"ExpandingCheck.h"
   

7. Also, in your dialog’s .h file you have to find the variables created in Step 4 and make the Checkbox variable of type CExpandingCheck:

    //{{AFX_DATA(CExpCheckTestDlg)
    enum { IDD = IDD_EXPCHECKTEST_DIALOG };
    CExpandingCheck m_chType;    //I have changed this line
    CButton m_stType;
    //}}AFX_DATA

8. In the constructor of your dialog, write:

    m_chName.SetFrame(&m_stName);

9. That’s all!

If you have found any bugs or improved the code, feel free to e-mail me.

Downloads

Download demo project – 36Kb

Download source – 3Kb