MRU Dialog

When you start an AppWizard generated MFC application without any command line
arguments a new document is created. If the user doesnt want a new document but
wants to edit an existing one, the new document created every time the application starts
has no purpose at all. The code presented in this article shows a dialog which,
when there are no command line arguments, gives the user the opportunity to either
start with a new document, open a document from the MRU list or open another
existing document. If the user cancels this dialog an empty workspace is shown. The double click event is also handled so editing a file from the MRU list can be started quickly.

The demo code provided with this article adds this functionality to the famous Scribble Application with these steps:

1. Add the files FileOpen.cpp and FileOpen.h to your project and paste the IDD_FILEOPEN
   dialog into your application (you can do this easily by temporary including the demo
   project in your workspace.) Also create a new icon depicting a new document. This icon will be placed next to the “Create a new … ” text. The rest of the dialog will be filled with the document type information.

2. Include the header file in your application and derive your application from CMRUWinApp
   instead of CWinApp:

#include “FileOpen.h”
class CScribbleApp : public CMRUWinApp
{
public:
 CScribbleApp();
 //..rest of class
}

3. In your InitInstance() function swap the processing of the command line info and the
   creation of the main window and call the new function ParseCommandLineEx instead. This
   function has the ID of the resources used with the document type and the ID of the icon
   for new documents as extra arguments.

   // First show the main window
   pMainFrame->ShowWindow(m_nCmdShow);
   pMainFrame->UpdateWindow();
   // Parse command line for standard shell commands, DDE, file open
   CCommandLineInfo cmdInfo;
   ParseCommandLineEx(cmdInfo, IDR_SCRIBBTYPE, IDR_SCRIBBNEW );
   // Dispatch commands specified on the command line
   if (!ProcessShellCommand(cmdInfo))
      return FALSE;
   

Downloads

Download demo project – 34Kb