MFC Smart Frames

• Download source files - 3 Kb
• Download demo project - 30 Kb
• Download demo excecutabe - 8 Kb

Introduction to Smart Frames for MFC

Smart Frames are a set of MFC Classes which implement the following functionality:

• Saving and restoring window state of CMDIFrameWnd derived classes;
• Saving and restoring window state of CMDIChildWnd derived classes.

The Smart Frame classes do NOT offer the following functionality:

• Saving and restoring toolbar states;
• Saving and restoring SDI frames and child frames.

If these functions are ever implemented this article will be updated with the changes.

Programming Tasks

To implement Smart Frames in your MFC MDI Applications follow these steps:

• Insert the Smart Frames CPP and H files into your project;
• Derive your main MDI frame (typically CMainFrame) from CSMDIFrameWnd;
• Derive your child MDI frames (typically CChildFrame) from CSMDIChildWnd.

Notes on deriving from CSMDIFrameWnd and CSMDIChildWnd

The easiest way to derive from these classes is to create your mainframe and childframes using the MFC Class Wizard or MFC App Wizard as you normally would and then following these steps. Please note that these are only suggestions:

• Include SMDIFrameWnd.h and SMDIChildWnd.h in stdafx.h;
• Change the derivation of your mainframe class from CMDIFrameWnd to CSMDIFrameWnd;
• Change all references to CMDIFrameWnd to CSMDIFrameWnd in your mainframe implementation;
• Change the derivation of your child frame class from CMDIChildWnd to CSMDIChildWnd;
• Change all references to CMDIChildWnd to CSMDIChildWnd in your child frame implementation(s);

How do Smart Frames work?

To persist and restore frame states I use techniques described in another article which I submitted to Code Project some time ago. Here is the link: Saving a windows size position and state in MFC

The Smart Frames CPP and H files

Smart Frames consist of the following CPP and H files:

• SMDIFrameWnd.h and SMDIFrameWnd.cpp (CSMDIFrameWnd)
• SMDIChildWnd.h and SMDIChildWnd.cpp (CSMDIChildWnd)

The Smart Frames Classes

Smart Frames are implemented in the following classes:

• CSMDIFrameWnd
• CSMDIChildWnd

The Smart Frames Demo Project

Included with this article is a Demo Project which is a bare-bones implementation of Smart Frames. It was created and tested with Visual Studio Version 6.

Happy Coding!