Books on Common Controls

Brian Phillips

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Dec 10, 1999, 3:00:00 AM12/10/99

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The common consensus of the newsgroup seems to be that Petzold and Richter
are the best books on API programming. I support this. However,
neither book deals with the common controls. Visual Studio (I have V5)
has a lot of material on the common controls but it is not for the faint
hearted or the lazy.

Question: are there any books that deal with the common controls?

Brian Phillips

Chris Marriott

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Dec 11, 1999, 3:00:00 AM12/11/99

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Brian Phillips wrote in message ...

There may be more modern books, but my favourite is Nancy Cluts'
"Programming the Windows 95 User Interface" (Microsoft Press). This has
in-depth coverage of all the common controls. I'm pretty sure you'll find
this book on the MSDN Library CD which should have been a part of your
Visual Studio package.

Chris
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JamesO

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Dec 11, 1999, 3:00:00 AM12/11/99

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If your interested in a reference book.

Look for the "Common Controls & Messages API Bible" by Waite Group Press.
ISBN 1-57169-010-7

It is pretty old but it still gives a lot of good information. Between this
book and the MSDN I think you should be able to find all that you need.

JamesO
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---
"Brian Phillips" <br...@torus.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:memo.199912...@torus.freeserve.co.uk.freeserve.co.uk...

> The common consensus of the newsgroup seems to be that Petzold and Richter
> are the best books on API programming. I support this. However,
> neither book deals with the common controls. Visual Studio (I have V5)
> has a lot of material on the common controls but it is not for the faint
> hearted or the lazy.
>
> Question: are there any books that deal with the common controls?
>

> Brian Phillips
>

Scott McPhillips

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Dec 11, 1999, 3:00:00 AM12/11/99

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Brian Phillips wrote:
>
> The common consensus of the newsgroup seems to be that Petzold and Richter
> are the best books on API programming. I support this. However,
> neither book deals with the common controls. Visual Studio (I have V5)
> has a lot of material on the common controls but it is not for the faint
> hearted or the lazy.
>
> Question: are there any books that deal with the common controls?
>
> Brian Phillips

Microsoft Systems Journal ran a nice series of articles with detailed sample
code through several issues in the past year.

--
Scott McPhillips [VC++ MVP]

Christian ASTOR

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Dec 12, 1999, 3:00:00 AM12/12/99

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One of the best source of information is Control Spy :
http://www.microsoft.com/msj/defaulttop.asp?page=/msj/0798/controlspytop.htm
(source code and exe are very useful)
The latest Platform SDK Win32 Help files (SHELLCC.CHM for Common Controls)
are very very complete...
The source code of the book from Nancy Cluts is not bad
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/books/win95ui/win95uisamples.htm
(apart some few bugs...)

Brian Phillips a écrit:

Brian Phillips

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Dec 15, 1999, 3:00:00 AM12/15/99

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Thanks everyone for some very useful comments.

I had, by dint of much patience and experimentation, discovered how to use
the List View control, but at least I shall not have to reinvent the wheel
when I come to use the other controls.

I took MSJ for several years, but at that time I was working with Win3.1
and all the articles were too modern. There are three articles on common
controls, namely July, September and December 1998. They look good but I
have yet to read them carefully.

I was aware of the existence of the Waite Group book on common controls,
but having been disappointed with their book on API's (it contains almost
nothing not in the VS API documentation) I had not considered it
seriously.

The MSDN library disks do contain the book by Nancy Cluts, which also is
very useful. Having little free hard disk space however, I always forget
to look at these CD's.

I could not find the help file shellcc.chm amongst my materials and so I
am in the process of downloading it from Microsoft
(ftp.microsoft.com/developr/PlatformSDK/win2k-rc2/common/Help). However,
Microsoft ftp is very slow and on several occasions I have downloaded
about 80% of the 2700K file only then to be told by Bullet Proof FTP that
there is an error - whereupon Bullet Proof starts again at 0%.

Eventually I shall succeed, but not having met the file extension .chm
before I am not sure how I should read the help file. Advice on this
point would be appreciated.

All in all, a sorry tale of insufficient research on my part!

Brian

Brian Phillips

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Dec 15, 1999, 3:00:00 AM12/15/99

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I have now downloaded Shellcc.chm, and simple double clicking causes it to
be displayed. Whilst it is clearly very useful, it has information on
the following topics only:-

In-place Tooltips
Customizable Toolbar
Internet Explorer style Tool Bar
Internet Explorer style Menu Bar

Again, thanks for all the help.

Brian

Christian ASTOR

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Dec 15, 1999, 3:00:00 AM12/15/99

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Have you got the right index file (ShellCC.Chi) or simply the right file (2.4
Mb) ?
Mine has all the 22 Common Controls...

Brian Phillips a écrit :

Brian Phillips

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Dec 15, 1999, 3:00:00 AM12/15/99

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You are, of course, correct. I saw the file Shell.Chi on the Microsoft
ftp site but I did not realise it was an index. The 'Shell' is new to
me. Anyway, I downloaded the index and all 22 controls are now displayed
as you said. Quite a mouthful!

Brian