Win32, ATL, WTL or MFC, which route to take?
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Currently I use the MFC for all my programs, but I don't like the large library and the solid framework that comes along with it. So I thought I wanted to get rid of it, and thus I looked at plain Win32. But as almost all my programs are heavily dependant of their GUI, programming in Win32 will be unnecessary cumbersome and repetative. So I figured I do want some (light) framework to work with... WTL looks very promising, but as microsoft doesn't officially support it, and because there is no documentation on it whatsoever I don't think it's an alternative either. ATL and COM are (as far as I know) mainly for developing controls and such. I don't get the idea it's any good for designing functional user interfaces. So... what should I do? Learn WTL despite the lack of documentation? Start with win32 (Pretzolts book - thanks guys) and build everything from scratch? Or should I give ATL a try? Or maybe there are other alternatives? I hope somebody can shed light on this! Thanks a lot in advance Best regards, Griffith
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Currently I use the MFC for all my programs, but I don't like the large library and the solid framework that comes along with it. So I thought I wanted to get rid of it, and thus I looked at plain Win32. But as almost all my programs are heavily dependant of their GUI, programming in Win32 will be unnecessary cumbersome and repetative. So I figured I do want some (light) framework to work with... WTL looks very promising, but as microsoft doesn't officially support it, and because there is no documentation on it whatsoever I don't think it's an alternative either. ATL and COM are (as far as I know) mainly for developing controls and such. I don't get the idea it's any good for designing functional user interfaces. So... what should I do? Learn WTL despite the lack of documentation? Start with win32 (Pretzolts book - thanks guys) and build everything from scratch? Or should I give ATL a try? Or maybe there are other alternatives? I hope somebody can shed light on this! Thanks a lot in advance Best regards, Griffith
Griffith Sutherns wrote: Learn WTL despite the lack of documentation? That's what I've done. :) The method names in the GUI classes and control wrappers are almost identical to MFC's, so you can use the MFC docs for those, along with the gool ol' F12 key if you need to look up a particular method. --Mike-- Just released - RightClick-Encrypt v1.3 - Adds fast & easy file encryption to Explorer My really out-of-date homepage Sonork-100.19012 Acid_Helm
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Griffith Sutherns wrote: Learn WTL despite the lack of documentation? That's what I've done. :) The method names in the GUI classes and control wrappers are almost identical to MFC's, so you can use the MFC docs for those, along with the gool ol' F12 key if you need to look up a particular method. --Mike-- Just released - RightClick-Encrypt v1.3 - Adds fast & easy file encryption to Explorer My really out-of-date homepage Sonork-100.19012 Acid_Helm
Heh, but you're pretty professional and I am but an amateur. I do like the -feel- of WTL, but is there any background knowledge neccecary to learn it? COM? ATL maybe? "WTL is code that was released unsupported and we have no intention of updating it. We have no intention of continuing its availability. Frankly, it should never have been released and it will be removed from the platform SDK at the time of the next SDK revision." Bill Dunlap, Microsoft's Visual Studio 7 Lead Product Manager This also bothers me... Futhermore, there are but a few WTL articles here on CP. Are you sure it's the way to go? Everything you say will be misquoted, ripped out of context and used against you. - Wise words indeed.
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Currently I use the MFC for all my programs, but I don't like the large library and the solid framework that comes along with it. So I thought I wanted to get rid of it, and thus I looked at plain Win32. But as almost all my programs are heavily dependant of their GUI, programming in Win32 will be unnecessary cumbersome and repetative. So I figured I do want some (light) framework to work with... WTL looks very promising, but as microsoft doesn't officially support it, and because there is no documentation on it whatsoever I don't think it's an alternative either. ATL and COM are (as far as I know) mainly for developing controls and such. I don't get the idea it's any good for designing functional user interfaces. So... what should I do? Learn WTL despite the lack of documentation? Start with win32 (Pretzolts book - thanks guys) and build everything from scratch? Or should I give ATL a try? Or maybe there are other alternatives? I hope somebody can shed light on this! Thanks a lot in advance Best regards, Griffith
I would definitly not go with straight Win32. MFC i dont like either, good as long as you stay on the 'mainroad', but if you try something else wierd things happens. And it does not work to well with threads. I suggest the WTL route. Ok, it is not documented or supported, but it builds on top of ATL and ATL is both documented and supported. There are documentation and samples for WTL on the net, and you dont really need that much documentation of WTL since it is a thin wrapper around Win32 windowing. And what support do you need, you have the source. I have switched from MFC to WTL, and with MFC there was *always* wierd things going on behind the scenes, with WLT everything works lika a clock. :) /:cool:
- Don't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things.
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Heh, but you're pretty professional and I am but an amateur. I do like the -feel- of WTL, but is there any background knowledge neccecary to learn it? COM? ATL maybe? "WTL is code that was released unsupported and we have no intention of updating it. We have no intention of continuing its availability. Frankly, it should never have been released and it will be removed from the platform SDK at the time of the next SDK revision." Bill Dunlap, Microsoft's Visual Studio 7 Lead Product Manager This also bothers me... Futhermore, there are but a few WTL articles here on CP. Are you sure it's the way to go? Everything you say will be misquoted, ripped out of context and used against you. - Wise words indeed.
Griffith Sutherns wrote: "WTL is code that was released unsupported and we have no intention of updating it. We have no intention of continuing its availability. Frankly, it should never have been released and it will be removed from the platform SDK at the time of the next SDK revision." Bill Dunlap, Microsoft's Visual Studio 7 Lead Product Manager This also bothers me... And dont remember the story behind that quote, but it cirkulated here a while ago. Anyway, it was just crap and you shouldn't be concerned with it. /:cool:
- Don't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things.
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Heh, but you're pretty professional and I am but an amateur. I do like the -feel- of WTL, but is there any background knowledge neccecary to learn it? COM? ATL maybe? "WTL is code that was released unsupported and we have no intention of updating it. We have no intention of continuing its availability. Frankly, it should never have been released and it will be removed from the platform SDK at the time of the next SDK revision." Bill Dunlap, Microsoft's Visual Studio 7 Lead Product Manager This also bothers me... Futhermore, there are but a few WTL articles here on CP. Are you sure it's the way to go? Everything you say will be misquoted, ripped out of context and used against you. - Wise words indeed.
Well, the fact that WTL got a major rev a few weeks ago puts Dunlap's statement down. WTL is not built on COM. It is built on the ATL windowing classes, so you need to know how those work. Here's a quick lesson: CWindow: wraps an HWND CWindowImpl<>: implements message handling There you go :) The message map macros and handlers are slightly different, but all that is documented. Check out my hotfix checker for a full-fledged app that uses WTL. --Mike-- Just released - RightClick-Encrypt v1.3 - Adds fast & easy file encryption to Explorer My really out-of-date homepage Sonork-100.19012 Acid_Helm
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Well, the fact that WTL got a major rev a few weeks ago puts Dunlap's statement down. WTL is not built on COM. It is built on the ATL windowing classes, so you need to know how those work. Here's a quick lesson: CWindow: wraps an HWND CWindowImpl<>: implements message handling There you go :) The message map macros and handlers are slightly different, but all that is documented. Check out my hotfix checker for a full-fledged app that uses WTL. --Mike-- Just released - RightClick-Encrypt v1.3 - Adds fast & easy file encryption to Explorer My really out-of-date homepage Sonork-100.19012 Acid_Helm
It does sound very promising, I must admit. Are there any good books which cover the WTL basics? And should I learn something about ATL first, or isn't that required? I'll check out your hotfix checker, but it won't work on a 98 system... Griffith
Everything you say will be misquoted, ripped out of context and used against you.
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I would definitly not go with straight Win32. MFC i dont like either, good as long as you stay on the 'mainroad', but if you try something else wierd things happens. And it does not work to well with threads. I suggest the WTL route. Ok, it is not documented or supported, but it builds on top of ATL and ATL is both documented and supported. There are documentation and samples for WTL on the net, and you dont really need that much documentation of WTL since it is a thin wrapper around Win32 windowing. And what support do you need, you have the source. I have switched from MFC to WTL, and with MFC there was *always* wierd things going on behind the scenes, with WLT everything works lika a clock. :) /:cool:
- Don't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things.
Yep, all the MFC majicks can be annoying. You mentioned there is documentation and samples for WTL on the net. Do you happen to have a few links outside of CP or CodeGuru? Just wondering, I'm sure the more professional programs of MS aren't written with MFC. (IExplorer, Word, Powerpoint) Do those program use a framework?
Everything you say will be misquoted, ripped out of context and used against you.
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Yep, all the MFC majicks can be annoying. You mentioned there is documentation and samples for WTL on the net. Do you happen to have a few links outside of CP or CodeGuru? Just wondering, I'm sure the more professional programs of MS aren't written with MFC. (IExplorer, Word, Powerpoint) Do those program use a framework?
Everything you say will be misquoted, ripped out of context and used against you.
Griffith Sutherns wrote: Do you happen to have a few links outside of CP or CodeGuru Here is a little tutorial Part1 Part2 There is another nice one but i cannot remeber what that place was called...annoying. :( (I have all links on my work puter.) /:cool:
- Don't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things.
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Griffith Sutherns wrote: Do you happen to have a few links outside of CP or CodeGuru Here is a little tutorial Part1 Part2 There is another nice one but i cannot remeber what that place was called...annoying. :( (I have all links on my work puter.) /:cool:
- Don't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things.
Those tutorials are great! Thanks a lot, I'm sure these guides will give me a solid base to start with WTL.
Everything you say will be misquoted, ripped out of context and used against you.
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Griffith Sutherns wrote: Do you happen to have a few links outside of CP or CodeGuru Here is a little tutorial Part1 Part2 There is another nice one but i cannot remeber what that place was called...annoying. :( (I have all links on my work puter.) /:cool:
- Don't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things.
I just found something you might find useful. Complete Reference Atl 3.1 Also this might be intresting, it looks like it's pretty good.
Everything you say will be misquoted, ripped out of context and used against you.
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I just found something you might find useful. Complete Reference Atl 3.1 Also this might be intresting, it looks like it's pretty good.
Everything you say will be misquoted, ripped out of context and used against you.
The other one i got and use. It is far from the MSDN help, but still better than searching trought the headers. The first link had a link to the other tutorials i was trying to remember before though. They are here clipcode /:cool:
- Don't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things.