What's New (MFC Feature Pack)
[This documentation is for preview only, and is subject to change in later releases. Blank topics are included as placeholders.]
The MFC Feature Pack library enables you to build MFC applications that have the visual style of a Microsoft Office, Visual Studio, or Internet Explorer application. The MFC Feature Pack library provides customizable toolbars, menus, keyboards, menu bars, and docking panes.
About the Library
The MFC Feature Pack library supports new features in the following areas:
Menus
Toolbars
Panes
Ribbon Control
Outlook Alert
Controls
Dialog Boxes
Customization
Visualization
Special Features
Menus
Menus support the following:
Microsoft Office-style menus.
Office-style menu bars that you can dock and that you can be customize with an image.
Menu animations in which an image fades in, unfolds, or slides into view.
Menu shadows.
Menu tooltips.
Scrollable menus.
Owner-drawn menu images.
An owner-drawn logo on the left of the menu.
Menu fonts that you can change at runtime.
Most recently used (MRU) lists and Windows lists.
Tear-off menus.
A right-aligned combo box (similar to the Help combo box in Office 2003 applications).
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Toolbars
Toolbars support the following:
Button images that change when the mouse hovers over the button.
Large icons.
A double-chevron button that indicates there are more buttons than are currently visible.
Toolbars that are not customizable.
Auto-build keyboard shortcuts in menus and tooltips.
Rebar support.
Text below images.
Standard combo box and text box buttons.
Standard font combo box and font size combo box buttons.
Standard color picker control.
MS Office visual style.
Transparent toolbars with a background image.
Drop-down tear-off panes that contain a pin button.
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Panes
Panes are windows that are typically resizable, tear-off, and dockable. Panes support the following:
Microsoft Office-style dialog box bars.
Office-style menu bars that support images and docking.
Microsoft Outlook-style shortcut bars.
Outlook-style caption bars.
Outlook-style task panes.
Visual Studio-style panes that resemble toolbox, property, and browser panes.
Rebar controls whose contents and position persist between runs of an application.
Status bars that support icons, animations, and progress bars.
A print preview service.
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Ribbon Control
The ribbon control supports the following:
General ribbon features.
Vista Aero integration.
Ribbon panels.
Ribbon contextual categories (tabs).
Ribbon elements.
Ribbon keytips.
Ribbon palettes (galleries).
Ribbon customization.
Ribbon mini-toolbars.
The Ribbon Launch button.
The Ribbon Main button.
The Ribbon status bar.
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Outlook Alert
- The Microsoft Outlook Desktop Alert displays a popup window that contains a notification. An example of a desktop alert is the window that informs you that a mail message has arrived in your Outlook inbox.
Controls
Controls are enhanced to support the following:
URL link button.
Pushbutton that is decorated with a bitmap image.
Menu button.
Editable list.
Color picker control.
Shell tree control.
Shell list control.
Masked edit control.
Custom tooltip control.
Edit control that contains a browse button.
Property grid.
MDI tab control.
Tab control that supports visual styles such as three-dimensional, Excel, OneNote, and so on.
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Dialog Boxes
MFC enhances support for the following dialog boxes:
Windows manager dialog box.
An Office-style color selection dialog box.
Image editor dialog box.
Property sheets that contain controls such as a shortcuts bar, tree controls, or an Office 2007-style list.
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Customization
You can customize controls with color, images, and text. Customization supports the following:
Drag buttons between toolbars and menus.
Edit user-defined images by using a simple bitmap editor.
Create user-defined toolbars at runtime.
Customize context menus.
Use the toolbar customization menu to quickly customize toolbar buttons.
Use menu resources to automatically create customization categories.
Customize a toolbar by pressing ALT while dragging a toolbar button.
Customize mouse event handling.
Customize keyboard shortcuts.
Save and restore toolbar and menu states to the registry.
Access the workspace manager that persists customization settings to the registry.
Call user-defined tools.
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Visualization
MFC provides a visualization manager that draws controls according to the visual style that you select. Visualization supports the following:
Microsoft Office 2000/XP/2003/2007 visual style.
Visual Studio 6.0/.NET/2005 visual style.
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Special Features
MFC supports the following window features:
MDI tabbed groups.
Detachable tabs.
Auto-hide windows.
MFC also supports the following operations:
Save and load the state of opened documents.
Dock several panes to a floating mini frame window.
At run time, change the type of docking to:
Standard - The contents of a window are not drawn while the window is being dragged (for example, as in Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003).
Immediate - The contents of a window are drawn while the window is being dragged (for example, as in Microsoft Visio).
Smart - The contents of a window are drawn while the window is being dragged and arrow markers indicate positions where the window can dock (for example, as in Microsoft Visual Studio 2005/2008).
Alpha-blend images (support for 32-bit images).
Display globalized text in right-to-left (RTL) format.
Enable accessibility support.
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