Servers: Implementing In-Place Frame Windows

Article
07/10/2012

This article explains what you must do to implement in-place frame windows in your visual editing server application if you do not use the application wizard to create your server application. In place of following the procedure outlined in this article, you could use an existing in-place frame-window class from either an application wizard–generated application or a sample provided with Visual C++.

To declare an in-place frame-window class

Derive an in-place frame-window class from COleIPFrameWnd.
- Use the DECLARE_DYNCREATE macro in your class header file.
- Use the IMPLEMENT_DYNCREATE macro in your class implementation (.cpp) file. This allows objects of this class to be created by the framework.
Declare a COleResizeBar member in the frame-window class. This is needed if you want to support in-place resizing in server applications.

Declare an OnCreate message handler (using the Properties window), and call Create for your COleResizeBar member, if you've defined it.

If you have a toolbar, declare a CToolBar member in the frame-window class.

Override the OnCreateControlBars member function to create a toolbar when the server is active in place. For example:

BOOL CInPlaceFrame::OnCreateControlBars(CFrameWnd* pWndFrame, CFrameWnd* pWndDoc)
{
   UNREFERENCED_PARAMETER(pWndDoc);

   // Set owner to this window, so messages are delivered to correct app
   m_wndToolBar.SetOwner(this);

   // Create toolbar on client's frame window 
   if (!m_wndToolBar.CreateEx(pWndFrame, TBSTYLE_FLAT,WS_CHILD | WS_VISIBLE | CBRS_TOP
      | CBRS_GRIPPER | CBRS_TOOLTIPS | CBRS_FLYBY | CBRS_SIZE_DYNAMIC) ||
      !m_wndToolBar.LoadToolBar(IDR_SRVR_INPLACE))
   {
      TRACE0("Failed to create toolbar\n");
      return FALSE;
   }

   // TODO: Delete these three lines if you don't want the toolbar to be dockable
   m_wndToolBar.EnableDocking(CBRS_ALIGN_ANY);
   pWndFrame->EnableDocking(CBRS_ALIGN_ANY);
   pWndFrame->DockControlBar(&m_wndToolBar);

   return TRUE;
}

See the discussion of this code following step 5.

Include the header file for this in-place frame-window class in your main .cpp file.
In InitInstance for your application class, call the SetServerInfo function of the document template object to specify the resources and in-place frame window to be used in open and in-place editing.

The series of function calls in the if statement creates the toolbar from the resources the server provided. At this point, the toolbar is part of the container's window hierarchy. Because this toolbar is derived from CToolBar, it will pass its messages to its owner, the container application's frame window, unless you change the owner. That is why the call to SetOwner is necessary. This call changes the window where commands are sent to be the server's in-place frame window, causing the messages to be passed to the server. This allows the server to react to operations on the toolbar that it provides.

The ID for the toolbar bitmap should be the same as the other in-place resources defined in your server application. See Menus and Resources: Server Additions for details.

For more information, see COleIPFrameWnd, COleResizeBar, and CDocTemplate::SetServerInfo in the Class Library Reference.

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Servers: Implementing In-Place Frame Windows

To declare an in-place frame-window class

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