MFC Programmer WTL Guide (1) preface to Chinese version

I have been looking for such a class library: he provides object-oriented encapsulation of Windows window, flexible message response mechanism and complete interface framework solution, provides concise and practical encapsulation for standard controls, supports new features of the operating system, supports functional expansion and two development, and has code Generation Wizard mechanism. The resulting program uses less system resources and finally has full code support and documentation support.

You would say that use MFC Bar!

Yes, I always use MFC, but I have become more and more tired of MFC. The Stale class library makes it impossible to support the new features of the operating system (MFC's class library has not been updated since version 4.21, when it was 1998, when people used Windows 95 and Windows NT4), bloated message-mapping mechanisms and code retained for compatibility made the program inefficient. The all-encompassing framework makes the resulting application large and consumes too much system resources. When a simple program uses dynamic links more than 200K and consumes 3%-4% of system resources, I decided to give up MFC and look for a new feature similar to the class library. I've studied a lot of similar code, not too simplistic, not for application development, for lack of code and documentation support. On the CodeProject has a class library called class, I also studied its code, with the basic interface framework, the control also has a simple encapsulation, but not practical, large virtual function mechanism makes the object is very bloated, can not reduce the resource consumption. I even modeled MFC as a simple class library Minigui, formed a basic framework solution, but finally gave up, the reason is very simple: can not be used for application development. An application interface framework is complex, and there are so many things to consider that developers cannot fight between the two lines of application and interface frames. Just as I was about to despair, I met WTL.

Because of the need to develop a number of COM components, in the request can not use MFC is the use of ATL. ATL provides an object-oriented encapsulation of windows and a simple message mapping mechanism, but ATL is too simple to use to develop applications that are almost impossible. There are still a lot of things you need to do to make ATL have the functionality of an interface framework solution, and luckily, WTL did these things. WTL is a bizarre thing, maintained by a group of enthusiastic programmers in Microsoft, which has never been on the list of Microsoft's official products, but can download the latest WTL from Microsoft's official website. It does not have formal documentation support, and the WTL keyword can be retrieved in MSDN with only 0 results, but there are discussion groups and mailing lists for WTL on development sites around the world, and any questions will be answered enthusiastically. I carefully compared MFC and WTL, found that there are many similarities between the two, MFC features almost all can be achieved in the WTL, but the method is different. I almost had no time to write a previously written MFC program with WTL, using static link WTL program than the use of dynamic linked MFC program is smaller, resource consumption is only half of the MFC program.

But a temporary enthusiasm can not solve the problem of lack of documentation, although there are many examples of using WTL online and explain the article, almost the MFC can achieve a variety of strange effects have been achieved, but are .... of articles. It was at this point that I saw the "WTL for MFC Programmers" series of Michael Dunn, which I felt almost as much as I did when I first met MSDN in 1995, and also the urge to translate it into Chinese. So he wrote to Michael and wanted to be authorized to translate his article into Chinese (I actually translated two chapters before that). It was only after the authorization was confirmed that the job was difficult, but it was too late to bite the bullet and hang on.

Now, let's introduce Michael the man. Mike (Mike) lives in sunny Los Angeles, where the weather makes him want to live there all the time. In his 4 grade, he started his//e in Apple, and graduated from UCLA in 1995 to get a bachelor's degree in mathematics. After graduation joined Symantec (Symantec) company, become the Norton Antivirus team quality evaluation engineer. He was almost self-taught in Windows and MFC programming, and in 1999 he designed and authored a new interface for Norton AntiVirus 2000. Mike is now the developer of Pressplay (who soon became Napster). He recently developed an IE tool-bar plug-in Ultrabar, which can easily implement the cumbersome network search function. He also collaborated with others to set up a software development company: Zabersoft, which has offices in Los Angeles and Odense (Denmark). Mike likes playing pinball and cycling, occasionally playing PlayStation, and he has always been learning French, official Chinese and Japanese.

Also need to explain that I translated "WTL for MFC Programmers" series of articles is not to gain any interest, but to provide you with some new ideas. If you are a staunch defender of MFC, see here you can stop, and then look at it is wasting your time (I hope you can see the previous paragraphs will be able to hang on to do not vomit). If you are a programmer passionate about alternative things, you can't help but study WTL, it's really a treasure. Finally, using my friend's evaluation of my translation articles to end the preface to the Chinese version of "WTL for MFC Programmers": translation level is as bad as the mouse you use!

Orbit (inte2000@263.net)

August 17, 2003