#SvcMFCUI
SvcMFCUI is a Windows-only project, for now. However, the interface (API) to drive the UI is C++ and platform agnostic. It could be possible to implement a Linux/Apple version.
This dll is a 'service' that I created to get as fast as possible some User Interface on various tests I made.
But as many noticed, introducing a UI in a project can be a real pain : the UI requires various conditions at linkage stage; many libraries; many include files. All of the things that most of the time turn a UI into a nightmare.
When I looked at the first time to Maya (Autodesk DCC app), I found their approach rather interesting : MEL script used to build the layout; very simple commands to handle the whole... Yes... this is never the most friendly way to work and will never be as good as a good interface builder. But for my needs, the idea was good enough.
What I also noticed in some specific conditions: the UI should never be a stopper for the application to run. In other words, if one decide to remove the UI dll (SvcMFC.dll), the application should still work, but without the UI. This is true for many experiments. It is even more interesting when you might need this UI only when debugging and never later after you released the product (game...).
Finally, I wanted to decouple the implementation of the UI from the way we instanciate it and use it. For example, I implemented the same UI in OpenGL, so that it could be used as a transparent overlay on top of 3D... In any case, no matter if I used OpenGL or Windows MFC: the interface and the code written to use this UI had to be the exact same.
Note on the OpenGL part: this project got so outdated that I can't ship it. I will have to use another set of widgets, before releasing it...
Here are the rules that SvcMFCUI had to follow:
- No linkage with any linrary. Only dynamic loading available
- very few include files (so far, 2 files)
- UI build done through methods
- UI Events do be handled in many flexible ways
- simple controls to easily reflect some parameters without too much work
- UI to directly update straighforward variables (float, bool, int, vectors...)
- UI must work with a Console application (need to provide a message pump)
- UI must work with a typical Win32 Application (message pump already there)
- No need to be sexy ^_^... yes, Sorry but don't expect this UI to make your application good looking, like Qt or any. this is not the putpose.
This UI turns out to be useful in many prototypes I develop; it is very convenient to have some buttons, sliders, progress-bar and other things when testing 3D effects. I hope this could help some other developers, too.
The User interface generated here might not be good enough for those who want to create a serious and good looking application. This was not the intent. Instead, this UI will look more like a bunch of containers that can have other containers and various controls to inspect values, flags, provide buttons...
This kind of UI is largely good enough to add some useful UI while working on various projects. For example, I had to work on a server/client socket system to drive a small graphical demo from a distant server. I found useful to have the console-application server become temporarily visual thanks to this UI, so that I could tweak parameters and take actions for debugging purpose. Then when I had to ship the work, I just needed to remove the UI dll from the project and the server became invisible again !
Here is an example :
Few comments to legitimate some possible issues in the source code: *This project is old and didn't get any improvement or corrections *it is using Windows MFC. I am not good at this and will never be. But At this time I found MFC an "okay" solution for what I wanted to do. But between you and me... this is a rather boring area. So I used it in the best possible way of my knowledge at this time. I am sure that anybody who is more experienced in Windows controls/UI will scream when looking at some parts... I expect it. But at least : this is helping me when I need to get a quick UI.
Hopefully, addin this project on GitHub will be a starter to make it become cleaner...
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