GUI Guidelines for Updating from Prof. Tausner

GUI Guidelines for updating from Prof. Tausner

How to take a console based program and change it to program with a GUI interface

1) Design the interface (form) first! This is very important!. Visual C++ will generate a lot of files for you.

2) Place the text boxes, labels, and buttons you intend to use. Make sure you can build your program without getting errors, even though it only contains the code for the interface.

3) Now comes the steps you need to make your program do something.

You will be using your original cpp and h files EXCEPT for your main program file (which will be replaced by files generated as you design your interface).

Step 3.1 Find the directory where the files already generated are being saved – files with nameslike stdafx.h, stdafx.cpp, Form1.h. You will also see a file there which is called project name.cpp (using whatever project name you gave to your project).

Copy your original .cpp and .h files to the same directory

Step 3.2 Here’s how to add the .h files to your project:

Open the stdahx.h which is already a member of your project.

Find the //TODO comment.

That is where you add

#include “your own h file”

for each of your own .h files

Step 3.3 Add your own cpp files to the project – but leave out the file containing your main program. Add the following line of code to the beginning of each of your own .cpp files.

#include “stdafx.h”

Step 3.4 Open the Form1.h file – this is where you will add code to declare your variables, initialize your variables, and call various actions when buttons are clicked.

Near the top of this file you will find some code which reads

Immediately BEFORE this line is where you add all the declarations of variables which were originally declared in your main program (that is, the variables which are not local to some function).

Find the //TODO comment which shows up in this part of the code which is already written for you.

HERE you can assign initial values and call any functions which you might need to initialize things – like reading in data from input files.

Now it’s time to find where to put actions to be carried out when a user types in values, clicks buttons, etc.

Find the empty functions supplied to provide a place for these actions. For example, find

You will be adding code to these functions to do something when button1 is clicked. Continue adding code for all of your buttons. When you are finished your program should do everything you want it to do.

Note: I suggest you try compiling your program as you complete each step and not wait until the end. In this way, you might catch simple errors early.