How insert multiple FormView in View of an SDI application

Question

I searched on the forum and I don't find a solution for my issue. So I hope you can help me :)
I work on a personal project for SFC designing (Sequential functional chart) and I'm working with visual studio in SDI(I'm using MFC library).
If you see the "design" of an SFC you can see the different elements needed to compose this. So you can find Step, Transition, and more.
If I take a step for explaining my issue, after double click on the step a popup dialog is opened with the elements to define this step (actions on this step, and more). The issue is here, I can't see two or more step elements at the same time. I want to reuse the existing concept on other software, see this.
Step close
Step open
Dialog to add

My question is, how I can implement a dialog with my graphic element in mainframe (In this case, a step)?
I don't know how I can insert a dialog with my element, I think I need to use CFormView, but I don't know.
This dialog needs to be resizable and reduce directly by the step graphic. any idea?

Thank you in advance! Sorry for my English ..

Sorry, I think my request is not clear .. (Thank you for your answer)
The context, it's an SDI application with the Document/View architecture. Actually the view is derived from CScrollView. So, in the document class, you have the different lists of components for make SFC (Steps, transitions and symbols ..). I'm working today on Step element. The user inserts a new step, the step is draw on the view like this :
enter image description here

And now the user want change the events on this Step, for this after double click on the step the events editor is opened at right of step draw, like this :
enter image description here

For this, I've created a new dialog resource and create the class by wizard in CForwView derived class. In step attribute, you can find one instance of this derived class (The derived class of dialog).

But this doesn't work correctly, I think my method is bad. At the first try, I have sent the pointer of the current document to the "CFormView::Create" function for having the "Save" button active with the focus on the FormView. But after destroying the step, the instance of FormView is destroyed and the document with the instance of formview ...

No problem, you can use "Create" within CCreateContext a null pointer. But with the document or without I have a lot of problems (graphic design not correct in FormView, regularly (not systematic I have assert fail on Proc exchange (for differents reason)). But the "concept" is good, the editor follows the draw if I scroll, I can open or close the editor at any time and on any elements.

For the old capture, it's my SFC designer "model". My application is a complement to this application, so I want a similar design. I don't know how work my model application .. On my application all is draw by MFC GDI, I don't use ActiveX or other tools.

So what is the correct way to implement one instance of editor by instance of step ?

For the implementation on this FormView I have :
- Make new dialog in ressource
- Create a derived class of CFormView with the created dialog
- Add one instance in attributes of Step element
- "OnDbClickOnStep" -> Call "Create" with the good position / size, pointer of mainview (in my case the CSrollView derived class)
- Done, FormView inserted in a mainview, I can edit my step events.
? Not done, I lost save button and other function linked to the document with the focus on a control in FormView. The app want a document with this view, how to override this ?
? Error in Proc exchange, for different reason...

You have an idea ?

Answer 1

You normally don't draw anything in the "main frame" (or the "MDI clild frames", in the case of a MDI application), this is done by the library, and imo sufficiently so. You display your data in a CView-derived class.

CView is the base class of all other MFC view classes. It's a simple graphical class - you need to paint it yourself in the OnDraw() member.

CScrollView is a descendant of CView, adding scrolling functionality (scroll-bars are automatically displayed if the scrollable area is bigger than the visible window area).

CFormView is a descendant of CScrollView, displaying a dialog resource-script, containing "controls" (edit-boxes, check-boxes, images, ActiveX etc).

As in your case the "controls" won't be initially known (except maybe for some few special cases) and rather programatically created, the resource script will most likely be empty, so using either CFormView or CScrollView will basically be the same. I would suggest starting with CFormView, and "downgrade" it to CScrollView if CFormView is not necessary or causes you troubles.

What are those "Step" items shown in the pics? ActiveX controls, child dialogs maybe? These work best as child controls on a dialog window. Are they already implemented, or they are just pics of some other software? Btw ActiveX is a way to define controls that can be used in other projects too, without having to include them in the project source.