How to: Create the User Control and Host in a Dialog Box

The steps in this article assume that you are creating a dialog-based (CDialog Class) Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC) project, but you can also add support for a Windows Forms control to an existing MFC dialog box.

To create the .NET user control

1. Create a Visual C# Windows Forms Control Library project named WindowsFormsControlLibrary1.

   On the File menu, click New and then click Project. In the Visual C# folder, select Windows Forms Control Library.

   Accept the WindowsFormsControlLibrary1 project name by clicking OK.

   By default, the name of the .NET control will be UserControl1.

2. Add child controls to UserControl1.

   In the Toolbox, open the All Windows Forms list. Drag a Button control to the UserControl1 design surface.

   Also add a TextBox control.

3. In Solution Explorer, double-click UserControl1.Designer.cs to open it for editing. Change the declarations of the TextBox and the Button from private to public.

4. Build the project.

   On the Build menu, click Build Solution.

To create the MFC host application

1. Create an MFC Application project.

   On the File menu, click New and then click Project. In the Visual C++ folder, select MFC Application.

   In the Name box, type MFC01. Change the Solution setting to Add to Solution. Click OK.

   In the MFC Application Wizard, for Application Type, select Dialog based. Accept the remaining default settings and click Finish. This creates an MFC application that has an MFC dialog box.

2. Add a placeholder control to the MFC dialog box.

   On the View menu, click Resource View. In Resource View, expand the Dialog folder and double-click IDD_MFC01_DIALOG. The dialog resource appears in Resource Editor.

   In the Toolbox, open the Dialog Editor list. Drag a Static Text control to the dialog resource. The Static Text control will serve as a placeholder for the .NET Windows Forms control. Resize it to approximately the size of the Windows Forms control.

   In the Properties window, change the ID of the Static Text control to IDC_CTRL1 and change the TabStop property to True.

3. Configure the project for Common Language Runtime (CLR) support.

   In Solution Explorer, right-click the MFC01 project node, and then click Properties.

   In the Property Pages dialog box, under Configuration Properties, select General. In the Project Defaults section, set Common Language Runtime support to Common Language Runtime Support (/clr).

   Under Configuration Properties, expand C/C++ and select the General node. Set Debug Information Format to Program Database (/Zi).

   Select the Code Generation node. Set Enable Minimal Rebuild to No (/Gm-). Also set Basic Runtime Checks to Default.

   Click OK to apply the changes.

4. Add a reference to the .NET control.

   In Solution Explorer, right-click the MFC01 project node and then click Add, References. On the Property Page, click Add New Reference, select WindowsFormsControlLibrary1 (under the Projects tab), and click OK. This adds a reference in the form of a /FU compiler option so that the program will compile. It also puts a copy of WindowsFormsControlLibrary1.dll in the \MFC01\ project folder so that the program will run.

5. In Stdafx.h, find this line:

   #endif // _AFX_NO_AFXCMN_SUPPORT
   

   Above it, add these lines:

   #include <afxwinforms.h>   // MFC Windows Forms support
   

6. Add code to create the managed control.

   First, declare the managed control. In MFC01Dlg.h, go to the declaration of the dialog class, and add a data member for the user control in Protected scope, as follows.

   class CMFC01Dlg : public CDialog
   {
      // ...
      // Data member for the .NET User Control:
      CWinFormsControl<WindowsFormsControlLibrary1::UserControl1> m_ctrl1;
   

   Next, provide an implementation for the managed control. In MFC01Dlg.cpp, in the dialog override of CMFC01Dlg::DoDataExchange that was generated by the MFC Application wizard (not CAboutDlg::DoDataExchange, which is in the same file), add the following code to create the managed control and associate it with the static place holder IDC_CTRL1.

   void CMFC01Dlg::DoDataExchange(CDataExchange* pDX)
   {
      CDialog::DoDataExchange(pDX);
      DDX_ManagedControl(pDX, IDC_CTRL1, m_ctrl1);
   }
   

7. Build and run the project.

   In Solution Explorer, right-click MFC01 and then click Set as StartUp Project.

   On the Build menu, click Build Solution.

   On the Debug menu, click Start without debugging. The MFC dialog box should display the Windows Forms control.

See also

Hosting a Windows Form User Control in an MFC Dialog Box