Walkthrough: Using the New MFC Shell Controls

In this walkthrough, you'll create an application that resembles File Explorer. You'll create a window that has two panes. The left pane will hold a CMFCShellTreeCtrl object that displays your Desktop in a hierarchical view. The right pane will hold a CMFCShellListCtrl that shows the files in the folder that is selected in the left pane.

Prerequisites

• In Visual Studio 2017 and later, MFC support is an optional component. To install it, open the Visual Studio Installer from the Windows Start menu. Find the version of Visual Studio you are using and choose the Modify button. Make sure the Desktop Development with C++ tile is checked. Under Optional Components, check the MFC Support button.

• This walkthrough assumes that you have set up Visual Studio to use General Development Settings. If you're using a different development setting, some Visual Studio windows that we use in this walkthrough might not be displayed by default.

To create a new MFC application by using the MFC Application Wizard

These steps vary depending on which version of Visual Studio you are using. To see the documentation for your preferred version of Visual Studio, use the Version selector control. It's found at the top of the table of contents on this page.

Verify that the application was created successfully by building and running it. To build the application, from the Build menu select Build Solution. If the application builds successfully, run the application by selecting Start Debugging from the Debug menu.

The wizard automatically creates an application that has a standard menu bar, a standard toolbar, a standard status bar, and an Outlook bar to the left of the window with a Folders view and a Calendar view.

To add the shell list control to the document view

1. In this section, you'll add an instance of CMFCShellListCtrl to the view that the wizard created. Open the view header file by double-clicking MFCShellControlsView.h in the Solution Explorer.

   Locate the #pragma once directive near the top of the header file. Immediately underneath it add this code to include the header file for CMFCShellListCtrl:

   #include <afxShellListCtrl.h>
   

   Now add a member variable of type CMFCShellListCtrl. First, locate the following comment in the header file:

   // Generated message map functions
   

   Immediately above that comment, add this code:

   private:
   CMFCShellListCtrl m_wndList;
   

2. The MFC Application Wizard already created a CMFCShellTreeCtrl object in the CMainFrame class, but it's a protected member. We'll access the object later, so create an accessor for it now. Open the MainFrm.h header file by double-clicking it in the Solution Explorer. Locate the following comment:

   // Attributes
   

   Immediately under it, add the following method declaration:

   public:
       CMFCShellTreeCtrl& GetShellTreeCtrl();
   

   Next, open the MainFrm.cpp source file by double-clicking it in the Solution Explorer. At the bottom of that file, add the following method definition:

   CMFCShellTreeCtrl& CMainFrame::GetShellTreeCtrl()
   {
        return m_wndTree;
   }
   

3. Now we update the CMFCShellControlsView class to handle the WM_CREATE windows message. Open the Class View window and select the CMFCShellControlsView class. Right-click and select Properties.

   Next, in Class Wizard, click the Messages tab. Scroll down until you find the WM_CREATE message. From the drop-down list next to WM_CREATE, select <Add> OnCreate. The command creates a message handler for us and automatically updates the MFC message map.

   In the OnCreate method, we'll now create our CMFCShellListCtrl object. Find the OnCreate method definition in the MFCShellControlsView.cpp source file, and replace its implementation with the following code:

   int CMFCShellControlsView::OnCreate(LPCREATESTRUCT lpCreateStruct)
   {
       if (CView::OnCreate(lpCreateStruct) == -1)
           return -1;
   
       CRect rectDummy (0, 0, 0, 0);
   
       m_wndList.Create(WS_CHILD | WS_VISIBLE | LVS_REPORT,
           rectDummy, this, 1);
   
       return 0;
   }
   

4. Repeat the previous step but for the WM_SIZE message. It will cause your applications view to be redrawn whenever a user changes the size of the application window. Replace the definition for the OnSize method with the following code:

   void CMFCShellControlsView::OnSize(UINT nType, int cx, int cy)
   {
       CView::OnSize(nType, cx, cy);
   
       m_wndList.SetWindowPos(NULL, -1, -1, cx, cy,
           SWP_NOMOVE | SWP_NOZORDER | SWP_NOACTIVATE);
   }
   

5. The last step is to connect the CMFCShellTreeCtrl and CMFCShellListCtrl objects by using the CMFCShellTreeCtrl::SetRelatedList method. After you call CMFCShellTreeCtrl::SetRelatedList, the CMFCShellListCtrl will automatically display the contents of the item selected in the CMFCShellTreeCtrl. We connect the objects in the OnActivateView method, which is overridden from CView::OnActivateView.

   In the MFCShellControlsView.h header file, inside the CMFCShellControlsView class declaration, add the following method declaration:

   protected:
   virtual void OnActivateView(BOOL bActivate,
       CView* pActivateView,
       CView* pDeactiveView);
   

   Next, add the definition for the method to the MFCShellControlsView.cpp source file:

   void CMFCShellControlsView::OnActivateView(BOOL bActivate,
       CView* pActivateView,
       CView* pDeactiveView)
   {
       if (bActivate&& AfxGetMainWnd() != NULL)
       {
           ((CMainFrame*)AfxGetMainWnd())->GetShellTreeCtrl().SetRelatedList(&m_wndList);
       }
   
       CView::OnActivateView(bActivate,
           pActivateView,
           pDeactiveView);
   }
   

   Because we're calling methods from the CMainFrame class, we must add an #include directive at the top of the MFCShellControlsView.cpp source file:

   #include "MainFrm.h"
   

6. Verify that the application was created successfully by building and running it. To build the application, from the Build menu select Build Solution. If the application builds successfully, run it by selecting Start Debugging from the Debug menu.

   You should now see the details for the item selected in the CMFCShellTreeCtrl in the view pane. When you click a node in the CMFCShellTreeCtrl, the CMFCShellListCtrl will be automatically updated. Likewise, if you double-click a folder in the CMFCShellListCtrl, the CMFCShellTreeCtrl should be automatically updated.

   Right-click any item in the tree control or in the list control. You get the same context menu as if you were using the real File Explorer.

Next steps

• The wizard created an Outlook bar with both a Folders pane and a Calendar pane. It probably doesn't make sense to have a Calendar pane in an Explorer window, so remove that pane now.

• The CMFCShellListCtrl supports viewing files in different modes, such as Large Icons, Small Icons, List, and Details. Update your application to implement this functionality. Hint: see Visual C++ Samples.

See also

Walkthroughs