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MFC Toolbar Implementation

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A toolbar is a control bar that contains the bitmap images of controls. These images can behave like pushbuttons, check boxes, or radio buttons. MFC supplies class CToolbar to manage toolbars.

If you enable it, users of MFC toolbars can dock them to the edge of a window or "float" them anywhere within the application window. MFC doesn't support customizable toolbars like those in the development environment.

MFC also supports tool tips: small pop-up windows that describe a toolbar button's purpose when you position the mouse over the button. By default, when the user presses a toolbar button, a status string appears in the status bar (if there is one). You can activate "fly by" status bar updating to display the status string when the mouse is positioned over the button without pressing it.

Note

As of MFC version 4.0, toolbars and tool tips are implemented using Windows 95 and later functionality instead of the previous implementation specific to MFC.

For backward compatibility, MFC retains the older toolbar implementation in class COldToolBar. The documentation for earlier versions of MFC describe COldToolBar under CToolBar.

Create the first toolbar in your program by selecting the Toolbar option in the Application Wizard. You can also create additional toolbars.

The following are introduced in this article:

Toolbar Buttons

The buttons in a toolbar are analogous to the items in a menu. Both kinds of user-interface objects generate commands, which your program handles by providing handler functions. Often toolbar buttons duplicate the functionality of menu commands, providing an alternative user interface to the same functionality. Such duplication is arranged simply by giving the button and the menu item the same ID.

You can make the buttons in a toolbar appear and behave as pushbuttons, check boxes, or radio buttons. For more information, see class CToolBar.

Docking and Floating Toolbars

An MFC toolbar can:

  • Remain stationary along one side of its parent window.

  • Be dragged and "docked," or attached, by the user to any side or sides of the parent window you specify.

  • Be "floated," or detached from the frame window, in its own mini-frame window so the user can move it around to any convenient position.

  • Be resized while floating.

For more information, see the article Docking and Floating Toolbars.

Toolbars and Tool Tips

MFC toolbars can also be made to display "tool tips" — tiny popup windows containing a short text description of a toolbar button's purpose. As the user moves the mouse over a toolbar button, the tool tip window pops up to offer a hint. For more information, see the article Toolbar Tool Tips.

The CToolBar and CToolBarCtrl Classes

You manage your application's toolbars via class CToolBar. As of MFC version 4.0, CToolBar has been reimplemented to use the toolbar common control available under Windows 95 or later and Windows NT version 3.51 or later.

This reimplementation results in less MFC code for toolbars, because MFC makes use of the operating system support. The reimplementation also improves capability. You can use CToolBar member functions to manipulate toolbars, or you can obtain a reference to the underlying CToolBarCtrl object and call its member functions for toolbar customization and additional functionality.

Tip

If you have invested heavily in the older MFC implementation of CToolBar, that support is still available. See the article Using Your Old Toolbars.

Also see the MFC General sample DOCKTOOL.

The Toolbar Bitmap

Once constructed, a CToolBar object creates the toolbar image by loading a single bitmap that contains one image for each button. The Application Wizard creates a standard toolbar bitmap that you can customize with the Visual C++ toolbar editor.

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See also

Toolbars
Toolbar Editor