OpenEuphoria

Re: API question

• Posted by jjnick at cvn.com May 01, 2001
• 590 views

Wow, cool . . .  didn't know this . . . did not know MFC actually calls the
Win 32 API , makes me feel better . . . not doing all this work for nothing
. . .  Personally, I resent learning MFC for the sake of GUI development,
guess I'm just getting too old . . . Seems to be the in thing to know MFC,
oh well . . .


----- Original Message -----
From: "David Cuny" <dcuny at LANSET.COM>
To: "EUforum" <EUforum at topica.com>
Subject: Re: API question


>
>
> jjnick wrote:
>
> > Say, what in the world is the Win32 API
> > in the grand scheme of things.
>
> To some extend, the core of Windows is fairly small. But it's augmented by
> lots of dynamic link libraries that extend the core functionality, adding
> things like windowing, gui controls, common dialogs, networking,
> telephony... the list goes on. For Microsoft to extend Windows, they
merely
> have to update a DLL, or add a new one.
>
> The Win32 API is mostly hooks into these DLL libraries. As new routines
are
> added, and old ones fall into disfavor, the API changes. Each version of
> Windows adds new features, and extends the API.
>
> Ever notice that the 'solution' to having old DLLs is to install a current
> version of IE (Internet Explorer)? That's because the install replaces the
> old DLLs on your machine with new ones. There was a DLL floating around
that
> you could install that would give you a lot of the GUI functionality of
> Win98, for example, just by replacing a single DLL.
>
> For example, the 'coolbar/rebar/toolbar band' that most IE and Microsoft
> Office applications use is implemented in a DLL. Everyone wanted that look
> and feel in their applications, but you had to have the DLL loaded on your
> machine to use it. And the only way you could get the DLL was to install
IE.
> So you would have non-internet applications that had, as part of their
> requirements, IE installed on your machine.
>
> > Will it eventually be phased out for
> > something else like MFC?
>
> Well, the Win32 API is a sort of haphazard collection of routines - some
> mesh well together, others don't. They are sort of loosely organized - for
> example, most GUI routines are in the GDL DLL. (There was some shuffling
of
> routines to random DLLs in response to the Justice Department
investigation,
> but that's a major digression).
>
> MFC is a 'wrapper' around these raw routines, much like Win32Lib. It tries
> to organize the interface, and hide the actual details of the API. But MFC
> is written on top of the Win32 API - not as a replacement to it. If you
dig
> into the MFC code, you'll find that it eventually makes calls to the Win32
> API. So it can't phase out the Win32 API.
>
> Did that answer the question?
>
> -- David Cuny
>
>
>
>
>
>