The CD-ROM that accompanies this book contains several resources to help you create excellent user interfaces. Chapter 1, "Know the Standards," encourages you to know, understand, and apply the standards for Microsoft Windows user interface design, so included on the CD-ROM is an electronic version of the Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications, Second Edition (Microsoft Press, 1998), as well as the Designed for Microsoft Windows logo requirements. The online versions make this valuable information available with a few mouse clicks. While knowing the standards is crucial, there is enough flexibility within the standards to create an endless variety of user interface designs. Chapter 4, "Establish a Consistent User Interface Style," encourages you to create and apply companywide or projectwide user interface style guidelines to give your software a consistent appearance and behavior. The CD-ROM includes a copy of the sample user interface guidelines presented in that chapter (in Microsoft Word format) as well as sample resource templates.
In Part III, "Design Concepts," and Part IV, "Design Details," I make many suggestions on how to improve the usability of your programs. Most of these suggestions can be implemented directly using the Windows API or MFC, but a few of them can't. Since I know you're in a hurry and don't want to write any more code than you have to, I've created the DevUI MFC Extension library to help you get going. The full source code is included on the CD-ROM so that you can adapt this code to suit your user interface needs.
Part V, "Testing and QA," presents many user interface details to check during testing. Good user interfaces require a significant amount of testing and, although many aspects of testing user interfaces require hard manual labor, many common user interface mistakes can be detected automatically by processing a program's resource information. I have included three shareware programs that check for common user interface mistakes and setup problems. They should help make your interface testing much more efficient.
The DevUI MFC Extension Classes
The McMessageBox function that provides a message box with options for customizable button text, customizable icons, HTML tagging in the text, an option to not display the message box in the future, and an automatic time-out. The McDetailsBox function that provides a message box with options for a Details button to show additional information, customizable button text, customizable icons, HTML tagging in the text, an option to not display the message box in the future, and an automatic time-out. The McFlashBox function that provides a flash box (which is a message box without buttons that goes away automatically) with options for customizable icons and HTML tagging in the text. The McFlashBoxModeless function does the same using a modeless dialog box so that it can be displayed while other processing continues. The CMcPropertySheet class to provide the ability to customize property sheet buttons. The CMcMRUList class to help manage MRU lists. The McShowZoomRect function to help show the relationship between a user action and its effect. The CMcColor class for colors, including functions to convert from RGB values to HSL values (hue, saturation, and luminosity) and back. Converting to HSL values is essential for color manipulation. The CMcWindowPlacement class to help save and restore window sizes and locations. The CMcTooltip class to help you create any kind of tooltip with any contents or format. The CMcProgressDialog class to display a progress dialog box. The CMcStatusBarProgress class to display progress on the status bar. The McGetProfileStringList and McSetProfileStringList functions to get and set string lists to help manage MRU lists. Shareware Programs
Resource Assistant A utility that checks the resources in an executable. It verifies that dialog boxes will fit on the screen in all video modes, static text controls and buttons (command buttons, radio buttons, and check boxes) are large enough to display their text in all video modes, the tab order of the controls has been set, the tab stop and group properties of the controls have been set, and control access keys are unique. It also extracts all resource strings so that you can check for spelling errors. Resource Assistant for VB A utility that checks the resources in a Microsoft Visual Basic program. It verifies that dialog boxes will fit on the screen in all video modes, static text controls and buttons (command buttons, radio buttons, and check boxes) are large enough to display their text in all video modes, the tab order of the controls has been set, the tab stop and group properties of the controls have been set, and control access keys are unique. It also extracts resource, form, and menu strings so that you can check for spelling errors. Dependency Assistant A utility that detects dependent files for both compiled Windows programs and Microsoft Visual Basic programs. This utility helps you make sure that you are shipping all the files required by your program.
