- What is RC Converter?
RC Converter is a product to convert MFC and ATL resources to .NET resources. Basically it makes your life easier
when you plan to move your application from an MFC or ATL environment to the .NET world. Typically the first step
which you would take when porting would be to re-create the screens, menus and string resources. It could take days
depending upon your application size. RC Converter can do all that in just minutes and it gives you control of the
namespace plus naming conventions of common controls such as buttons, editboxes etc.
You also have the ability to attach menus to the appropriate forms and to edit string resources.
It is a wizard based process so it is very easy to use. You have the flexibility to use C#, VB.NET or
C++/CLI on a development
platform of Visual Studio 2003 or 2005.
- What are the requirements for running RC Converter?
RC Converter requires .NET Framework 1.1. If you do not have it installed then the install program
prompt you to install it as part of the installation.
- What .NET languages can be generated?
RC Converter can generate code in C#, VB.NET (Framework 1.1 or Framework 2.0) or
C++/CLI (Framework 2.0)
- How is the dialog layout preserved?
We provide scaling factors to size and position the child controls so that they are scaled
properly for .NET forms.
- What are the limitations of the trial
version?
The trial version can be run a maximum of 5 times. Each time it is run, you can convert one MFC / ATL dialog
or form view with all their child controls and up to 5 strings resources.
- What are the scaling factors for Location X, Location Y, Width and Height?
In Windows Form resources if you try to keep the same width and height for controls or dialogs, you will find they will look smaller than they look in Visual studio 6.0. To make the controls and dialogs have a similar size in .NET, it is necessary to multiply the height and width by a scaling factor and also necessary to move the control’s X and Y location by multiplying them with another scaling factor. The result will be a similar looking UI as in MFC or ATL.
- What is ‘Y Location offset in pixels’ for 2005 menu height settings?
In 2005 the menu bar height is more than in Visual Studio 6.0 or Visual Studio 2003. To avoid controls overlapping the menu, we need to provide the Y location offset so that all controls will move downwards by that offset value. The default value of 20 is good for most of scenarios, but you have full flexibility to change it to any desired value.
- Why can't I see one of my icons when my MFC/ATL dialogs/forms got converted to Windows Form?
.NET does not allow all icons to become embedded resources and for few icons you will not be able to see them on the form once it is embedded. One of the most common reasons is that the dimensions are missing from the icon. To find out if this is the reason use the Windows Explorer to navigate to the icon's folder. Go to the view menu and look in details mode so that you can see the icon's dimensions. If the dimensions column is blank, open the icon in Visual Studio 2003 or 2005 and then save it. You will be now able to see the dimensions of the icon and it will now be usable in .NET.
- Why can I see the shortcut key mnemonics in design mode in 2005, e.g. Ctrl + C for Copy, but not in Visual Studio 2003?
Visual Studio 2003 design mode will not show the shortcut keys. At run-time you will be able to see the shortcut key mnemonics.
- Why are a few of my short cut keys not in the converted menus by RC Converter?
RC Converter first looks for accelerator entries in the accelerator resource which has the identical resource name as the menu and then in IDR_MAINFRAME and if it finds the entries it will create shortcut keys for your menu item. In MFC if your accelerator entries are missing then shortcut keys shown with your menu item in the designer won’t work anyways. So RC Converter eliminates all non-working shortcut keys in the conversion process.
- My disabled controls in Visual Studio 6.0 do not look disabled in Visual Studio .NET 2003 or 2005?
If you run the application and you will see same effect, but if you want to be sure in design mode check the Enabled property of the control and it should be false.
- In Visual Studio 2005 I added more than 20 files at a time and a few of those forms do not show up correctly in designer?
In Visual Studio 2005 we recommend that you add files in the following manner:
Copy all the files into your .NET project folder. From the Project menu item select the “Show All files” option (or on the Solution Explorer window toolbar press the “Show All files” icon). Then select all the files you want to include in the Solution Explorer, right click and select “Include in Project”.
If you try to add these files from the “Add Existing Item” menu option, then Visual Studio 2005 seems to have a problem when the number of files are greater than 15 or so. When adding from the “Add Existing Item” menu option, we recommend not adding the resx and designer.vb or designer.cs files directly as these will automatically be included when you add the form’s vb or cs file.
- I ran the RC Converter conversion process and ended up with many files in my folder of choice. How will I add these files in my .NET project?
Go to Solution Explorer and then right click on the mouse and choose "Add Existing Item" and then choose the files that were generated., but in Visual Studio 2005
we recommend that you add files in the following manner:
Copy all the files into your .NET project folder. From the Project menu item select
the “Show All files” option (or on the Solution Explorer window toolbar press the
“Show All files” icon). Then select all the files you want to include in the Solution
Explorer, right click and select “Include in Project”.
Be careful about files having the same name as files in your existing .NET project. Pay attention while replacing them. Specifically resource files (.resx) are notorious because if you rename them and embed again then that breaks the embedded resource link all over the project. So the best choice is to merge the resource code in another .resx file or existing .resx file rather than renaming it to avoid duplicate resource entries. The best way to avoid all resource file conflicts is to give unique string resource file names and Windows Form class and associated class file names while running the conversion process in step 2 and step 6 of the RC Converter wizard.
- What are the step by step recommendations to use RC Converter efficiently?
Download the RC Converter user guide (approx: 89 KB).
- When using C++/CLI my imported files show up
as C++ header files. How do I set the properties of these files so they are recognized
by the form designer?
-
When using C++/CLI, Dudelabs generates header files (h files) that the designer
can read. However,by default, Visual Studio 2005 flags the imported h file as a
C++ Header file. You must manually set the "File Type" for the file properties to
"C++ Form". If you select all of the imported h files, the file type can be set
for all of the files at one time.