The GUI looks beautiful.

I agree - the GUI looks really great. I haven't seen anyone use MFC for a nice looking GUI in a while... Would you be interested in throwing together a short description of how you did that? I know I would find it useful, and it is always hard to find a solution for building a native GUI app, so I assume other would like it too.

Just a suggestion, but it would be really great to hear more details!

Thanks for the nice words.

Honestly a lot of work went into getting MFC to do all of that. A short write up would take some time to prepare as there are so many different classes which make up the interface. I may release some of the more unique controls on my personal site at some point and then you can see how they work.

Essentially I use a Dialog based project. All panels are dialog controls with header controls (CWnd base). Background colors are set using something like:

[code]// Erase background - color dialog
BOOL Dialog_Control::OnEraseBkgnd(CDC* pDC)
{
CRect rect;

GetClientRect(&rect);

// Color background
CBrush brush(___painter_options.___color_base);
CBrush* last_brush_pointer = pDC->SelectObject(&brush);
BOOL bRes = pDC->PatBlt(0, 0, rect.Width(), rect.Height(), PATCOPY);

pDC->SelectObject(last_brush_pointer);

return bRes; // CDialog::OnEraseBkgnd(pDC);
}[/code]

First thing I do is draw what I want the interface to look like in Photoshop. Once I'm happy with the color scheme, layout, etc. I start coding it. There is a lot of information on creating owner drawn custom controls at [url="http://www.codeproject.com/KB/MFC/"]Code Project[/url].