Y'all probably know the deal by now, creating a level editor, yada, yada, yada. I've been doing some more research into other editors (most notably the terrain elements of UnrealEd and Battlecraft) and I've noticed that UnrealEd uses a rather natty control to display the properties of it's entities and actors, which seems superior to the methods used by Hammer Editor and q3radiant. You can see a picture of it here. I've searched around a little and looked in my Windows/MFC books, but I can't find the control, so I have to conclude that it's a custom control, and that if I want one, I'll have to code it myself. So, I have two questions: A. Does anyone know differently? Is the control available commercially? B. Am I right in assuming that I'd have to use ActiveX to create a new control like that? Thanks in advance for any replies... Windows 95 - 32 bit extensions and a graphical shell for a 16 bit patch
to an 8 bit operating system originally coded for a 4 bit microprocessor,
written by a 2 bit company that can't stand 1 bit of competition. [edited by - iNsAn1tY on February 21, 2004 11:36:23 AM]

You might want to look around on The Code Project
I found the SuperGrid that is kind of like that. If nothing else, you could use it as a base for your version.

Yeah, that''s a custom control. Like Extrarius says, you can find a lot of custom controls similar to that out there, and Code Project is a good place to look for such things.

That being said, I personally prefer to code up controls like this from scratch myself since I tend to be picky about how it works, looks, etc. FWIW, I''ve often found that if you''re trying to do a fancy control that it''s a lot easier in the long run to just do the whole shebang itself. Trying to make an "owner draw" version of an existing windows control often ends up taking just as much work, or more, than just doing it yourself. Furthermore, when I''ve tried to do that in the past I''ve often gotten somewhat far with it only to find that a particular control has limitations of what you can override. This results in either quirks with the control or not being able to get it to do exactly what you want it to.

So, basically, if you can find a control that does what you want out of the box use it. If not, you should seriously consider doing your own from the ground up instead of mutating an existing one.

-John

I did have a quick look over at Code Project. Lots of interesting controls, and more importantly, quite a few tutorials on how to code robust controls. Very useful.

Teknofreek, I have a done a little control programming (just some basic ActiveX controls in VB, for a test), and I found exactly the same things. Trying to convert a ready-made control is time-consuming, and I ended up making the controls from scratch. I might just do the same with this, if I can be bothered. I can use the Hammer Editor method, but if it comes to job interview time, I might add a nice custom control.

By the way, I''d be using C/C++ / MFC to create a new ActiveX control. Is this the way I should do it, or is there another method?

Windows 95 - 32 bit extensions and a graphical shell for a 16 bit patch
to an 8 bit operating system originally coded for a 4 bit microprocessor,
written by a 2 bit company that can''t stand 1 bit of competition.

If you''re doing everything in MFC, I''d just derive a new class from CWnd and make that your new custom control. I don''t think there''s really any reason to make it an ActiveX control unless you want to do something fancier, like using that control in some other language.

-John