Re: Secret Source code ...

From: Joseph M. Newcomer (newcomer_at_flounder.com)
Date: 03/07/04 

Date: Sun, 07 Mar 2004 15:11:33 -0500

AHHHH, that's different! What you have here is not a need for a tree control, but a need
for an explorer. And that's an application, not a control. The stuff that makes "my
documents" work is not the tree control itself, but the tons of code around it that
interpret those elements.

Buying visual studio doesn't give you every control ever written by everyone, and
certainly not every control written by Microsoft. While it would actually help them to
make many of these controls widely available, each such control generates a need to create
documentation and provide support. And that has to have a justification from a business
perspective. I'd love to see them myself.

There are many resources of good free code out there; www.codeproject.com and
www.codeguru.com are two of my favorites, but google will give you a LOT of hits.

(And, I should add, if you've figured out how to do this, perhaps you owe the community
the benefit of your efforts, and should publish your code. I tend to get a little upset
with people who make a Big Deal about Unix/Linux/Open Source, but when I ask them how much
THEY have put out in open source the answer is "nothing" because "I don't have time" or
"It's really proprietary" or "I don't want to give my work away").

I make no excuses; I write code that has value, and I sell it to clients. But a lot of my
code gets put on my Web site, particularly that which has no proprietary conflicts. But I
consider myself an educator.

There's a lot of really good code out there, open source and free in Windows. Until you've
actually gone out and done the search, you shouldn't complain just because Microsoft keeps
their code private (in the history of operating systems, virtually no system I know of has
been "Open Source", with the exception of ITS (MIT), the Stanford University SAIL version
of a PDP-10 operating system whose acronym I've forgotten, and Linux. I'm reasonably
certain the 7090 operating system developed by the IBM User Group called SHARE was
open-source, but that was not an IBM product (IBM had a really good open-source library
where outsiders could make contributions; my first three published programs were published
in that library, back around 1966-1967) There have been a lot of open-source application
efforts, most notably GNU. FreeBSD and OpenBSD are, as I remember, roughly around the time
of Linux. But most operating system code from IBM, Univac, Digital, and several other
companies whose equipment I worked with was clearly copyrighted material and in some cases
I had to sign non-disclosure agreements to see it at all. Unix was never open source, and
still isn't, in spite of the fact that tens of thousands of programmers have seen it
(millions of people have read popular books but that doesn't give the readers the right to
reproduce the contents, plots, etc. and claim them as their own). So Microsoft is
essentially no different from any other commercial operating system and application
company in the world, except they're bigger (try asking Corel for the source code for
their products, or Adobe, or Cisco, or MacroMedia, or...). When you buy MacroMedia Flash
(a development environment) you don't buy the rights to their source code. Why do you
think Microsoft owes you their source code because you bought their development
environment?

                                joe
 
On Sun, 7 Mar 2004 17:36:26 +0100, "Boo" <noadr@none.org> wrote:

>I already did that and already program it (IShellFolder /
>SHGetSpecialFolderLocation / SHGetDesktopFolder / SHGetMalloc ...). But i
>would like to know if there is an existing class or a free code to implement
>this like in 3D exploration software. I can't spend 3 or 4 months to
>implement right mouse button, copy/paste, move, ...
>
>thanks
>
>Boo
>
>"Alexander Grigoriev" <alegr@earthlink.net> a écrit dans le message de
>news:edDi63FBEHA.2628@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl...
>> The tree view is a standard control. See "Tree-View Controls" in the
>> platform SDK.
>>
>> To fill the tree with real folders, check User Interface Services/Windows
>> Shell/Shell Reference" for shell enumeration interface. See there also for
>> drag-drop and context menu interfaces.
>>
>> "Boo" <noadr@none.org> wrote in message
>> news:c2euua$kmd$1@news-reader4.wanadoo.fr...
>> >
>> > Is the left side view of explorer a secret source code or what ? I
>> just
>> > would like to integrate the folder tree of the explorer in one of my
>app.
>> > and i couldnt find any class or function to integrate it. I found on the
>> web
>> > some samples and some class that use to be 'fakes' and implement their
>own
>> > method to browse folders, like that, impossible to use drag&ndrop
>methods,
>> > right mouse button properties, rename ...
>> > Do I really need to implement all those functions ? isnt there an
>> > existing class or template ? If all must be rewrite again, why did i
>> bought
>> > visual stuio ? ;-)
>> >
>> > Thanks in advance for your answers, i'm sure i'm not the first who
>ask
>> > that.
>> >
>> > Boo
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>

Joseph M. Newcomer [MVP]
email: newcomer@flounder.com
Web: http://www.flounder.com
MVP Tips: http://www.flounder.com/mvp_tips.htm