wxWidgets in a plugin dll

[vouk]

I am currently writing an open source (GPL) plugin dll for an adobe application on windows. I need to have some UI of course and would like to use wxWidgets 3.1.2 (static linked) for this. Currently I use MFC but it's a nightmare working with it and I'd like to have easy cross platform support in the future.

Building a classic application / executable is pretty easy, but how can I get it working inside a dll? I did take a look at the dll sample project already and it partially works. But then I could only access GUI components using the events. I was also not able to enable the visual styles. They were working in MFC dialogs but not in wxWidgets.

I would like to be free in choice where I use dialogs and notifications and everything. Is there a way to get it working?

My simplified code:

Code: Select all

extern "C" DllExport int thefunction(int action, void *param1, void *param2)
{
  Inst *inst = reinterpret_cast<Inst*>(param1);

  switch (action)
  {
    case STARTUP:
    {
      inst->plugin = new Plugin(1234);
      break;
    }
    case SHUTDOWN:
    {
      delete(inst->plugin);
      break;
    }
    case BTNACTION:
    {
      inst->plugin->someaction();
      break;
    }
  }
}

class Plugin
{
public:
  Plugin(int id);
  void someaction()
  {
      wxDialog *dlg = new wxDialog(...);
      dlg->Show();
  }
}

Thank you so much in advance.

Daniel

[ONEEYEMAN]

Hi,
Welcome to the wonderful wxWidgets world!

I think (I may be wrong though), you should use dynamic build of wx.
Other than that - what do you mean "access GUI components using events"? What else do you expect?
Also - what visual styles you are looking for? Keep in mind that it is possible to have a conditional compilation based on the OS.

And finally - there are example of how to build Adobe Plugin using wxWidgets on the web. I believe Vadim wrote one or referenced one notr that long ago.
Did you look?

Thank you.

[vouk]

I was searching the whole week for an example or a possible solution for it. What I basically want is a plugin class where I could simply execute wxWidgets code. I am aware that I need some kind of event loop running and everything. Creating and showing a wxDialog like in my example code simply doesn't work right?

I find it very difficult to search in this matter in google. When in I search for "wxWidgets in a dll application" I get mostly results dealing with wxWidgets dlls.

In the host application i have a button "configure video encoder ..." and once the user clicks i just want to do some wxWidgets magic.

The visual styles are are the common controls 6 styles. I added the resource file, tried adding the pragma... nothing worked. I get it working for MFC, but not for wxWidgets. But lets try to solve the first issue first.

[doublemax]

The "dll" sample shows how to run the whole wxWidgets event loop in a separate thread. That's also the method used to create e.g. PhotoShop plugins with wxWidgets. Are you doing the same?

But then I could only access GUI components using the events.

It's still not clear to me what this means. Can you elaborate?

[vouk]

What I meant with it was like showing a frame or dialog with events like this (from the dll example project):

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// Send a message to wx thread to show a new frame:
wxThreadEvent *event = new wxThreadEvent(wxEVT_THREAD, CMD_SHOW_WINDOW);
event->SetString(title);
wxQueueEvent(wxApp::GetInstance(), event);

I found a better solution here: https://simon.rozman.si/computers/wxwid ... dll-plugin

This even solves my common-controls 6 issues as it is switching the activation context when necessary and does not run any additional threads.

Using wxWidgets is so pleasant compared to using MFC or even Win32.

[ONEEYEMAN]

Hi,
Out of curiosity - are you using manifest?

Thank you.

[vouk]

I am using the pragma approach:

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#pragma comment(linker, "\"/manifestdependency:type='win32' name='Microsoft.Windows.Common-Controls' version='6.0.0.0' processorArchitecture='*' publicKeyToken='6595b64144ccf1df' language='*'\"")