What Is Microsoft Foundation Class Library (MFC Library)?

The Microsoft Foundation Class Library (MFC Library) is a toolkit containing a set of predefined C++ classes for building applications for Windows. This word is known as Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC). The MFC was developed to provide a set of pre-written codes that can be used in developing applications for the Windows operating system. The class library contains many classes, each with its specific function. For example, some types of handle windows and dialog boxes, categories to handle user input and mouse events, courses for printing and file management etc. The MFC was first released in 1992 as part of Visual C++ 1.0. It is still widely used in many commercial products because it provides an easy way for developers to create professional-looking applications without writing all the code themselves from scratch. The MFC offers a way to build rich, user-friendly graphical user interfaces (GUIs) with relative ease. It uses other tools and libraries, such as Visual C++ and the Win32 API. You're writing a program, and you realize that you need to use something that's not in the MFC library—you need to use one of those Windows API things. Well, don't worry! That's what this article is for. We'll cover how to get the app working, but first, let's speak about why you might need this in the first place. The most common excuse people use Windows API functions is that they want to do something that isn't possible with an MFC class method or process. For example, if an application wants to open a file and display its scopes in a window, it would use an MFC class method called CFileViewCtrl_Impl::OnFileOpen() instead of calling WinExec("notepad"). Sometimes there aren't any other options, like when trying to draw on the screen or connect to another computer over the Internet (we'll cover both later). In these cases, it's important to remember that Windows API functions are only called once per thread—if multiple threads are running at once, then only one line will be able to contact them before any others are.