Programming projects for Microsoft Visual C++ 2005/2008 Studio/Express, CLR, .NET Framework, STL

Visual C++ 2005/2008 is a wonderful IDE. I'll be using it to port my Windows 3.1 Borland projects for MSDOS and OWL to Windows XP and beyond.

The first project, converting the neural network program, took only about 40 hours (3 days) to completely convert from ObjectWindows to the new version, and that was from a starting point of knowing absolutely nothing about MS VC++ or .NET.

All the programs are a mixture of managed and unmanaged code.

The zip files do not contain the entire VC++ "solution" directory trees, only the original code files essential for building the projects. There is a help page with tips for creating solutions and importing the code.

The Express edition of Microsoft Visual C++ is available free from Microsoft at http://www.microsoft.com/express/download/.

Utility functions, classes, headers, and miscellaneous

my.h

When my programs #include "my.h", this is what is being included. It has an assortment of typedefs, #defines, function prototypes, and some template functions.

 

mylib.cpp

#include this file to pull its library routines into your C++ program.

 

File Array

Class that holds a list (vector) of file names and provides methods for retrieving them in sequential or random order. The list can optionally be built from the names of existing files that match a string containing wildcards.

 

DoubleRect

A rectangle class that uses doubles for dimensions and calculations. Useful for zooming such as in a Mandelbrot application.

 

SDib

A 256-color palette-like class that supports creation of random palettes with abrupt or gradient color changes, other palette manipulation functions, and color cycling.

 

Programs

"Visible" Neural Network

Multilayer perceptron (MLP) backpropagation neural net program. The network code is platform independent. The associated Windows forms application builds a network and graphically displays the nodes while the network is trained.

 

Color zoom into the Logistic Map Bifurcation Diagram

Similar to a Mandelbrot exploring program, it allows zooming into the bifurcation diagram. It has palette rotation color cycling, palette manipulation functions, random gradient palettes, and an auto-run mode to continuously calculate random regions at random magnifications at user-specified timed intervals.

 

File print utility

Utility to print program source code or other text files, with options for setting tab expansion, lines-per-inch, lines-per-page, margins, line numbering, and more.

 

Random music generator

A platform independent class that facilitates the generation of random music in 12 keys and a variety of musical modes (scales), and a CLR console application that uses the class to play music through the PC speaker.

 

Create or solve alphabet substitution ciphers (Encipher.cpp, Decipher.cpp)

One program creates a substitution cipher from a text file. The other assists with solving a substitution cipher by providing an interface where you can easily and quickly swap letter translations and see the results immediately in the text.