Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!mcdphx!mcdchg!att!chinet!patrickd
From: patrickd@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick Deupree)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms
Subject: Re: How does Excel do cells
Keywords: ms windows, excel
Message-ID: <1989Dec5.150635.11325@chinet.chi.il.us>
Date: 5 Dec 89 15:06:35 GMT
References: <49529@ccicpg.UUCP>
Reply-To: patrickd@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick Deupree)
Organization: The Whitewater Group, Evanston, IL
Lines: 26

In article <49529@ccicpg.UUCP> swonk@ccicpg.UUCP (Glen Swonk) writes:
>How does Excel implement the cells in a spreadsheet?
>Are they just a drawing area on window or are all the
>cells themselves seperate windows, thus allowing
>the windows enviroment to send messages direct to
>the process that manages the cell directly.
>
>And just one more, how does Excel provide the blinking
>cell when a cell is selected with a control insert?

I can't be sure (since I'm not a Microsoft developer) but my best guess says
that the spreadsheet in Excel was created entirely via GDI calls.  I don't
believe that each cell is a separate window since the overhead involved in that
would be collosal, not to mention the fact that there's no real reason to use
a window for the cell.  The blinking can be done fairly easily with a timer
and a FrameRect call (or something similar).  The only place that really 
needs a window would be the edit "bar" on top of the window.  Otherwise the
cells are display only.

As I said, though, these are just guesses and it is entirely possible (if not
probable) that Microsoft did it in some other way.
-- 
"I place my faith in fools.  Self confidence, my friends call it."
					-Edgar Allen Poe

Patrick Deupree -> patrickd@chinet.chi.il.us