Most components that present a user interface, have an item in the navigation tree that presents a panel when the item is clicked. 

Adding a tree item

When you are ready to create your user interface, the first thing that you typically do is add an item to the navigation tree. 

NavItemHelpers in the sdk provides a much more convenient way of managing navigation items. However the examples in this section use the full low level APIs.

When creating your framework you have to wait until the ComponentUIAPI interface has been registered. Your component will get a COMPONENT_NOTIFY_NEWINTERFACE message with a UUID of UIFRAMEWORK_INTERFACE_UUID when the host component framework is ready to be used.

static NavigationItemUIInterface notificationInterface;

NavHandle CreateTreeItem()
{
	// Set up our notification interface so we can receive messages relating to the the navigation item we will insert into the tree
	memset(&gDataUI,0,sizeof(NavigationItemUIInterface));
	notificationInterface.dwSize					= sizeof(NavigationItemUIInterface);
	notificationInterface.NavItemCreateWindow		= NavItemCreateWindow;						// Called when the framework wants a window from us
	notificationInterface.NavItemDrawItem			= NULL;
	notificationInterface.NavItemNotify				= NavItemNotify;							// For receiving general messages
	notificationInterface.NavItemGetHelpContent		= NavItemGetHelpContent;					// For dynamic help content in the help pane of the UI
	notificationInterface.NavItemFreeHelpContent	= NavItemFreeHelpContent;
	notificationInterface.NavItemShowContextHelp	= NavItemShowContextHelp;					// For F1 help
	notificationInterface.NavItemKeyboardNavigate 	= NavItemKeyboardNavigate;					// To handle custom keyboard navigation within our panel. (optional)


	// Get the correct location to insert our new item under. In this case it will be the "Control Panel" node. This has a well known alias that we can use.
 
	NAVSETITEM controlPanelItem;
	if ( !NavGetItem(_T("{ControlPanel}"), &controlPanelItem) )
	{
		return NULL;										// Couldn't find it, so we won't go any further
	}

	NAVSETITEM treeItem;
	memset(&treeItem, 0, treeItem);
	treeItem.size = sizeof(NAVSETITEM);
	treeItem.flags = NI_FLAG_CUSTOMCONTAINER;				// This is a custom container where we control the panel. 
	treeItem.lParam = 0;									// Set any special context data that you want to be sent with messages to the notificationInterface
	treeItem.strLabel = L"Ad Blocker";
	treeItem.strDescription = L"This component adds an HTTP Filter that blocks advertising";
	treeItem.hModule = AfxGetResourceHandle();				// Where to get resources from
	treeItem.nIconId = iconResourceId;						// Some resource id of the icon to display in the navigation tree
	treeItem.EventMask = 0;									// No special events. NI_EVENT_ACTIVATE, NI_EVENT_DEACTIVATE are always sent. See NavInsertItem for more information
	treeItem.pInterface = notificationInterface;			// The interface we are wanting to use to handle events from this item
	treeItem.strAlias = L"{MyCompanyAdBlocker}";			// Adds an alias. Makes it easier to find and compare navigation items later.
	if ( !NavInsertItem(controlPanelItem.hItem, L"MyCompanyAdBlockerPath", &treeItem) ) 	// The path "MyCompanyAdBlockerPath" is an internal name the user never sees but must be unique under a particular root.
	{
		return NULL;
	}
	return treeItem.hItem;