How can I suppress the opening of an empty document during start-up of an
MDI app?  I want to force the user to input some options first, before
either creating a new project or opening an exisitng one.

Thanks,

Here's the relevant snippet from Knowledge Base article Q141725
"Stopping MFC/MDI from Creating New MDI Child Window On Startup":

BOOL CMyWinApp::InitInstance()
    {
    ...

    // Parse command line for standard shell commands, DDE, file open
    CCommandLineInfo cmdInfo;
    ParseCommandLine(cmdInfo);

    // Don't display a new MDI child window during startup
    if (cmdInfo.m_nShellCommand == CCommandLineInfo::FileNew)
      cmdInfo.m_nShellCommand = CCommandLineInfo::FileNothing;

    // Dispatch commands specified on the command line
    if (!ProcessShellCommand(cmdInfo))
        return FALSE;

    ...
    }

Dave
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: I apologize for this simplistic question, I know I have done this
before a
: long time ago, but now can't seem to find the documentation reference.
:
: How can I suppress the opening of an empty document during start-up of
an
: MDI app?  I want to force the user to input some options first, before
: either creating a new project or opening an exisitng one.
:
: Thanks,
:

In the BOOL CYourOwnApp::InitInstance() function place this code or
something like it.

 // Enable DDE Execute open
 EnableShellOpen();
 RegisterShellFileTypes(TRUE);

 // Parse command line for standard shell commands, DDE, file open
 CCommandLineInfo cmdInfo;
 ParseCommandLine(cmdInfo);

 // ------------ INSERTION
POINT --------------------------------------------
 // The following code looks in the Registry's MRU list for the last
file opened
 // if it exists it loads it. If the MRU list is empty the app starts
without a
 // document view. If the MRU list has a file listed, but the file does
not exist,
 // a blank window appears. From then on the OnFileNew() will open a new
blank window.

 if (cmdInfo.m_nShellCommand == CCommandLineInfo::FileNew) {
  CString sLastPath(GetProfileString("Recent File List", "File1"));
  if (! sLastPath.IsEmpty()) {
   CFile f;
   // If there is a file in MRU list, open it
   if (f.Open(sLastPath, CFile::modeRead)) {
    cmdInfo.m_nShellCommand = CCommandLineInfo::FileOpen;
    cmdInfo.m_strFileName = sLastPath;
   }
  }
  else {
   // otherwise, don't display a document on startup
   if(cmdInfo.m_nShellCommand == CCommandLineInfo::FileNew)
    cmdInfo.m_nShellCommand = CCommandLineInfo::FileNothing;
  }
 }
 // -------- END INSERTION --------------------------------------

 // Dispatch commands specified on the command line
 if (!ProcessShellCommand(cmdInfo))
  return FALSE;

 // The main window has been initialized, so show and update it.
 pMainFrame->ShowWindow(m_nCmdShow);
 pMainFrame->UpdateWindow();