Changing background color

I am interested in changing the background color of an MFC CView.

Here are couple other ways :

First in your PreCreateWindow function you can do something like this. Make sure
that you are able to delete the brush somewhere - this is just a sample.

BOOL CMyView::PreCreateWindow(CREATESTRUCT& cs)
{
// TODO: Modify the Window class or styles here by modifying
// the CREATESTRUCT cs

HBRUSH hBrush = CreateSolidBrush( RGB( 123, 123, 245 ) );
cs.lpszClass = AfxRegisterWndClass( 0, LoadCursor( NULL, IDC_ARROW ), hBrush, 0 );
return CView::PreCreateWindow(cs);
}

Or, override WM_ERASEBKGND and use code like the following. This isn't the only
code you could write, you could do just about anything you want to draw.
BOOL CMyView::OnEraseBkgnd(CDC* pDC)
{
CBrush br( GetSysColor( COLOR_ACTIVECAPTION ) );
CRect rect;
GetClientRect( & rect );
pDC->FillRect( & rect, & br );
return TRUE;
}

Not the way I wrote it. The HBRUSH will only be deleted by DeleteObject(). Its not
a CPP class object, its a simple Win32 data type.

I would suggest using a CBrush member variable and using that as the HBRUSH.
Then, when the window is destroyed the brush will be destroyed also via its
destructor. Don't create the CBrush locally, I don't think it'll work. I believe the
brush needs to have the same lifetime as the window. So its a bit different from
what we can do inside OnEraseBkgnd().