resource script

is it possible to write a resource script in visual c++, without using the wizards for dialog boxes and such, everytime i open a new resource script i am not able to write anything, just use the templates but i want to learn to write them with code for myself.

How can i do this?

Thanks for your help

Big subject, a book will be explain this better than I can.

Code:

---

MyMenu MENU
{
  POPUP "File"
  {
      MENUITEM "Open", IDM_OPEN
  }
  MENUITEM "Help", IDM_HELP
}

---

This is code for a menu, the keyword MENU is what informs the compiler its a menu and MyMenu is the menu name.
A POPUP means that the specified name, in this case file, is a submenu. A MENUITEM is an item the user can select.
The IDM_OPEN & IDM_HELP are the messages windows sends when the corresponding MENUITEM is clicked and you need to define them for example:
#define IDM_OPEN 1000
#define IDM_HELP 1001
You should save the file with a .rc extension, msvc will produce the resource file from that.
A dialog is harder create this way as you need to specify the size of buttons and the position of buttons, which is far easier visually.
Anyway a dialog goes like this:

Code:

---

MyDB DIALOGEX 10, 10, 210, 110
CAPTION "My Dialog Box"
STYLE WS_POPUP | WS_CAPTION | WS_SYSMENU | WS_VISIBLE | WS_BORDER
{
  DEFPUSHBUTTON "Button1", IDD_BUTTON1, 11, 10, 36, 14
  PUSHBUTTON    "Button2", IDD_BUTTON2, 11, 34, 36, 14
}

---

A bit more going on here, the keywords should be fairly obvious as to what they do.
As far as the numbers go the first 2 for each item are the position and the second 2 are the size.
You really need to find a book with this in though.