mintsmike

Hello people.

I will soon be taking a tutorial in programming with the WinAPI, but later on I want to integrate it with some of the controls and features provided by the Windows .NET Framework. Is this possible, or is the technology of WinAPI to old for that. I would also like to know if WinAPI programs will be supported in future versions of windows such as windows 7?

Please tell me if the WinAPI and the .NET framework can be integrated as if they cant be, i wont bother wasting my time on the WinAPI tutorial,

Thanks in advance,
mintsmike

Elysia

I think you have a wrong understanding of what WinAPI is.
WinAPI is the C-portion of the interface to interface with Windows™.
dotNet is basically the C#-portion of the interface to interface with Windows™.
dotNet GUI and WinAPI do not mix well, if at all.

And yes, since WinAPI is the basic portion of Windows--its foundation, so to speak, it will remain and it is still left in Win7.

__________________
Using: Microsoft Windows™ 7 Professional (x64), Microsoft Visual Studio™ 2008 Team System
I dedicated my life to helping others. This is only a small sample of what they said:
"Thanks Elysia. You're a programming master! How the hell do you know every thing?"
Quoted... at least once.

mintsmike

So, which interface do you reccomend to me.

Im thinking .NET, but i would like a second oppion,

Thanks in advance,
mintsmike

Elysia

dotNet is more higher-level and easier to use than WinAPI and a lot more flexible.
That being said, however, I despise all that has to do with dotNet and would go for a C++ Framework GUI Library (such as wxWidgets among others).
But don't entirely rely on my opinion and take a look at the 3 for yourself, if you can.

__________________
Using: Microsoft Windows™ 7 Professional (x64), Microsoft Visual Studio™ 2008 Team System
I dedicated my life to helping others. This is only a small sample of what they said:
"Thanks Elysia. You're a programming master! How the hell do you know every thing?"
Quoted... at least once.

whiteflags

I thought the point of .NET was that it was available across several languages and that the only downside was the megabytes of framework that you had to attach. At least know what .NET is before you go espousing your opinion.

__________________
Os iusti meditabitur sapientiam
Et lingua eius loquetur indicium

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." (Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act II scene ii)

http://www.myspace.com/whiteflags99

Elysia

I know what dotNet is.
It's Microsoft's huddly-cuddly all-in-one language-wide platform.
And I don't like it.

__________________
Using: Microsoft Windows™ 7 Professional (x64), Microsoft Visual Studio™ 2008 Team System
I dedicated my life to helping others. This is only a small sample of what they said:
"Thanks Elysia. You're a programming master! How the hell do you know every thing?"
Quoted... at least once.

cyberfish

And that it is only available on Windows.

Elysia

For now. It's a standard, so measures are being taken to make it available on other platforms.

__________________
Using: Microsoft Windows™ 7 Professional (x64), Microsoft Visual Studio™ 2008 Team System
I dedicated my life to helping others. This is only a small sample of what they said:
"Thanks Elysia. You're a programming master! How the hell do you know every thing?"
Quoted... at least once.

laserlight

I had the impression that due to Mono that is no longer the case.

__________________
C + C++ Compiler: MinGW port of GCC
Build + Version Control System: SCons + Bazaar

Look up a C/C++ Reference and learn How To Ask Questions The Smart Way

cyberfish

POSIX has been a standard for a few decades, too, and Windows is still lacking most of the POSIX functions.

A standard doesn't mean much if people don't implement it.

cyberfish

I am not sure how good Mono is (since I don't use .Net myself), so I won't comment on that.

But reading the Wikipedia page -
Mono (software) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I got the impression that the issue is still quite muddy.

Bubba

Win32 API calls can be made from C# using the import functionality in C#. There are also files available on CodeGuru and other sites like it that define all the windows messages so you do not have to trap for constant values when trapping for certain messages.

.NET is fine except the Win32 API does much more. I find it odd that Win32 is still needed for many advanced Win32 functionalities. One would think .NET could handle it all but alas it cannot and does not. .NET is awesome as it is but it needs to implement more of the Win32 API before I would consider it done.

From a GUI standpoint there are also certain messages for which there is no C# equivalent handler for. For these you will have to manually handle them by deriving your Form class from IMessageFilter and then overriding PreMessageFilter().

__________________
If you aim at everything you will hit something but you won't know what it is.