Windows API and .NET Framework?

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

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.

So, which interface do you reccomend to me.

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

Thanks in advance,
mintsmike

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.

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.

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

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.

And that it is only available on Windows.

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

Originally Posted by cyberfish

And that it is only available on Windows.

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

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.

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

Mono’s implementation of those components of the .NET stack not submitted to the ECMA for standardization has been the source of patent violation concerns for much of the life of the project. In particular, discussion has taken place about whether Microsoft could destroy the Mono project through patent suits.

The base technologies submitted to the ECMA, and therefore also the Unix/GNOME-specific parts, may be non-problematic. The concerns primarily relate to technologies developed by Microsoft on top of the .NET Framework, such as ASP.NET, ADO.NET and Windows Forms (see Non standardized namespaces), i.e. parts composing Mono’s Windows compatibility stack. These technologies are today not fully implemented in Mono and not required for developing Mono-applications. Richard Stallman has claimed it may be "dangerous" to use Mono because of the possible threat of Microsoft patents.[9]

On November 2, 2006, Microsoft and Novell announced a joint agreement whereby Microsoft agreed to not sue Novell’s customers for patent infringement.[10] According to Mono project leader Miguel de Icaza,[11] this agreement extends to Mono but only for Novell developers and customers. It was criticized by some members of the free software community because it violates the principles of giving equal rights to all users of a particular program (see Novell and their Patent Agreement with Microsoft).

I got the impression that the issue is still quite muddy.

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().