Thread: GUI and forms

Hello ! I need gui for my software. I work in C++ visual Studio 2010. I need to enable the user insert a lot of input information. It should also support the that : 1. marking one a button , may change the value of the other buttons . 2. choosing a button may cause opening another form. 3. choosing a button may cause opening other output file (html files , that are the "output" of my tool. Should I use windows forms apps project and somehow link it to my software , by calling my function ? should I use visual basic or what ? Should I use html/asp forms and connect it to my project ? Does windows application supply all this functionality. Is it easy to implement ? what is the common way to do it in commercial applications ?

>> should I use visual basic or what ?
Yeah, it seems that'll be your best bet. This seems like RAD. VB's better for RAD.

Originally Posted by gilit2

Hello ! I need gui for my software. I work in C++ visual Studio 2010. I need to enable the user insert a lot of input information. It should also support the that : 1. marking one a button , may change the value of the other buttons . 2. choosing a button may cause opening another form. 3. choosing a button may cause opening other output file (html files , that are the "output" of my tool. Should I use windows forms apps project and somehow link it to my software , by calling my function ? should I use visual basic or what ? Should I use html/asp forms and connect it to my project ? Does windows application supply all this functionality. Is it easy to implement ? what is the common way to do it in commercial applications ?

Underlying all this stuff you asked about is 1 simple thing... Windows.

Writing Windows programs is not all that hard if you don't go about it the lazy way. Forms and RAD and such merely hide the simplicity of the windows api. Yes they will let you build code (apparently) faster but forms etc. really just do visually what a WinApi programmer would do textually.

Windows programs --no matter how they're created-- all revolve around just a few very basic things... You need a WindMain() as your entry point, you need to register a window Class for your program and then create windows within it, you need a message tosser and a message dispatcher... beyond that it's all about handling messages... little subroutines called from a switch() that respond to button presses and things like that. There's a lot of it... but very little of it is so complex the average coder can't figure it out.

Have a look at this.... theForger's Win32 API Tutorial

It's really not that difficult...


1)

^Nice link. I bookmarked it.

Forms and RAD and such merely hide the simplicity....

I believe it is the other way around. Forms and WPF are supposed to simplify the complexity involved in doing pure Win32 API programming.

Originally Posted by Bubba

I believe it is the other way around. Forms and WPF are supposed to simplify the complexity involved in doing pure Win32 API programming.

I agree that's the intent... but at what cost? There's a lot of overhead inovolved, producing much larger programs (which people don't seem to care about anymore) and I, for one, don't find it any easier... Maybe it's just me, but I really don't see windows API level as all that complicated. Yes there are complex function calls but if you have the docs that's not much of a problem.

Originally Posted by \007

^Nice link. I bookmarked it.

It's pretty good for getting someone started.

The only thing I would suggest you not do, that he does, is putting code inside switch statements... Here the advice is keep it as simple as possible; rather than putting code into switches, write a function to do what's needed and call it from the switch. Yes, you will have a big mess of functions but the result is more modular and far easier to debug.

How can I use arrays of buttons (in c++ ?)
Because it is a managed code , and a c array is native - it did not accept it.

Can I use array of buttons directly using the winapi ? where can I see a sample of using the winAPI directly. ?