Is programming in C in Windows a reasonable option these days?

[bigsig]

Hello, I'm no expert at programming, this is mostly just my hobby. With that said, that means it wouldn't take much for me to get in over my head. My experience in C is mostly for older platforms like the Commodore 64 and MS-DOS. I've never programmed in C++ but I have programmed in Objective-C for IOS but that was a while ago and I'd be pretty darned rusty at this point.

So with a background like mine, would it be reasonable to create windows, deal with events, utilize the mouse, draw graphics, etc.. Or is this a fools errand? Do I need to learn C++? Is there a library for C that could make it easy?

I'd really like to hear what your thoughts are on this?

[Salem]

Maybe, but there isn't a lot of choice TBH
List of widget toolkits - Wikipedia

The low level Win32 API is C, but you have to do a lot of work yourself if you're wanting to avoid all the creature comforts of canned UI components like dialog boxes, check boxes, scroll bars etc.

The C++ you need for writing GUI code in C++ to use a C++ toolkit is as simple as you want to make it.

[bigsig]

Well I'm not too picky, perhaps I could just make my own menus and use them to avoid having to learn a great deal about the API in a short time. If I can get mouse clicks and window position I could do the rest. Maybe that's what I should do, then I wouldn't need extensive knowledge all at once. I could keep coding and just learn and implement the API in time. What are your thoughts? Does that seem like a reasonable approach?

[Salem]

Depends what you want really.

If you're looking to make a GUI of some sort by the path of least resistance, then I can recommend WxWidgets.

It comes with an extensive set of sample applications (which you compile yourself) to study.
When you find a sample that does some of the things you want, you can see what that means in the code.

If you also use code::blocks as your IDE, it comes with WxSmith as the RAD tool. You can drag and drop the UI elements and have it auto-generate all the boilerplate code for you.

Just to be clear, you don't need to be a hardcore C++ wizard to do this.
A basic understanding of what a class is (a fancy struct), what a method is, and how to call a method will go far.

[bigsig]

Thank you, Salem! I think this is the perfect answer to what I’m looking for.

By the way I am using Code::Blocks as my IDE and I had no idea what WxSmith was. This should get me up and running quickly and easily.