Member Avatar for Taibah

hi all

I want to start now with C++ windows.h libary.

I already know now the basics i only programmed in CMD command line programming now i want to program further are there some tutorials or something that i can go further i dont want to stay only at a CMD command line.

I got a book there the only learn the command line programming but i want to stop that and learn some other stuff can somebody guide me tutorials or more or anything that can help me.

Thank you

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by mytich

Dani AI

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Moving from console programs to Windows desktop programming is the right next step. There are two complementary approaches: learn the native Win32 model so you understand how the OS creates windows, delivers messages, and paints pixels; or use a higher‑level C++ GUI toolkit to be productive sooner. This comment ties together points raised by , and and gives a practical path you can follow.

Start small and build a checklist you can finish in a day or two:

  • Pick a toolchain (an IDE that can build native Windows apps or a GCC/MinGW setup).
  • Create the tiniest Win32 app and step through it in the debugger to see the flow: the entry point, window class registration, CreateWindow, ShowWindow, the message loop, and a simple WndProc.
  • Add WM_PAINT handling (BeginPaint/EndPaint) and draw a rectangle or text with GDI to learn repainting and invalidation.
  • Learn how to create dialogs/resources and handle keyboard/mouse messages.
  • When you’re comfortable with the message-driven model, try a GUI framework (Qt, wxWidgets, FLTK, etc.) to compare productivity and portability.

A minimal skeleton to study (paste into a Win32 project) shows the basics:

#include <windows.h>

int WINAPI WinMain(HINSTANCE hInst, HINSTANCE, LPSTR, int nCmdShow) {
    WNDCLASS wc = {0};
    wc.lpfnWndProc = DefWindowProc;
    wc.hInstance = hInst;
    wc.lpszClassName = "MyWinClass";
    RegisterClass(&wc);
    HWND hWnd = CreateWindow("MyWinClass","Demo",WS_OVERLAPPEDWINDOW,
                             CW_USEDEFAULT,CW_USEDEFAULT,640,480,NULL,NULL,hInst,NULL);
    ShowWindow(hWnd,nCmdShow);
    MSG msg;
    while (GetMessage(&msg,NULL,0,0)) { TranslateMessage(&msg); DispatchMessage(&msg); }
    return (int)msg.wParam;
}

Troubleshooting tips: check return values (RegisterClass/CreateWindow), call GetLastError() when things fail, use MessageBox or logging while you learn, and run the debugger with breakpoints in your WndProc to watch message flow. Learn the fundamentals first — they make every GUI toolkit easier to understand later.

Recommended Answers

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Member Avatar for jonsca

Check out http://www.winprog.org/tutorial/ for information on the Win32 API. If you want a strictly C++ approach, look into MFC, but you need the full version of Visual Studio to use it. There's also Winforms via .NET, but they use C++/CLI, which is a dialect of C++ and not the standard language.

Member Avatar for mytich

windows.h is not a library. It a header. There are numerous Win32 libs behind it (kernel32.lib;user32.lib;gdi32.lib;winspool.lib;comdlg32.lib;advapi32.lib;shell32.lib;ole32.lib;oleaut32.lib;uuid.lib to name a few). Anyhow, I would not recommend doing bare bone win32 as it is too MS platform specific. Contemporary GUI libraries abstract an underlying platform. Take a look at Qt . It's one of the most popular cross platform C++ libraries and its an Open Source and free like in beer.

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