How do I create a GUI for a windows application using C++?

Question

I am deciding on how to develop a GUI for a small c++/win32 api project (working Visual Studio C++ 2008). The project will only need a few components to start off the main process so it will be very light weight (just 1 button and a text box pretty much...). My question is this:

I don't have experience developing GUIs on windows but I can learn easily. So, what should I use? A Visual editor (drag and drop code generationg: my preference for desktop GUI designing by far (java/swing)). Or should I use a speicific library? Either way, WHICH library or visual editor should I use? I heard someone mention writing the GUI in C#, then calling the C++ code... the thing is, that this is such a simple GUI I would find it easier to just keep it all in C++, but I'm open to whatever the best suggestion is.

Answer 1

by far the best C++ GUI library out there is Qt, it's comprehensive, easy to learn, really fast, and multiplattform.

ah, it recently got a LGPL license, so now you can download it for free and include on commercial programs

Answer 2

If you're doing a very simple GUI and you're already using Visual Studio then it may make sense to just go with MFC. You can just use the Visual Studio MFC wizard to create a dialog based application, drop two controls on it and away you go.

MFC is dated and has its fair share of annoyances, but it will certainly do the job for you if you're just talking about a button and a text box.

I don't have any experience with Qt, so I can't compare the two.