How does one gets started with Winforms style applications on Win32?

Question

A bit of background: I'm a C++ programmer mostly, but the only GUI stuff I've ever done was on top of .NET's WinForms platform. I'm completely new to Windows GUI programming, and despite Petzold's excellent book, I'm extremely confused.

Namely, it seems that most every reference on getting started with Win32 is all about drawing lines and curves and things -- a topic about which (at least at present time) I couldn't care less.

I need a checked list box, a splitter, and a textbox -- something that would take less than 10 minutes to do in Winforms land. It has been recommended to me to use the WTL library, which provides an implementation of all three of these controls -- but I keep getting hung up on simple things, such as getting the controls to use the right font, and getting High DPI working correctly. I've spent two days on this, and I can't help but think there has to be a better reference for these kinds of things than I've been able to find. Petzold's book is good, but it hasn't been updated since Windows 95 days, and there's been a LOT changed w.r.t. how applications should be correctly developed since it was published.

I guess what I'm looking for is a modern Petzold book. Where can I find such a resource, if any?

Answer 1

First up, there is virtually no documentation (that I could ever find) explaining how to use WTL. It seems to be a library by experts, for experts.

Your choices then are: Using the MFC app wizard to create an application, or going the Win32 API route. The Win32 API itself is a C API, MFC is a C++ wrapper around the C Win32 API, with the addition of a document-view application model.

However, instead of creating your controls from code: The closest analog the native Windows API has to a "WinForm" is a dialog box. Dialogs are layed out in resource files that are embedded during linking into the EXE or DLL you are developing. The dialog resource takes a font setting that is automatically applied to all controls on the dialog, and dialogs are layed out in terms of dialog units, not pixels, allowing them to automatically scale relative to the font face, and dpi setting on the users system.

If you create a dialog resource, and add it to a simple application, it need look no more complicated than this to get the dialog up onto the screen, and close in response to a click of the OK button.

#include <windows.h>
#include "resource.h"

BOOL CALLBACK MyDialogProc(HWND hwnd,UINT uMsg,WPARAM wParam,LPARAM lParam)
{
  switch(uMsg){
  case WM_INITDIALOG:
    return TRUE;
  case WM_COMMAND:
    switch(LOWORD(wParam){
    case IDOK:
      EndDialog(hwnd,wParam);
    }
    return TRUE;
  }
  return FALSE;
}

int CALLBACK WinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance, HINSTANCE hNull,LPCTSTR strCmdLine,int nCmdShow)
{
  return DialogBoxParam(hInstance,MAKEINTRESOURCE(IDD_DIALOG1),NULL,&DialogProc,0l);
}