How to create a frame/window in C++ with GUI? - c++

Question

I want to basiically create a window with C++. It should have a control panel like structure, with the option to toggle a button. The button's image should be from a bitmap, one for ON and other for OFF.
It should have an array of such individual control buttons, like a control panel. I should be able to toggle ON/OFF. But I've to build this tiny application using C++. Kindly guide me on to start and proceed?

Answer 1

You should have a look on these:
Qt
GTK+
wxWidgets
and then choose depending on your need and preferencies.
EDIT:
if you are on Windows, you can use WinAPI. But you loose portability of your code among another OSs.

Answer 2

Unfortunately GUI in C++ is not that simple.
You're going to have to interact with the OS at some point to achieve this, which means you will need some sort of library to use.
To better answer your question (as has been mentioned in the comments) you will need to identify what kind of OS you are targeting? The usual three are:
Windows
Mac
Linux
With what information you've given though:
I recommend using the SFML Library or something similar. There are tutorials available and it works quite well cross-platform. To open a window you just instantiate a class like so:
sf::Window window(sf::VideoMode(800, 600), "My window");
Drawing buttons is a little harder.
Many libraries provide their own solutions, so I'll avoid giving a specific example, and the below is only psuedo-code.
In general though, you want to capture when the user clicks, then get their Mouse/Pointer Position (x, y) on screen, and check it against the boundaries of each corner of the button's rectangle:
if (ButtonPressed())
{
int currentX = GetMousePositionX();
int currentY = GetMousePositionY();
if (currentX > button.Left() &&
currentX < button.Right() &&
currentY > button.Top() &&
currentY < button.Bottom())
{
// The button is pressed
}
}
The code example above does assume that the MousePosition starts at 0, 0 at the top left of the window, which different libraries do differently. So you'll want to check how the library you're using implements it.
You might also want to consider foregoing the GUI entirely (if this is really just a small project, GUI in C++ can be surprisingly difficult).