Is there a good GUI designer (read: drag 'n drop/WYSIWYG) for the plain old Windows API? I'm not looking for something that uses Qt, GTK, .NET, etc, just plain old Windows API.
Must be usable with either C or C++.
You are looking for a resource editor. Visual Studio Professional, Premium and Ultimate have one built into the IDE. You can access it by creating a new .rc file and then adding a resource to it.
If you're not using Visual Studio you can use an external resource editor such as ResEdit. Not having it built into the IDE is a little bit more of a hassle unfortunately.
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I did a User interface in Windows 7. It contains buttons, labels, tabs and almost all features available in VS2008 tool box.
The UI coding is done in Visual C++.
Now I want to port the same UI in WinCE7. I started the work by upgrading VS2008 Sp1 and Platform builder for WinCE7.
Now I took a new project->Visual c#->Smart Device->Device Application and started the UI.
So I need to make a good amount of changes, also some functions are not available.
So am not able to complete the UI, no tabs selection is found and many others.
So can I get any ideas to port the same UI (created in visual c++) in WinCE7?
How can I create a new UI for WinCE7 in Visual c++ in Visual Studio 2008 ?
It is sooooo not that easy. Windows CE is a small subset of Win32. You have to pull in your code, hit build and then start fixing the errors.
If you used good separation of UI from business logic then it's probably easiest to just start an entirely new UI app for CE and reuse the business bits. If your code it tightly coupled, well you've got a long road ahead. There is no magic bullet for this one.
You are mixing stuff here.
To develop applications for Windows CE 7 you don't need Platform Builder. You need it to build a configure an OS Image or to change a board-support-package (BSP) and debug it, including drivers.
For application development you need just Visual Studio 2008 professional and an SDK, provided by the device manufacturer.
Windows CE APIs are different from Win32 ones and may be seen as a subset of those.
You can create a new Windows CE application (with dialogs etc) using the new project dialog of visual studio 2008, just select the "Smart Device" category to see the templates you can use.
Porting existing code may require modification of C/C++ code (API changes) but also of the .rc file (resources) because Windows CE does not support all the features provided by Win32 resources.
we have once application build using MFC/C++. We want make the bit rich UI like VS 2010 or outlook etc... at last we want give new look to our app like Microsoft does on every release of their products.
Please suggest me to topic that i need to look into or suggest me the option for the same.
If you're using Visual Studio 2010 or higher, the MFC application wizard itself will generate UI like VS 2010 with tabs and docking windows. In fact you can create an application that looks like VS 2010 without writing a single line of code. There is also support for the ribbon control which has replaced the menus in the new office applications.
As I am assuming you are going to use C++/native code, MFC is still the way to go or you can choose the WTL also. If you are ready yo go to a totally different direction then QT is one of the most advanced and modern cross platform library. MFC feels old compared to QT. AFAIK you can not use ribbon control in QT without microsoft license.
Another option is to go to managed way, you can use WPF with C#.
As already mentioned, you can use the new classes in the MFC feature pack, which came with Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1.
MSDN provided a tutorial how to migrate an old MFC application to the new MFC feature pack classes here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb983935%28v=vs.90%29.aspx
Can I develop full fledged win32 app using VC++ express (i.e access to all the win32 APIs). I do't want to use .net, but if it works with .net then its a bonus. I do have Visual studio DVD but I do not want to install ton of crap just to program in C++.
I just want to use windows APIs for networking, filesystem, threads, etc. I'll most probably use GUI Libraries like TK or WX.
Will Mingw allow me to use all of the Win32 APIs.
VC++ Express has access to all of the Windows API. It does not come with a framework for GUI development, but you can easily add a third party package such as Qt or wx, or work directly with the API if you prefer.
Under Create New Project there's a "Win32" section with "Win32 Project" listed as one of the options.
So as the Express edition is a fully featured IDE (apart from not supporting plugins) then you should be able to build a "fully fledged win32 app".
I know how to program in C++ making console programs, but now I want to code programs with interfaces for Windows. MS VS 2010 makes things easy when coding C++ Windows applications with its drag & drop design system. (.net Framework) However, Visual Studio seems to use C++/CLI, which I'm unfamiliar with.
Is there for an IDE which only uses C++? Is there any good IDE with an easy to use GUI designer, or can I tweak VS 2010 to not to use C++/CLI?
Visual C++ is perfectly happy to not use C++/CLI syntax, in fact it works even better without it.
Just set "Use of .NET Framework (/clr)" setting in your project options to "No". Or use the "Win32 Application" wizard when creating your project to begin with.
The "native" version of the Forms Designer is called the Dialog Editor and it works much the same way -- you can select textboxes and buttons and things from a palette and drag where you want them in your window.
The best RAD C++ tool, which also happens to accept unmanaged C++ is "CodeGear C++ Builder"
How about Qt Creator - IDE for Qt? http://www.qt.io/ide/
I'm learning C++, and know a little bit of Visual Basic and an Delphi.
But I want to know, is there some program like Delphi, but for C++. Something where you can drag a button to a form, double click it, the like in Delphi and VB: opens a code editor and you edit the code of the button, but with a similar code of C++?
I'm using Windows Vista.
Yes, if you use MFC within Visual Studio.
MFC is Visual Studio's C++ class library for writing Windows programs, and for an MFC form Visual Studio behaves exactly as you describe.
As of Visual Studio 2008 with an upgrade pack you can create Office 2007 style applications, and Visual Studio style applications, using MFC.
There used to be "C++ Builder", a C++ version of Delphi, I don't know if this product is still being developed or not.
UPDATE: to summarize information from the comments, C++ Builder is actively developed and the product page is http://www.embarcadero.com/products/cbuilder/
You can have the following IDEs with GUI designers for free;
Visual Studio 2008 express from Microsoft
Qt Creator from Nokia
Eclipse with Qt plugin from community :)
C++ Builder from Embarcadero
(previously CodeGear, previously
Borland)
Have fun with C++!
There are other packages besides MFC that do GUI stuff, but I don't think they plug-in to Visual Studio. I must confess, I have never been a fan of MFC. I find it ugly and painful, so I can't really recommend it.
Qt has a designer, as does GTK. I haven't used the Qt designer, but the GTK one works well. It can be found here: http://glade.gnome.org/ You can get glade for Windows here: http://gladewin32.sourceforge.net/
It can be hassle to set these up, though.
Honestly, while I like C++ a lot, writing GUIs for Windows is not where it excels. I would recommend that you look at C# instead. You can still interface with C++ if you need to, but it makes writing Windows GUIs so much nicer.