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With few years of experience with Java I decided it's time to take the time and learn C++. I just compiled and run my first C++ with eclipse (of course) and would like to take it one step fw - I wish to build a GUI.
Question: what GUIs are available to C++, something that is an open-source and runs on Mac and eclipse.
Some have mentioned Qt, some wxWidgets.
A quick rundown on crossplatform gui toolkits that you could try:
Qt: Looks appropriately native on whichever platform you use it on. It has its own build system however, which doesn't always like to play nicely with others. If you want the "beginners" experience in making a GUI with Qt, I recommend Qt Creator. It's a standalone IDE built by the developers of Qt.
wxWidgets: While Qt looks native (it tries its best to emulate the look and feel of the OS you are running on). wxWidgets is native. That is, it uses the GUI elements provided by the operating system. Last I looked at wxWidgets the C++ library was falling behind as far as modern development practices go. You are possibly more likely to learn bad programming habits from this library.
gtkmm: This is from the same guys who make the GIMP and Gnome, which as a MacOS user probably doesn't mean a lot to you. They don't try nearly as hard to fit in as wxWidgets and Qt. However, they probably have the most modern C++ library. They have done a lot of work to use modern C++ development practices. This can be helpful for a new programmer, as you are less likely to learn bad habits from them. On the downside, you'll get thrust into the land of templates and function pointers and such.
Those are the big ones with the most momentum behind them. There are countless others to also consider.
Use Qt
http://qt.nokia.com/products/
http://qt.nokia.com/products/eclipse-integration/
I'd recommend Qt which is open source, has an easy-to-use API with GUI designer, and can be used on many operating systems (Windows, Mac, Linux..) and looks native on whatever it's used on.
You might want to take a look at wxWidgets or Qt:
http://www.wxwidgets.org
http://qt.nokia.com/products/
More generally, see here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_widget_toolkits#Based_on_C_or_C.2B.2B_.28including_bindings_to_other_languages.29
I've personally used wxWidgets and found it to be quite good, if you're after a recommendation.
My teacher recommended us to use notepad++ and cygwin for our programming needs. Are there any better solutions anyone can recommend out there to program and compile?
Myriad of various IDE's.... Eclipse CDT, Visual Studio Express, Code::Blocks, DevCPP....
And yes, Notepad++ and Cygwin with gcc would be a very viable option if you only need to compile single files for your homework.
Use a IDE
An integrated development environment (IDE) (also known as integrated design environment, integrated debugging environment or interactive development environment) is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development. An IDE normally consists of:
a source code editor
a compiler and/or an interpreter
build automation tools
a debugger
A few of them to choose from
http://netbeans.org/index.html
http://www.codeblocks.org/
http://www.eclipse.org/cdt/
In my opinion, a very important tool for beginners is a debugger. A lot of question can be answered by yourself if you have a look into the debugger. You can use the gdb but it is hard to use and understand for beginners. So I would recommend to use Visual C++ 2010 Express which has an excellent and easy to use debugger.
Disclaimer:
The following are personal opinions, related to my personal taste on
the subject. Anyone in the programmer community has its own taste and
preferences an can agree or not. Here I just want to tell you about
some rationals. Consider products and related names as "examples."
My Answer
There are mainly three ways to write code:
The manual one
The assisted one
The automated one.
Think to them as:
Driving your car alone
Driving with a navigator
Driving with an autopilot.
Here "driving alone" means "use a generic text editor, a command-line based compiler and a command-line based debugger. The editor may eventually have a clue about the language syntax (thus differentiating different language structural elements, like keyword, literals, operators etc.) but knowing really nothing about what you are coding.
This is what notepad++ does. It makes coding harder, but for very simple things makes you really learn how to "drive".
A "navigator" is a basic IDE like Devc++, or like CodeBlocks: they have the notion of "project", manage the relation between files and manage the invocation of the compiler and debugger, managing the mapping on their output respect to your sources.
You write your own code, but the "road to compile" is told by the "navigator" you have to trust.
An "autopilot" is a more complex IDE (like VisualStudio, Netbeans, Eclipse ...) that can also "manage the code" providing code analysis for either syntax and semantics, context sensitive auto-completion, code generation for common tasks.
They can give you some code you have to complete and connect together.
They make you faster in producing code, testing it, debugging it, but you must have more trust in them or know how they "suggest".
They can be productive, but you have to "configure" them to suite your needs.
Now: since everything is a matter of "trust", and you cannot trust what you don't know yet, and is a matter of "knowing yuur needs" (but a learner may not yet have an idea abut them)
starting with "beasts" like VisualStudio (that mess arout 50% of your computer registry, pretend you to download GIGABYTES from the Internet and installs GIGABYTES of whatever MS library) is clueless: before you will start using all of that, will take years, and VS itself will be changed 2 or three times) or Eclipse (that has the more powerful syntax and semantic analizer, but requires lot of "arcane configuration" you don't even know since you didn't make the first step in programming) may be an excess. At least until your programs will stay in a couple of pages.
starting win notepad++ and GCC (or Mingw) is just a matter of dowload few megabytes, set a PATH, and you go. Fastest way to turn the key on.
when things become more complex, and require some help in organize them, simple IDE like CodeBloks or Codelite are more than effective at "to the point". I will avoid Dev-C++: it's OLD, and doesn't support the "state of art of the C++ language". You an live with them for all your scolarity
when going to more professional kind of projects, and your experience in "using tools" is better, things like Eclipse, or NetBeans may become more "effective". I will in any case avoid VisualStudio: it's not that "effective". But it is the best to develop in Microsoft environments producing MS oriented applications, especially in the ".Net" world. Something you will not see before 2/3 years of experience.
If you're learning you can download VStudio Express. I believe it's free. Easier to use than notepad and cygwin. This isn't a biased opinion. I'm a Linux C++ developer most days but acknowledge the fact that it might be easier to learn using VStudio.
If you are using linux, you can use kate and g++ for editing and compiling c++ files.
If you are using windows, I think your teacher's recommendations are good. Althought there are various IDE's for C++, it is better to use a simple editor that doesn't have code completion and compilation feature while learning a programming language for the first time. IDE's are nice but not good for learners I think.
It's probably a good idea to go with your teacher's suggestion, since you might also need some help in the future, either from him or your colleagues. Another advantage is that, being in school, you'll probably develop using more than one programming language. Notepad++ has support for almost everything you can think of, so you can use it not only for this course. That way you'll have an advantage because you'll learn shortcuts, etc...
If you plan on doing a lot of programming in the future, I highly recommend putting the effort into learning VIM. Nothing else can touch it in terms of speed and power. It has built-in shell access and it is programmable. It is like having God in your text editor. The major down-side is the steep learning curve.
Also, you want to use Git in-case you screw-up and want to go back to a previous point. It lets you periodically check-point your code so you can always go back. For example, maybe you delete something, then later on decide you want to use that code after all. If you've been check-pointing with Git, you can get it back.
Graphical differs sometimes come in handy too.
I started coding in C++ using Turbo C++(the default program available on college computers, I told them it was prehistoric), but then I found Visual Studio Express and never looked back since that day.
Also since i could not install Visual Studio on College computers, I put a portable version of DevC++ on my pen drive to use there.
Eventually I got the College to install Visual Studio Express editions on all Lab Computers (Once I managed to convince them that it was free with no Licensing issues)
For a beginner, go with a text editor and a compiler. Helps you in understanding what actually goes on.
You could use Dev-C++, which is a good compiler for C and C++, if you want lightweight.
Otherwise Visual Studio probably.
I have just begun learning C++ through a flemmish government funded course. I was given 'thinking in c++' by Bruce Eckel as my educative material.
Besides learning c++ i'm also picking up objective-c on my own as I go, my long-tearm goal is to be a independent osx/ios dev, but i have to learn an succeed in c++ for the funding to continue. Betting on two horses and such.. you're getting the picture, i'm sure.
So now it begins. I have to choose an IDE. Xcode seems only to serve the os x oriented C++ development as far as I understand... Am i right?
I would consider other IDE's like eclipse or even go linux and what not, but in the end, long term, I'm going to be coding in Xcode because of my independent ambitions... So it would be really convenient if I could get started with Xcode right away, nice and comfy, so i don't have to divide my 'learning curve' an lose valuable time
So the question nice and short; is it possible to code C++ for non-osx based sources and frameworks and what not. More importantly, can i learn everything in the book by Eckel if i stick to Xcode?
I'm a new kid on the block. Forgive stupid questions and wrong usage of dev lingo.
much obliged.
Yes - stick with Xcode - you don't need to use any Apple-specific frameworks - just build command line tools.
Sure you can. Most good programming language books don't talk much in terms of any particular editor or IDE. And OS X is at least somewhat amenable to using open source software libraries that you might want over time (e.g. Boost).
If have not used Xcode but I don't see why you should not be able to do so. If you want to build for non mac machines you just have to compile your code with the proper flags, and be mindful of the libraries available on the other system. As for frameworks, you won't find them on non mac machines so you shouldn't use -framework option in gcc.
i studied basics of c++ in college, we used the book object oriented programming in c++ by robert lafore.
i studied till pointers (almost half the book) and i still feel outdated using the console and not doing something other than that (forgive me for my ignorance) i want to do windows simple apps and knowing how to employ the little i learned.
the problem is when i open a win32 project in Visual studio for example it opens a lot of stuffs and many .cpp's and .h's .
is there a way to comprehend that and walking on the right path?
the code is complicated to me and mind teasing is it suppose to be like this ?intended to be like this for beginners ? is there a reliable tutorial to introduce me to that or do i need to learn the advanced concepts of c++ like templates and virtual functions and file i\o or they are not necessery ?
thank you.
There are simpler languages to learn programming in then C++, and less complicated concepts to be mastered in simple CLI applications. In fact, using C++ to write GUI software is probably one of the hardest things to learn to do well. If you are intent on learning only visual programming, and only in C++, then I suggest trying the programming toolkit QT (http://developer.qt.nokia.com/resources/getting_started/) as you will have a window on the screen faster and more logically then nearly anything else.
Otherwise, pick nearly any interpreted (VB, Python, Ruby) or quasi-compiled (Perl, Java, C#) language and work through a command line tutorial first, as your progress will be much more likely.
Create an empty project in Visual Studio, then it won't create a bunch of .cpp and .h files that you don't care about.
After that, to learn how to write a windows application from scratch, read Programming Windows by Charles Petzold, or google a windows programming tutorial on the web.
Later, get books by Jeff Richter (Windows via C/C++) to learn more advanced windows programming concepts.
win32/Visual Studio is not a good way to learn GUI programming --Visual Studio generates too many mysterious and unreadable pieces of code and the win32 API is a C API which carries a lot baggage from from the early versions of windows.
It would be much better to use a more organised and conceptualy cleaner framework like Qt or WxWidgets to learn GUI programming.
I would actually recommend you use wxPython to learn the basics of wX and switch to the c++ interface when you have a good understanding of the widgets etc.
Most of the c++ code you need for a GUI is just boiler plate property setting and exception handling which wont teach you much and is pretty tedious.
My tip on getting a hang of windows programming:
Read The Forgers tutorial.
Instead of choosing a project with stuff in it, just choose a blank project and start from scratch, it's actually not that hard once you get the hang of it. However, a basic Win32 program consists of approximately 70-100 lines, because:
You have to set up a unique window (this includes registering your window in Windows and creating it correctly)
You have to handle all the messages that are sent to your window
You have to react to the messages that are sent to your window
Especially check out the Simple Window that TheForger created, then start fideling with the flags (dwExStyle and dwStyle) in CreateWindowEx, check out the wndProc function and see what the messages are (I think the most interesting you should focus on is WM_CREATE, WM_PAINT and WM_SIZE). Hopefully, after some time you will get a feel for what everything is and how it interacts.
It takes some time but I guess most stuff in programming does if you want to learn it. When you have your basic knowledge of a window, you should probably see how you should move on, if you should start with 3D (DirectX or OpenGL) or stay with 2D (GDI+). Or take up Qt like suggested by James Anderson, it really depends on what you want to do. But I do think that you should take that decision then and not now. StackOverflow will most likely assist if you ask what direction you should take if you know what kind of a project you want to do.
You need to start somewhere. So yes, you need to learn all those things you mentioned and then some. The then some includes writing console apps until you really understand whats going on. The only reason I can speak is because I am in a similar boat. I would say, from the sound of it, that I am probably more "advanced" than you and I still find doing some assignments/projects in the console challenging.
The problem is: Windows and stuff is complicated, you have all these events (clicks, keys, mouse stuff etc) and you are interacting heavily with the operating system. It is good that you start with console apps, because there you can focus on the actual programming, i.e., learning how to use loops, functions, classes etc.
To learn how to make windows, you should absolutely understand what classes are and how to use them, because in my opinion, all window toolkits worth learning make use of classes.
So, how does this windows stuff work? The good news: A lot of work has already been done. No need for you to re-program a "print file"-dialogue, no need to hand-draw windows with their symbols and menus etc. This is all readily available in so-called frameworks, and there is a bunch of them out there. You can use the Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC), or Nokia's Qt or wxWidgets etc.
Google for tutorials on these, and this should get you on the way. First look around which framework looks best to you and then do the Hello World examples.
Once you gain some experience, you'll see that it isn't THAT scary. The only scary thing is the unknown that is yet to be conquered.
(A more gentle introduction would be to first do Java/Swing as I find this VERY easy, but the C++ alternatives aren't too hard, really)
Just play around visual studio if you want to get familiar with Visual studio or any IDE. VS does lots of things on behalf of you. Its interactive, select one option, look into auto generated files .h or .cpp, compile it. If you get any error google it. I myself learned this way.
For learning C++ lafore is good book to start with. The most important way of learning any language is writing lots of code. Dont get tempted to look solution in book. The best way is:
a) Read the problem properly
b) Write your logic on paper first
c) Identify interfaces
d) Convert your logic into programme
e) Compile it
f) remove the errors
g) remove all the warnings
I'm looking to be able to build GUI applications quickly and painlessly as possible. I'm competent (though not expert, and have no formal training) in C++, but have never used a GUI building toolkit or framework or anything. I am not a professional programmer and am totally inexperienced and ignorant when it comes to building GUI apps. Have spent hours researching trying to figure out what to do; only getting more confused and discouraged though.
Qt and wxWidgets seem like the most popular options for cross-platform apps, though cross-platform isn't necessarily all that important to me; Windows-only is fine if that means the fastest learning curve.
Qt seems cool and the Qt Creator is sweet looking with lots of good demos, except it has its own classes for everything, and I'm not overly keen on learning a bunch of stuff that's only applicable to the Qt platform itself rather than more generally. I suppose I could avoid using the Qt classes except for the GUI stuff where I have to use them, but I have no idea how wise or unwise that would be.
I was thinking Visual Studio would have the smallest learning curve, but when I open a test GUI app, I see a bunch of foreign looking stuff like carats (^) all over the place - I found online that these mean "handles", which I have trouble even understanding the definition or purpose of ("sort of like pointers but not really" is basically how I've read people define them).
I know pretty much nothing about wxWidgets, or how it compares with Qt.
So every option has a big learning curve - and ideally I'd like to know which one minimizes the time you have to spend learning the toolkit/framework itself. Since I'm likely never going to be making money from the programs I create, the time I spend learning a specific toolkit would be pretty costly. I just want to be able to make a functional program using the C++ knowledge I have, but in GUI form. At the moment it seems if I want to make a GUI app, I'd have to spend way more time learning the GUI framework I'd use than writing the functional part of the app itself.
Any input from people wiser and more experienced than me would be appreciated :)
First and foremost, start simple. There's a lot to the subject. If you are finding it hard, don't try and take it in all at once.
Most of the good GUI packages have tutorials. The best advice I can give is that you try each of them, or at least a couple of them. They are the best short introduction you can have to the library you choose and if they are any good they narrow down what you need to absorb at first. That will give you some basis for comparison, because they are each trying to do very similar things (and you will see some of them before you are done), but they have different feels. You will likely find you have a preference for one and that's the one to get serious with. It will also give you a sense of what's hard about GUI programming as separate from the particulars of one package, which, if you have only used one, you won't have seen. Personally I find this sort of knowledge very helpful, because it makes me less intimidated by particulars.
Here's a list of tutorials in one place, though you have likely seen them already:
Qt's tutorial
WxWidgets' tutorial
Gtkmm book. Not quite a tutorial, though there are lots of examples.
.NET tutorials, either for WinForms or for WPF.
Second, it sounds to me that you need to get some in depth understanding of the concepts of GUI programming, not just a particular library. Here there is no substitute for a book. I don't know all of them by a long shot, but the best of the bunch will not just teach you the details of a toolkit, they will teach you general concepts and how to use them. Here are some lists to start with though (and once you have titles, Amazon and Stack Overflow will help to pick one):
List of Qt books
WxWidgets book (PDF version)
There are tons of WPF and WinForms books. I can't make a good recommendation here unfortunately.
Third, take advantage of the design tools (Qt Creator, VS's form building and so on). Don't start by trying to read through all the code they generate: get your own small programs running first. Otherwise it's too hard to know what matters for a basic program and what doesn't. The details get lost. Once you've got the basics down though, Do use them as references to learn how to do specific effects. If you can get something to work in the design tools, then you can look at particular code they generate to be able to try on your own hand-written programs. They are very useful for intermediate learning.
I'm not overly keen on learning a bunch of stuff that's only applicable to the Qt platform itself rather than more generally.
I second the comment of GRB here: Don't worry about this. You are going to need to learn a lot specific to the toolkit no matter which toolkit you use. But you will also learn a lot that's general to GUI programming with any of the decent toolkits, because they are going to have to cover a lot of the same ground. Layouts, events, interaction between widgets/controls, understanding timers -- these will come up in any GUI toolkit you use.
However do be aware that any serious GUI package is an investment of time. You will have a much easier time learning a second package if you decide to pick one up, but every large library has its personality and much of your time will be spent learning its quirks. That is, I think, a given in dealing with any complex subject.
I suppose I could avoid using the Qt classes except for the GUI stuff where I have to use them, but I have no idea how wise or unwise that would be.
You do not need most of the non-GUI classes of Qt to use Qt's GUI properly. There are a handful of exceptions (like QVariant) which you'll need just because the GUI classes use them. I found you can learn those on a case-by-case basis.
Which is the easiest to learn is really going to depend on how you personally learn.
Personally, I've found Qt to be the easiest to learn so far. The GUI classes are rather nice to use, but I've found the non-GUI classes to be excellent, making it easy to avoid a lot of common issues you'd normally get with a more basic API. The documentation is excellent, IMO, as are the books, the examples, etc. It's also being very actively developed, with a few new technologies coming in the near future (like DeclarativeUI).
I've found Visual Studio/Windows API/.Net to be a good bit more complicated to learn. The API documentation on MSDN is rather complicated and not really organized in a manner that I find intuitive.
I've tried learning WxWidgets a few times, but I've never liked the API documentation.
All this is just my personal experience, YMMV of course. I'd say just dabble in all of them and see which one takes you the furthest, it won't hurt to try multiple.
As a person who learned C++ through Qt, I can only say that they work very well together. C++ purists (like I have become) will find lots of things in Qt not to their liking (the moc preprocessor, e.g., and the continued absence of exceptions for error reporting), but looking back, Qt provided a very gentle introduction to C++ for me.
And if you're like me, you throw in a handful of boost libs in each Qt project, because we want to write "real" C++, not the softened thing Qt uses :)
I would suggest wxWidgets. To me, it's pretty intuitive and looks nice.
Code::Blocks was built with it, so check that out to see if you like the graphics.
There are also a slew of bindings for wxWidgets, such as wxPython, wxErlang, and others, so if you decide to switch off of C++, you can take wxWidgets with you.
I also use wxWidgets and use it all the time for Windows-only applications (the only downside is that wxWidgets is notorious for large .exe filesizes, which may or may not be a problem for you). I found it very simple to use from the start, especially when combined with a GUI designer (personally I use wxDev-C++).
I've never used Qt, so I can't speak to its simplicity, but I doubt the difficulty is on a vastly different scale than that of wxWidgets. However, what I can say is that no matter what API you use (wxWidgets, Qt, WinAPI, etc) your code will be "locked into" that particular platform, so don't worry if you feel that learning Qt will lock you into the Qt platform (because the same thing will happen with any of those APIs).
If you're working solely on Windows however, you may want to do a few simple programs with WinAPI first. That way you have a basic understanding of the lowest level of Windows GUI programming before you move onto Qt/wxWidgets. That said, if you're really into cross-platform programming, then don't worry about that and go straight into Qt/wxWidgets.
I can't intelligently comment on the learning curve aspect, but a quick survey of StackOverflow questions shows about twice as many Visual C++ questions as Qt questions. Probably means that there is a larger support group in place for Visual C++. Might make learning it a little easier if there are more folks to help out.
No matter what you pick, I am quite sure it won't be easy and painless.
Having said that, I know that in some schools they use FLTK because they consider it relativelly easy to learn. I have never tried it.
In my everyday work I use WTL which is as close to the system as it gets while still providing some level of abstraction over pure Win32. I am not sure if I would consider it easy to learn, though, especially given the lack of documentation.
I recommend codegear C++ builder (previously known as borland C++ builder) from codegear which comes with a 30 trial. The nicest thing about it is that the GUI provides you with components that you drop onto a form in a WYSIWYG fashion and make functional by adding code to handle the events it fires. It comes with a whole bunch of compontents out of the box and you can add 3rd party components to it too, like the awesome ExpressQuantumGrid from devexpress, or write your own. It's very powerfull if you know what you're doing but intuitive enough that a beginner can write a database CRUD application in about 20 lines of very simple code.
Since nobody has mentioned it yet, for the sake of completeness, have a plug for the Fox toolkit. This is the one I used last time I did any C++ UI work of my own volition. There are also binding for this to Ruby and Python (the latter being many years out of date, though).
In general, the choice of a toolkit for self-directed work comes down to personal preferences for
the layout manager style
the event handler registration style
How native the widget set looks/can be made to look
If cross-platforming is not necessary, try .net + msvs or delphi. easy, all-in-one, no pain.
Qt is the best option for you. It's the easiest to learn, the most elegant and powerful and it is completely free.
Visual C++: This is an IDE, but it comes with its own GUI library called MFC. MFC is an old library with many quirks and it is difficult to learn and use. Many C++ programmers use it on Windows because it comes from MS, it's fast and it's free if you buy Visual C++. Since VC++ is an IDE, you can also use wxWidgets and Qt with it, although in your particular case I would recommend Qt Creator instead.
You seem to have experimented with Managed C++. Don't use that, even MS recommends that you only use Managed C++ as glue between C++ and C#.
wxWidgets: This one was a strong contender up to the day when Qt became free for commercial projects. It was always in the shadow of Qt and it is known that the documentation is not very good and the API is not as easy to learn as Qt's. Cross-platform MFC would be a good way to describe it.
C++ Builder: Borland made too many mistakes with C++ Builder and ended up getting out of the dev tools business altogether. It was a good product and I originally learned Windows GUI programming in one of the first versions, but I won't use it any more. There are better options and it is too expensive.