GUI in C++

[lugubrious]

I know it is complicated, but I know almost everything to do up until GUI and it would be a good learning experience. All I need is a little help.

First of all, what sort of file should i create to support a window. I don't want anything fancy. Just a box with a title, minimize, restore, and close button. I'm currently using this code:

#include <windows.h>

const char g_szClassName[] = "myWindowClass";

// Step 4: the Window Procedure
LRESULT CALLBACK WndProc(HWND hwnd, UINT msg, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam)
{
switch(msg)
{
case WM_LBUTTONDOWN: // <-
// <- we just added this stuff
break; // <-
case WM_CLOSE:
DestroyWindow(hwnd);
break;
case WM_DESTROY:
PostQuitMessage(0);
break;
default:
return DefWindowProc(hwnd, msg, wParam, lParam);
}
return 0;
}

int WINAPI WinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance, HINSTANCE hPrevInstance,
LPSTR lpCmdLine, int nCmdShow)
{
WNDCLASSEX wc;
HWND hwnd;
MSG Msg;

//Step 1: Registering the Window Class
wc.cbSize = sizeof(WNDCLASSEX);
wc.style = 0;
wc.lpfnWndProc = WndProc;
wc.cbClsExtra = 0;
wc.cbWndExtra = 0;
wc.hInstance = hInstance;
wc.hIcon = LoadIcon(NULL, IDI_APPLICATION);
wc.hCursor = LoadCursor(NULL, IDC_ARROW);
wc.hbrBackground = (HBRUSH)(COLOR_WINDOW+1);
wc.lpszMenuName = NULL;
wc.lpszClassName = g_szClassName;
wc.hIconSm = LoadIcon(NULL, IDI_APPLICATION);

if(!RegisterClassEx(&wc))
{
MessageBox(NULL, "Window Registration Failed!", "Error!",
MB_ICONEXCLAMATION | MB_OK);
return 0;
}

// Step 2: Creating the Window
hwnd = CreateWindowEx(
WS_EX_CLIENTEDGE,
g_szClassName,
"The title of my window",
WS_OVERLAPPEDWINDOW,
CW_USEDEFAULT, CW_USEDEFAULT, 240, 120,
NULL, NULL, hInstance, NULL);

if(hwnd == NULL)
{
MessageBox(NULL, "Window Creation Failed!", "Error!",
MB_ICONEXCLAMATION | MB_OK);
return 0;
}

ShowWindow(hwnd, nCmdShow);
UpdateWindow(hwnd);

// Step 3: The Message Loop
while(GetMessage(&Msg, NULL, 0, 0) > 0)
{
TranslateMessage(&Msg);
DispatchMessage(&Msg);
}
return Msg.wParam;
}


and it produces this: http://i37.tinypic.com/sgiwas.jpg

The only real problem i notice is that the title is a bunch of squares, when it should be "The Title of My Window". What is the error I have experienced?

Thanks so much in advance!

[hoxsiew]

Probably some UNICODE/MBCS mismatch, but I'd think your MessageBox() calls would fail or it would fail to compile.

[Lindley]

Looks like you're trying to use Win32 directly. While that's possible, you'll probably find it much easier to go with a GUI toolkit. A few options are MFC (Windows only), or one of the cross-platform ones (QT, WxWidgets, GTK+, FLTK, etc).

[hypheni]

Use TEXT("The title of my window") instead of "The title of my window".

And for a much simpler way to create a window, I'll prefer you to use Dialog Editor to create a Dialog window and call that by CreateDialog() or DialogBox(). It'll pretty much easy to you.

[Ajay Vijay]

Using TEXT will not help. If this was the problem with Unicode, compiler would have reported the mismatch.

Look at the string itself, does it contain any extra characters, not shown here?

[minkoko]

this is my program provide with unicode

download link
http://www.multiupload.com/EEB563C0BI

[itsmeandnobodyelse]

Try to switch off the UNICODE charset in the Project Properties.

Open menu

Projects
- Your_Project Properties
- Configuration Properties
- General

Below 'Project Defaults' change the property of 'Character Set' to 'Use Multibyte Character Set'.

After that make a Rebuild.

[Snoopy07]

const char g_szClassName[] = "myWindowClass";

I think the problem is here
try changing it to
char g_szClassName[] = TEXT("myWindowClass");

[Alexz003]

Try using a different program for producing GUI's. I use Qt. I find that it has alot of easy to understand commands that can be used to do just about whatever you want it to do and it is cross-platform which is always a ++

[Zaccheus@Work]

Could the source code being saved as Unicode cause such a problem?