next books?

[nason]

Hello.........
I have completed the the c++ tutorial by Juan Solie[given on this site]
so can some one give me the list of not very advance but next stage books
my aim is to make good looking GUI based windows application
so please guide me which books to refer now onwards
thanking you
nason

[Stewbond]

Instead of going through books, you can find some good tutorials online.

If you want to make a good interface in Windows you have a few options. One popular option is MFC (Microsoft Foundation Classes). It's natively supported in Visual Studio and has a lot of support.

I ran through this tutorial which really helped:
http://www.cprogramming.com/tutorial/game_programming/same_game_part1.html

If you want to get a little more basic first and see the low-level stuff behind the classes, try learning Win32 in C. The Forger did a really good tutorial on this which also helped me when I was starting:
http://www.winprog.org/tutorial/

[4jzvC542]

@Stewbond

really thanks i went through them they are great and i will follow them

If you want to make a good interface in Windows you have a few options.

ok but if you want to make really greatlooking interface then c++ is not right language then which language should i follow?

[andywestken]

my aim is to make good looking GUI based windows application
so please guide me which books to refer now onwards

If you want to write a GUI using the Windows API directly, then the book is Petzold's "Programming Windows 5th edition"
http://www.charlespetzold.com/pw5/
It is seen as the definitive book in this area.

But you don't have to use the Windows API directly to write a Windows GUI app. Instead you can use MFC (as Stewbond mentioned), or a cross-platform toolkit like Qt, wxWidgets, or FLTK.

But note that MFC is only provided with the paid-for versions of Visual Studio. So it's not an option if you are using Visual Studio Express or another IDE (e.g. Code::Blocks, CodeLite, ...)

Andy

PS @parjanya

if you want to make really greatlooking interface then c++ is not right language then which language should i follow?

If you're talking about Windows user interfaces, then I guess Microsoft want you to use WPF, which means C# is the preferred language (though you can use any managed language including VB :-( and C++/CLI.) And that you need to be comfortable with XML.

Windows Presentation Foundation
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us//library/ms754130.aspx

This threads discusses the downsides of the move to WPF...

When creating a new GUI, is WPF the preferred choice over Windows Forms? [closed]
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/57909/when-creating-a-new-gui-is-wpf-the-preferred-choice-over-windows-forms

[4jzvC542]

@andywestken

thanks for the links and great info...... So c# is the language i should master

well i want to make a full fledge library catlog software but i want it to be visually appealing to like if you know software called Viivox C3
its voip and after using it i have dreamed softwares like that in beauty..

and i know bit of xml too....(it is very usefull in web development which i also tinker with) but i will master it.........

can i start learning c# after learning basic cpp tutorial provided on this site
or shold i master cpp reasonably before jumping to c#

please let me know any good books or online tutorials
and i am willing to buy ms visual studio if required for mfc etc

thanks very much for info

parjanya

[Stewbond]

C# is a Microsoft language. It's a descent language, but C++ also works well. When I mentioned "a few options" I was talking about frameworks, not languages. Qt and MFC can both be used with C++. The Win32 API is written in C, but it's not uncommon to find a C++ wrapper for this API. Actually that's what Qt, MFC, SDL, SFML all do. The benefit of Qt is that it uses the same interface for the Win32 API as for X-code used in Linux. So you just need to change an option and compile or linux, voila you haven't had to change your code at all and you can support an entirely new community.

[N36fSL3A]

ok but if you want to make really greatlooking interface then c++ is not right language then which language should i follow?

C++.

You can make just as good as an interface with C++ as with any language.. It's all up to the programmer.

However C++ isn't always the way to go. Sometimes it's just overkill.

SDL

The only thing SDL wraps is window handling. It uses directX for video.

Neither it or SFML is a full wrapper.

and i am willing to buy ms visual studio if required for mfc etc

Just use Visual C++ Express.

But note that MFC is only provided with the paid-for versions of Visual Studio. So it's not an option if you are using Visual Studio Express or another IDE (e.g. Code::Blocks, CodeLite, ...)

lolwut

I can use MFC just fine in VC++ Express.

[andywestken]

I can use MFC just fine in VC++ Express.

Well, MFC isn't provided with the Express editions of Visual Studio.

So where have you obtained the MFC headers, libraries, and wizard(s) from?

Andy

[4jzvC542]

@Lumpkin

you mean one can make really greatlooking windows program in c++
then thats great
so which books or tutorials should i follow to complete this goal?

will this book:
Petzold's "Programming Windows 5th edition"
http://www.charlespetzold.com/pw5/


do?
thanks
parjanya

P.S

@Stewbond

ok great new about Qt
i will check it out...
thanks

[N36fSL3A]

How good are you with C++?

So where have you obtained the MFC headers, libraries, and wizard(s) from?

Wait, do you mean the form designer thing? I dunno then.