Inventory Program: Console or Win32?

[bushkanaka86]

I have recently started teaching myself programming and have gone through a C++ tutorial that I found on this site and I understand most all of it. My friend was wanting a simple program to keep track of inventory so since I know the basics, I was thinking I could try to write my first program using structures.

However, when I told him that the program would be a console program with a black screen and white text, he said he would like it better if I made the program nice looking like a Windows program.

I downloaded a Win32 programming tutorial and have been going through it. While I understand about half of it, the rest of over my head. I have been trying to learn Win32 programming for about 2 weeks now and I was hoping to have a good start on the actual program by now.

My question is, is it worth it to keep trying to learn Win32 right now or is it going to take me a long time before I can design a functional Inventory Program? Or should I instead make the console program (maybe add some text colors or something?) and then work on the Windows program after the console one is up and running?

If he puts a lot of inventory items into the console program, how easy would it be to switch to program to a Win32 program without losing the inventory items?

[Matt Cromer]

Okay I probably know less than you, but a really cool tool to try out is the Windows Forms tools with Microsoft Visual 2010 Express. It's a visual, drag and drop type interface that makes it really easy to make nice, clean windows for your programs. Try it out! In my own opinion, Microsoft Visual is the best compiler out there.

So once you have it downloaded, click new project and then select Windows Forms as the project type. It lets you design a window and then you can implement code for the buttons, ect.

Again, I'm very new to C++ so anyone feel free to correct me.

Also, I would appreciate it if you helped me now, with a question I just posted. It should be a quick fix.