Application vs. command prompt

[kingtuttle]

Hey everybody, this is my second post on the forum so please forgive me if this is the wrong place or poor etiquette.

It is my understanding that an applications is, for instance, a program like solidworks that can be accessed from say a shortcut on the desktop.

My question is how do you develop a program such as this, where you can access it from the desktop and display graphics and such (lets say for windows) as opposed to having your program open through the command prompt.

As you can see I'm at the lowest conceptual level when it comes to this, so any clarification would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[interputed]

Easiest way I know of is learning MFC in Visual C++. That's what I'm doing now. If you have a basic understanding of programming and computers get Ivar Horton's Visual C++ 2010. He wastes no time with the basics though. So, if you're a total beginner get a book that will give you a basic understanding of programming first.

Now your command prompt applications will give you a .exe file that you can create a shortcut to on the desktop just by right clicking. You have to learn console programs before you jump into MFC or you'll be lost, in my opinion.

[kingtuttle]

Much appreciated.

[Athar]

There are various GUI toolkits you can use, such as Qt and wxWidgets. Qt Creator and wxDev-C++ make it relatively easy to develop applications with those. There's also C++Builder+VCL, however it's fairly expensive (but arguably the best on the market).

[codekiddy]

with using Qt, you're forced to use their "nokia's shema", containers etc... the thing I hate mostly are their macros and moc compiler. blah :>

better option is to learn COM which is far more needed if you're looking for job as C++ programer in the future.
knowing COM you'll be able to develop any kind of windows program...

then if you want learn some other cross libs to target unix and other less popular OS's.

[kingtuttle]

Again thanks for the advice.