6 ms·

I've been wanting to dip my toes into old-school Win32 development for a while now, this codebase looks like a great example to pore over.

waselighis 3y ago
Dave's Garage on YouTube has a couple good videos that I can recall. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlZe2JwrJqM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlZe2JwrJqM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyJw2MumgTQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyJw2MumgTQ
- hansoolo 3y ago
  Oh! I gonna dive into this pretty soon. Thank you!
bena 3y ago
It looks like a pretty clean example from what I can recall. WinMain builds the window and starts the message pump. The pump is implement starting at line 425. It's basically a while loop that reads the next message on the stack, translates it, then sends it to the object it belongs to. It's the precursor to today's modern event-driven designs. Basically, this is now done for you by the runtime. The bulk of the action happens in the created window's "wndproc", cbMainWindow (Line 455 - 2897). There's a giant switch statement, with each handled message being a separate case. There's also a WM_COMMAND message, which is essentially a message holding another message inside. This is probably the best book on Win32 API programming out there. https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Windows%C2%AE-Fifth-Developer-Reference/dp/157231995X https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Windows%C2%AE-Fifth-Devel...
- shortrounddev 3y ago
  Yes, it's unfortunate that Programming Windows after 5ed became about XAML and C#. Those are good tools, but it's sad that they stopped updating the Win32/C++ resources as well.
jansommer 3y ago
Use ChatGPT! It's night and day for Win32 dev in my experience, and the code it produces is really good. One thing to note before going into Win32: You're going to have a pixelated, upscaled ui if you don't take care of high dpi support yourself, and that involves patching system controls. So prepare yourself for lots of dpi-work if that's a concern. (One thing I've been experimenting with is superclassing the system controls and "overwriting" the original by registering a superclass of eg. the edit control as simply "edit". This makes other system controls, like the combobox, use your dpi scaled/custom version).
- zerr 3y ago
  Exactly my experience. In general, for the sane person, it is impossible to write more than a few lines of Win32 API code without copy/paste... ChatGPT came quite handy here.
- dataflow 3y ago
  I'm confused. Are you sure high DPI needs patching system controls to avoid pixelation? Doesn't dpiAwareness avoid the pixelation? I certainly haven't needed to patch anything for this in the past. If you have an example you could point to, that would be great, since I don't know if I'm missing something here. Also, question: do you know of a good way to test for high-DPI mode on a low-DPI screen?
  - masfuerte 3y ago
    You just need to add a manifest to your app indicating that you support high DPI. To test your app just change the DPI in the display settings.
    - dataflow 3y ago
      I guess I was hoping for something little clunky than that, but thanks for the suggestion.
  - jansommer 3y ago
    Nope, you get the pleasure of implementing dpi support yourself. https://building.enlyze.com/posts/writing-win32-apps-like-its-2020-part-3/ https://building.enlyze.com/posts/writing-win32-apps-like-it...
bananaboy 3y ago
I love that this has been built with the old-school API! I've done a bit over the years and find it kind of pleasurable (maybe I enjoy torture!).
- poo-yie 3y ago
  Agreed! Sadly, lean GUI apps are mostly a thing of the past now.
dncornholio 3y ago
I had the same idea until I opened main.cpp and scrolled through 8911 lines of code
zackangelo 3y ago
This also brought back memories for me of writing Win32 apps. If you're looking for a good book, checkout Programming Windows by Charles Petzold. It really demystified a lot of things for me and I bet it's still relevant if you want to write stuff like this.

waselighis 3y ago

Dave's Garage on YouTube has a couple good videos that I can recall. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlZe2JwrJqM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlZe2JwrJqM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyJw2MumgTQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyJw2MumgTQ

hansoolo 3y ago
Oh! I gonna dive into this pretty soon. Thank you!

bena 3y ago

It looks like a pretty clean example from what I can recall. WinMain builds the window and starts the message pump. The pump is implement starting at line 425. It's basically a while loop that reads the next message on the stack, translates it, then sends it to the object it belongs to. It's the precursor to today's modern event-driven designs. Basically, this is now done for you by the runtime. The bulk of the action happens in the created window's "wndproc", cbMainWindow (Line 455 - 2897). There's a giant switch statement, with each handled message being a separate case. There's also a WM_COMMAND message, which is essentially a message holding another message inside. This is probably the best book on Win32 API programming out there. https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Windows%C2%AE-Fifth-Developer-Reference/dp/157231995X https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Windows%C2%AE-Fifth-Devel...

shortrounddev 3y ago
Yes, it's unfortunate that Programming Windows after 5ed became about XAML and C#. Those are good tools, but it's sad that they stopped updating the Win32/C++ resources as well.

jansommer 3y ago

Use ChatGPT! It's night and day for Win32 dev in my experience, and the code it produces is really good. One thing to note before going into Win32: You're going to have a pixelated, upscaled ui if you don't take care of high dpi support yourself, and that involves patching system controls. So prepare yourself for lots of dpi-work if that's a concern. (One thing I've been experimenting with is superclassing the system controls and "overwriting" the original by registering a superclass of eg. the edit control as simply "edit". This makes other system controls, like the combobox, use your dpi scaled/custom version).

zerr 3y ago
Exactly my experience. In general, for the sane person, it is impossible to write more than a few lines of Win32 API code without copy/paste... ChatGPT came quite handy here.
dataflow 3y ago
I'm confused. Are you sure high DPI needs patching system controls to avoid pixelation? Doesn't dpiAwareness avoid the pixelation? I certainly haven't needed to patch anything for this in the past. If you have an example you could point to, that would be great, since I don't know if I'm missing something here. Also, question: do you know of a good way to test for high-DPI mode on a low-DPI screen?
- masfuerte 3y ago
  You just need to add a manifest to your app indicating that you support high DPI. To test your app just change the DPI in the display settings.
  - dataflow 3y ago
    I guess I was hoping for something little clunky than that, but thanks for the suggestion.
- jansommer 3y ago
  Nope, you get the pleasure of implementing dpi support yourself. https://building.enlyze.com/posts/writing-win32-apps-like-its-2020-part-3/ https://building.enlyze.com/posts/writing-win32-apps-like-it...

bananaboy 3y ago

I love that this has been built with the old-school API! I've done a bit over the years and find it kind of pleasurable (maybe I enjoy torture!).

poo-yie 3y ago
Agreed! Sadly, lean GUI apps are mostly a thing of the past now.

dncornholio 3y ago

I had the same idea until I opened main.cpp and scrolled through 8911 lines of code

zackangelo 3y ago

This also brought back memories for me of writing Win32 apps. If you're looking for a good book, checkout Programming Windows by Charles Petzold. It really demystified a lot of things for me and I bet it's still relevant if you want to write stuff like this.