I want to make a Windows application in ansi C but I am having trouble with the graphic usage. Is ansi C able to handle the graphics of Windows without using any extra libraries? Guide line required.
ANSI (or more modernly ISO) C is the language standard. It doesn't deal with graphics, at all.
However, you sure can write graphical applications with C (the language). On Windows you have the Win32 API, and there are also cross-platform libraries like GTK, which you can use to create graphical applications on Windows (as well as on other OSes).
The original Windows API was written to be accessed via C, that was the main language for developing Windows apps back in the day. I can't immediately see why you couldn't use ANSI C to write graphical Windows programs.
I was worried about GDI+ (I've never used it from C), so looked it up. It says it's a class-based API "...for C/C++ programmers." Taken literally, that would mean you can use C to access it (otherwise it's for C++ programmers, but not C programmers), but you'd want to look closely to be sure they're not just being loose with their language there.
To clarify the two answers above mine. One could in principle find a strictly ANSI C graphics library for Windows. But if the goal is to have graphics portability cross-platform, that would require the library to be available on the platforms which are under consideration. If, on the the other hand, the goal is to do something with the ANSI standard library graphicswise, nothing like that exists as it is way too unportable (and would have likely been even more so when the first ANSI standard was published).
Related
I have been searching to get the source code of the header file <graphics.h> and its associated library in order to integrate it with my C++ program.
At the same time, I am interested in those cross-platform libraries that works on more than one compiler. Just to be more explicit, I am talking about those libraries that are used for drawing shapes, lines, and curves in C++.
<graphics.h> is very old library. It's better to use something that is new
Here are some 2D libraries (platform independent) for C/C++
SDL
GTK+
Qt
Also there is a free very powerful 3D open source graphics library for C++
OGRE
<graphics.h> is not a standard header. Most commonly it refers to the header for Borland's BGI API for DOS and is antiquated at best.
However it is nicely simple; there is a Win32 implementation of the BGI interface called WinBGIm. It is implemented using Win32 GDI calls - the lowest level Windows graphics interface. As it is provided as source code, it is perhaps a simple way of understanding how GDI works.
WinBGIm however is by no means cross-platform. If all you want are simple graphics primitives, most of the higher level GUI libraries such as wxWidgets and Qt support that too. There are simpler libraries suggested in the possible duplicate answers mentioned in the comments.
There is a modern port for this Turbo C graphics interface, it's called WinBGIM, which emulates BGI graphics under MinGW/GCC.
I haven't it tried but it looks promising. For example initgraph creates a window, and
from this point you can draw into that window using the good old functions, at the end closegraph deletes the window. It also has some more advanced extensions (eg. mouse handling and double buffering).
When I first moved from DOS programming to Windows I didn't have internet, and I begged for something simple like this. But at the end I had to learn how to create windows and how to handle events and use device contexts from the offline help of the Windows SDK.
The Borland Graphics Interface, the library fronted by the graphics.h header, has been re-implemented atop SDL. This brings support for modern hardware and operating systems (multiple operating systems, in fact, since SDL is fairly portable).
It can be downloaded here prebuilt for a variety of common desktop targets.
Or if you wish to (or must) build it from source, here is a github mirror.
Note that it is a port of a very old software library and will run atop modern tools, so you should check with the instructor if you intend to use it for class assignments. It would be irritating to fail an assignment because you used idioms that require support from a modern compiler and find that they do not compile on a marking system from the 1980s.
You may find it better to get and develop with a virtual machine clone of the marking system to prevent nasty surprises.
graphics.h appears to something once bundled with Borland and/or Turbo C++, in the 90's.
http://www.daniweb.com/software-development/cpp/threads/17709/88149#post88149
It's unlikely that you will find any support for that file with modern compiler. For other graphics libraries check the list of "related" questions (questions related to this one). E.g., "A Simple, 2d cross-platform graphics library for c or c++?".
Before 2000, I have been using ANSI C for Windows programming. Later I changed to C++ and MFC, then to Delphi, and nowadays I prefer C#, but I'm curious if it is still possible to use plain C to access every API of the modern editions of Windows.
For example, even COM/OLE objects can be dealt with from C.
The Windows APIs list is described here.
Most of the APIs are C-based (structures and functions). However, few are C++ based (classes):
COM+
GDI+
DirectShow
XAudio2
Volume Shadow Copy
Network Diagnostics Framework (NDF) extensible helper
DirectXMath
This question already has answers here:
Closed 12 years ago.
Possible Duplicate:
Cross Platform C library for GUI Apps?
Is there any crossplatform GUI library for C language? (I mean at least win mac lin) If there is any XML-like GUI editing model, any GUI editing crossplatform visual programms it'l be grate!)
Take a look at the IUP Toolkit. It is written largely in C, and is also easily bound to Lua.
I use Gtk a lot it is consistent and nice to use. It was formerly used as a common platform for Gimp but became widely used and is the base toolkit for the Gnome desktop under Linux.
The GUI editor I use is Glade under Linux. The code generated can be recompiled without change under Windows. GLib is an underlying library that abstracts files, network, provides basic types and collections. As long as you use Glib, you are mostly OS independent.
I forgot to mention that glade stores the user interface in XML and generates code out of it. On the glade page I saw there is a windows version there but I cannot tell much about its behaviour. Under Linux it's fairly OK to use and quite stable.
Tk is a GUI library written in C. It comes with a scripting language named Tcl. These can be embedded in your C program. They are very mature and relatively lightweight. You can call the GUI toolkit from C, though it's much easier to do your GUI in Tcl and import it into your C program.
Applications written in Tcl, Tk and C are highly portable, and easy to distribute. The language is BSD style, which is a lot more liberal than GNU licenses.
On the Mac and Windows, Tk uses native widgets whenever possible, making your apps look right for each of those platforms.
GTK is a cross-platform GUI for C (not C++, though there are wrappers for it and many languages).
Until now I've been only writing console applications but I need to write a simple window application for a school assignment.
Could somebody point me to a good tutorial how to create windows and other ordinary windows elements such as buttons, 2d graphs etc in ANSI C? is there some good library I should use?
I tried googling but there are no tutorial websites devoted to C.
If you can, I would also appreciate some example code.
Thank you.
By the way, I use Dec C++.
GTK is a good library to use, but may provide non-native looks under Windows. It looks great under GNU/Linux, especially using GNOME.
It is implemented in just C (Using the GObject Type System, part of the GLib library), so it will work great for your needs. There is also a RAD tool called Glade.
There's nothing in the ANSI C standard about windows. If you want to make a windowed application, you'll have to use platform-specific libraries (e.g. Win32, Cocoa, or X11), or some sort of cross-platform library that encapsulates that (e.g. SDL, wxWidgets, or many more).
Common places to start are Charles Petzold's Programming Windows and theForger's Win32 API Programming Tutorial.
However in most cases C is no longer the preferred language for Windows development. Object oriented technology is far better suited to GUI development, and with the introduction of MFC, C++ became the preferred language, and later with .Net, C# and C++/CLI.
The Win32 API can be hard work, much of MFC is little better than a Win32 API wrapper, the .Net framework however was designed from the ground up, and is less encumbered by the legacy of the Win32 API monster, and working with it tends to result in far greater productivity.
Either way, Dev-C++ is not a great tool for GUI development.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/829488 which also talks how to create
Windows application: Creates a simple
Microsoft Windows-based application.
The application files include a
ProjectName.cpp file that contains a
_tWinMain function. You can use this type of application to perform
graphical user interface (GUI) based
programming.
As for tutorials... use MSDN. Win32 API is C. You don't need "Win32 ANSI C tutorial" - you need Win32 tutorial (for example http://www.winprog.org/tutorial/start.html, http://www.functionx.com/win32/Lesson01.htm) - unless, of course, you don't know ANSI C but then you just look for ANSI C tutorial. These subjects are independent.
There are lots of good libraries—too many for there to be an obvious choice without starting a religious war. I recommend that for your first library you learn something that will work on Windows, Linux, or OSX. Here are two good choices, not necessarily the best, but widely used and personal favorites:
Tcl/Tk. You write most of your application in the Tcl scripting language, but you can easily integrate your own ANSI C code into Tcl, which was designed from the beginning with such integration in mind. The Tk toolkit is very easy to learn, and you can write many simple GUIs in pure Tcl when you are getting started. Interactive, easy, and very well supported.
If you want to write everything in ANSI C, I don't know of any really simple choices, but I've been fairly happy with wxwidgets. All these tools have a pretty steep learning curve, however.
There are not many plain C GUI libraries as the strengths of the language lie elsewhere. Perhaps you should think about using a language with C bindings so you can still do the number crunching in C, but use something less painful for GUI development?
If you really want to stick to C, you can either use the OS' native API or the only current cross-platform C GUI lib I'm aware of: GTK+. If you don't really need a GUI but just graphical output, I'd go with SDL.
I suggest you download Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Express Edition and use C#.Net.
As has been said, I suggest you use Winforms and switch to a .Net environment. It's 2009, and I think there are more suitable solutions to GUI's :P
Edit: Nvm, didn't see it was a school assignment.
However, here is a C++ guide on the Win32 API: http://www.relisoft.com/win32/index.htm
Good day folks, I'm in a need of a bit of guidance.
Basically, I'm a webdev who knows some C from the past, but I've only developed somewhat simple console apps for *nix.
Shortly, I want to develop a simple Win program with a GUI and not get my hands into any of the following technologies:
.NET C#
Java
C++ (especially this one)
Because I have nor the time nor the need for it currently.
1). Can I use wxWidgets without resorting to cpp (if not, what other native looking and lightweight widget toolkit would you suggest?)
2). Can I use OpenCV with strict C? (no templates, inline functions, etc)
3). Should I look for other options for a compiler besides MinGW? Is Intel one worth investigating? (AFAIK, it has a restrictive license).
4). What IDE of the following would you suggest for windows / c programming
Dev-C++
Eclipse with appropriate plugins (can't remember the exact one)
Any text editor + *.bat for compiling??
Thanks!
If you're interested in learning C-based Windows programming directly, and not using other intermediate tools:
There's a really good reference book by Charles Petzold called Programming Windows. It's definitely the way to get started. Absolutely everything is crystal clear, and you never need C++.
The Windows API, as a whole, is built for C programmers. All the fancy stuff like an actual application window is passed back as "HANDLE"s, which are more-or-less just pointers into the OS's object table. You as a programmer never have to deal with objects, just their HANDLEs.
Also, this particular book does a good job describing the Windows event-loop. If you're unfamiliar with it, it is described in generous detail.
Good luck!
For C Windows GUI programming the easiest thing is VC++ (any version since 6.0) and The Charles Petzold Programming Windows book.
The free Express version of the Microsoft compiler should work fine - I'm not sure if you'd have to download the Platform SDK or if it comes with one.
You can write Windows GUI programs in straight C. Download the Windows SDK and look at the "GENERIC" sample (I assume it's still in there). This is pretty much the minimal code required for a Win32 app, and it's in plain-ol' C.
Edit: Hmmm, it doesn't appear to be installed on this laptop. You can find it online here.
It might be worth reconsidering C#.NET. You could easily learn C# in a couple days, and be developing slick apps very quickly. Straight C-based windows libraries, particularly Win32, are BRUTAL in comparison. You'd spend a week just to write a simple app that would take minutes in C#.
The only C-based toolkit I can think of is the Windows port of GTK+. I have no experience using it in the Windows environment though. It is very mature on the Linux side though, and may be good enough if your needs are simple.
Learning the Win32 API is hard! But like others have stated, Petzold's book is the way to go if you insist on going down that path.
My opinion is that developing a Windows GUI using only C and the Win32 API would be harder to learn than picking up just enough C++ to utilize one of the C++-based frameworks. You could still do the majority of your work in plain C.
As for free IDEs, I would go with Visual Studio 2008 Express Edition.
You don't need anything.
Just use C and Win32 api , like real programmers, not kids..
See the VS Win32 wizard
Regarding wxWidgets, you can use https://sourceforge.net/projects/wxc
I never actually heavily used it, so I'm not aware of its maturity.
Mingw and Microsoft Visual C++ are my favorite compilers. Remember you can always use strict C and compile it using a C++ compiler, since valid C is almost always valid C++.
For windows, I've used Dev-C++ in the past, but nowadays Microsoft Visual C++ seems a better solution.
If you're going for text editor+bat, check out Notepad++.
EDIT: Just to clarify, using Microsoft Visual C++ does NOT mean learning C++. You can use C in it perfectly because - I repeat - valid C is often valid C++. Don't want C++? No problem. Just stay away from the C++-only features and you're still safe in a C++ compiler.
EDIT: Roger Lipscombe has noted in the comments that a pure C compiler is available in Microsoft's Visual C, using the /TC switch.