Forum :: Game Development :: C++ GUI programs & API's?

I've been looking at learning/making small GUI programs but I really don't know where to start. I've looked online and there's so many different options (QT3/4, WIn32 API, WxWidgets & GTK and I just wanted your opinions really.

What's your preferred method and what would you recommend? Would really appreciate it thanks!

From what I've heard qt is pretty good since it hasn't changed in many years and is cross platform. Haven't ever tried it out though.

I wouldn't use raw Win32 for anything except academic projects or reasons. It's pretty hard to work with and just generally unpleasant to use. You could use MFC which wraps it pretty well but I would also avoid that since it's pretty old at this point.

I know you said C++, but C# is way way easier to get something thrown together quickly. For quick GUI apps that just rely on basic form stuff I use C# WinForms. This should also be cross platform if you target mono.

If you're looking for an app that should have a longer lifecycle and isn't just a quick thrown together thing I would look at using WPF/XAML, but there's definitely a huge learning curve for it. I still think that half the shit that works in WPF is just magic.

---
class EOSERV {
Programmer | Oldbie
Open source EO Client: https://github.com/ethanmoffat/EndlessClient
};

ethanmoffat posted: (6th Nov 2016, 12:58 am)

From what I've heard qt is pretty good since it hasn't changed in many years and is cross platform. Haven't ever tried it out though.

I wouldn't use raw Win32 for anything except academic projects or reasons. It's pretty hard to work with and just generally unpleasant to use. You could use MFC which wraps it pretty well but I would also avoid that since it's pretty old at this point.

I know you said C++, but C# is way way easier to get something thrown together quickly. For quick GUI apps that just rely on basic form stuff I use C# WinForms. This should also be cross platform if you target mono.

If you're looking for an app that should have a longer lifecycle and isn't just a quick thrown together thing I would look at using WPF/XAML, but there's definitely a huge learning curve for it. I still think that half the shit that works in WPF is just magic.

Yeah I've looked at QT but I wasn't sure if it did alot of the work for you or not,  I'm still basic in C++ but I don't want it all done for me yaknow?

I was also thinking of Visual Studios but it's massive and I wasn't sure how limiting it was.

callum posted: (6th Nov 2016, 01:31 am)

ethanmoffat posted: (6th Nov 2016, 12:58 am)

From what I've heard qt is pretty good since it hasn't changed in many years and is cross platform. Haven't ever tried it out though.

I wouldn't use raw Win32 for anything except academic projects or reasons. It's pretty hard to work with and just generally unpleasant to use. You could use MFC which wraps it pretty well but I would also avoid that since it's pretty old at this point.

I know you said C++, but C# is way way easier to get something thrown together quickly. For quick GUI apps that just rely on basic form stuff I use C# WinForms. This should also be cross platform if you target mono.

If you're looking for an app that should have a longer lifecycle and isn't just a quick thrown together thing I would look at using WPF/XAML, but there's definitely a huge learning curve for it. I still think that half the shit that works in WPF is just magic.

Yeah I've looked at QT but I wasn't sure if it did alot of the work for you or not,  I'm still basic in C++ but I don't want it all done for me yaknow?

I was also thinking of Visual Studios but it's massive and I wasn't sure how limiting it was.

Well if you're looking for the very basics straight Win32 is the way to go. It isn't cross platform but if you're interested in the low level stuff, Win32 is what every other windows UI framework wraps (as far as I know).

---
class EOSERV {
Programmer | Oldbie
Open source EO Client: https://github.com/ethanmoffat/EndlessClient
};

ResEditds is a good tool http://www.resedit.net/

This might help with setting it up dont reinstall codeblocks ect.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9Hmot-kz-E

Since this is in the game dev section I have to reccommend Dear ImGui for games and other real-time stuff.

For general desktop applications, there is no perfect cross-platform framework. Qt comes pretty close (being great on Linux, migrating well in to the Windows desktop, and having a path for mobile), but so far the best cross-platform desktop apps have been Electron-based (i.e. HTML and Javascript bundled with a web-browser).

I'd have to reccommend completely avoiding GTK unless you're writing minimalistic Linux applications. It works and looks terrible on Windows, and it's a huge pain to get even simple things done with. Likewise for Win32 on Windows: You'll never write a fully functioning modern desktop app with it.

On Windows the best choices are all through .NET languages (which means C++/CLI if you want to avoid C#): System.Windows / WPF. Visual Studio with .NET is pretty much top of the line, and it has a built in window editor that afaik is unrivalled. There's no reason not to use Visual Studio for pretty much everything on Windows.

For Qt development you'd be crazy not to use QtCreator (which is arguably the nicest to use C++ IDE on the market, and one of the best overall). It has a graphical UI designer second only to what Visual Studio offers.

I don't touch Android or iOS directly, but they each have their own respective environments (Eclipse and X-Code) and APIs. Qt exists for them in some form via QML.

tl;dr: If you want to have a good time when creating GUIs, you have to tie yourself to a different language (or broken variant of C++) as well (.NET languages or C++/CLI for windows, Qt's brand of C++ for Qt, Javascript for Electron).

Although I've had my ups and downs with it in the past, Embarcadero's FireMonkey aka FMX framework has loads of nice features, is really easy to use, and cross platform. The problem is you're going to have to use their IDE and compiler. Don't get me wrong, it's a really nice IDE and compiler. It may not be for everyone.

https://www.embarcadero.com/products/cbuilder

Really all comes down to what kind of software and for what platform you are planning on developing.

---
http://sordie.co.uk
http://twitter.com/@SordieEO

Hey all, I've been putting thought back into this now I have so much spare time and wanted to check here again. I'm still very naive when it comes to any c++ coding outside of eoserv/eobots and so I wanted to ask more stuff before I dive into something stupid.

For some reason I've been trying to stay using codeblocks and I think that's making life harder? Should I just use something like Qt?(I did look into Qt and I am thinking about it). I've seen allegro mentioned around here alot, that's what EOMap uses right? Kaleto was telling me to avoid that due to lack of updates though?

As for Visual Studio, I can remember compiling Effans C# client and remember there was quite a bit of work in it and it needed lots of dependencies (Unless that's me doing something wrong?) I'm going to keep looking into it and would really love some opinions.

I'm not going to be unrealistic and say I want to make a client, but a small app with a nice little background image sounds like a nice start.

I think Allegro is pretty much like the gateway drug of visual programming. If you want to spew out quick games with only a small learning curve, this is for you. There are variations between platforms, but not enough to stop you from programming a basic game for PC or Mac. The only thing really not in box is MIDI, but mmsystems should be easy enough to include into your project to get that. Also, there are probably a few hundred n00b tutorials on the internet for Allegro so you can dive in and make a shit game in a few hours.

Well I'll throw in my thoughts. SDL is a nice little library quick painless an has networking addons, plays nicely with Opengl has tons of addons a good community an it is fairly quick. Downside is it's software ran not too much hardware accelerated.