sys0p

Hi,
I was wondering what I should be looking into for building UI's in C++. I'm reading Practical C++ Programming atm (still havent finished) and it doesn't seem to have anything on user interfaces.
Can anyone tell me what I should be looking into for this concept.
Thanks guys!
Cheers!

Das Bruce

Depends what your going to do with it, theres the OS'a gui, thats generally the best way to go if your only going to develop for one platform, otherwise theres heaps of cross platform ones.

thechristelegacy

Yes, there are a good many cross platform UI's. The two that we were looking into for the project we're working on are the FOX toolkit and GTK+. Those would probably the two best for crossplatform UI's since they're pretty popular.

Pizentios

OpenGL, is great and it's cross platform.

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Daggerhex_Flynn

What platform are you using, because that makes a difference. Most Windows programmers should use .Net or Java because these will not be phased out in Longhorn. The growing Linux users will typically use either (py)GTK+, QT, Java, (python) tk, Mono (C#, GTK#), or wxWindows. As far as C++ specifically is concerned on Windows, you can use C++.Net or else start learning Avalon. Apparently Standard C++ is being created for .Net or so I heard a few months back, so that would be nice, but I don't know how it has progressed, I don't think that it is ready yet. For Linux, most C++ programmers use QT or else the C++ binding to GTK+ called GTKmm (which is the only one I know that supports std::c++).

sys0p

Hey guys!
Thanks for the replies!

To Das Bruce:
I'm not thinking about developing for other platforms atm. Just looking into building a UI to help with

functionality. I'm using the Windows platform (XP) and that's probably the only platform I will use for a while.

To thechristelegacy:
Well that's interesting. So it might be an idea to build the UIs for cross-platfrom portability. So maybe I should

look into the GTK+ or so on, instead of going single-platform.

To Pizentios;
I didn't know you could use openGL. Interesting. I have alot to learn. LOL!

To Daggerhex_Flynn:
I'm using windows. So .NET is part of the C++ framework? (sorry don't know much!)
My brother is a Java programmer, but I don't wanna program in Java. I'd rather do C++ because that way I can extend my MEL functionality. That's really the whole reason I started C++. To extend my MEL for animation.
I could also use GTK+ as thechristelegacy suggested?

So .NET is not based on C++? If so, is it a whole different thing to learn?

Thanks guys!
Talk later!

Daggerhex_Flynn

Desktop GUI programming is not typically associated with 3D graphics API's. Indeed you do have a lot to learn.

If you are using a vendor platform like Windows than you are likely going to fall into the trap of learning DirectX, Win32, and VB.

God help you.

Game development for Xbox 2 and PSX is being done on Apple Mac's because of the IBM PPC architecture that these systems will be running on.

The only advice I would give is to learn < www.blender.org > and OpenGL and C++. Try making some mpeg movies with blender, and save all of your work, because you will have to apply to a game maker, unless you can finance it yourself. The modern games run about a million or two million to make. Learn Physics, and calculus too.

sys0p

Hi!
Thanks for the reply!
OK, let me start again. Well I was simply looking into creating GUI's for Desktop applications. I wasn't thinking of building an API (if that's what you meant?). It was simply an idea of creating simple GUI's for windows, such as an install UI for plugins and so on. Not that I am making any plugins (will be a long time before then).

Uh, I didn't think about building a game engine!? If that's what you mean?

Sorry you really confused me with your reply! I gotta go now, I will write later.

Cheers!

sys0p

Hey I didn't have much time to look at the blender site. But from what I can see it's a kind of shareware program that you can use to learn to build 3D objects and so on?
Is that right?
Talk when I get back

Daggerhex_Flynn

Okay, than this has absolutely nothing to do with 3d programming or gaming. If you want to write applications for Windows that will be usable on Longhorn, than learn C# and use .Net. The famework API is called Windows.Forms.