Computer System

and Multimedia (Week 2)

Getting Started With Windows
Programming
Textbook: Programming Windows / Charles Petzold. -- 5th ed.
Chapter 1. Getting Started

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 Setting up Visual Studio for a Windows project (1)
• Start Visual Studio.net. Select 'File', then 'New Project'

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 Setting up Visual Studio for a Windows project(2)
• You will see the following screen.

Choose 'Win32 Project' and choose a name for the project (in this case
“Window GUI”). Then select OK. 3
 Setting up Visual Studio for a Windows project(3)
• You will see the following screen.

Select ‘Next'
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 Setting up Visual Studio for a Windows project(4)
• You will see the following screen.

Select 'Empty project' and click 'Finish'

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 Setting up Visual Studio for a Windows Program(1)
• After the Visual Studio IDE opens, in the Solution Explorer window, Right click on 'Source files'
and select 'Add -> New Item'
• You will see the following screen.

Right click on 'Source files' and select 'Add -> New Item'

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Setting up Visual Studio for a Windows Program (2)
• You will see the following screen.

Choose 'C++ File' and enter a name (in this case “main”) into the name
field. 7
Setting up Visual Studio for a Windows Program (3)
• You will see the following screen.

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 Writing the program
• The Windows equivalent to the "hello, world" program has
exactly the same components as the character-mode version.
It has an include statement, a program entry point, a function
call, and a return statement. Here's the program (Write the
program in the “main.cpp” edit tab area:
/*--------------------------------------------------------------
HelloMsg.c -- Displays "Hello, Windows Programming!" in a message box (c)
Charles Petzold, 1998
--------------------------------------------------------------*/
#include <windows.h>
int WINAPI WinMain (HINSTANCE hInstance, HINSTANCE hPrevInstance,
PSTR szCmdLine, int iCmdShow)
{
MessageBox (NULL, TEXT ("Hello, Windows Programming!"), TEXT ("HelloMsg"),
0) ;
return 0 ;
}
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 Writing the program (2)
• You will see the following screen.

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 Running the program
• Press F5 to build and RUN the program. The program will
compile and if there is no error, the following Dialog Box will
emerge which require a response from user. (Assuming there
is no Error: try solving any errors (normally syntax) and press
F5 again).

• Press OK and the program will exit 11

 About the main.cpp Program in the
Windows GUI Project
• Structurally, HELLOMSG.C is identical to the K&R
"hello, world" program.
• The header file STDIO.H has been replaced with
WINDOWS.H, the entry point main has been
replaced with WinMain, and the C run-time library
function printf has been replaced with the
Windows API function MessageBox.
• However, there is much in the program that is new,
including several strange-looking uppercase
identifiers.
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 The Header Files
• HELLOMSG.C begins with a preprocessor directive that you'll find at
the top of virtually every Windows program written in C:
#include <windows.h>
• WINDOWS.H is a master include file that includes other Windows
header files, some of which also include other header files. The
most important and most basic of these header files are:
windef.h Basic type definitions.
winnt.h Type definitions for Unicode support.
winbase.h Kernel functions.
winuser.h User interface functions.
wingdi.h Graphics device interface functions.
• These header files define all the Windows data types, function
calls, data structures, and constant identifiers. They are an
important part of Windows documentation.
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 Program Entry Point
• Just as the entry point to a C program is the function main, the
entry point to a Windows program is WinMain, which always
appears like this:

int WINAPI WinMain (HINSTANCE hInstance, HINSTANCE hPrevInstance, PSTR

szCmdLine, int iCmdShow)

• This entry point is documented in /Platform SDK/User Interface

Services/Windowing/Windows/Window Reference/Window
Functions. It is declared in WINBASE.H like so (line breaks and
all):

int WINAPI WinMain( HINSTANCE hInstance, HINSTANCE hPrevInstance, LPSTR

lpCmdLine, int nShowCmd );

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WinMain Function as Seen by Windows OS
• The WinMain function is declared as returning an int.
– When it exit OS will receive an integer number.
• The first parameter to WinMain is something called an "instance
handle."
– a number that an application uses to identify something, in this case the
program.
• The second parameter to WinMain is always NULL (defined as 0).
• The third parameter to WinMain is the command line used to run
the program.
• The fourth parameter to WinMain indicates how the program
should be initially displayed—either normally or maximized to fill
the window, or minimized to be displayed in the task list bar
• Discussed more in Chapter 3.
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 The MessageBox Function
• The MessageBox function creates a window, but it is a special-purpose
window of limited flexibility.
– The message box window has a title bar with a close button, an optional
icon, one or more lines of text, and up to four buttons.
– However, the icons and buttons must be chosen from a small collection that
Windows provides for you.
• The message box function is defined as follows;
int MessageBox(HWND hWnd,LPCTSTR lpText,
LPCTSTR lpCaption,UINT uType);

• hWnd - is the handle to the window that you are working with
• lpText - is the text that is to be displayed in the message
boxlpCaption - is the title of the message box
• uType - defines various properties like the icon and types on input
(eg, Yes, No, Cancel, etc..)
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 uType of MessageBox Function:
Input button
• The fourth argument to MessageBox can be a combination of
constants beginning whose ID identifier with the prefix MB_ that are
defined in WINUSER.H as follows:
#define MB_OK 0x00000000L
#define MB_OKCANCEL 0x00000001L
#define MB_ABORTRETRYIGNORE 0x00000002L
#define MB_YESNOCANCEL 0x00000003L
#define MB_YESNO 0x00000004L
#define MB_RETRYCANCEL 0x00000005L

• In the program we pun NULL which is the MB_OK input

button.

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Additional constant in the forth parameter
• You can use the C OR (|) operator to combine one of the
constants shown above with a constant that indicates which
of the buttons is the default:
#define MB_DEFBUTTON1 0x00000000L
#define MB_DEFBUTTON2 0x00000100L
#define MB_DEFBUTTON3 0x00000200L
#define MB_DEFBUTTON4 0x00000300L
• You can also use a constant that indicates the appearance of
an icon in the message box:
#define MB_ICONHAND 0x00000010L
#define MB_ICONQUESTION 0x00000020L
#define MB_ICONEXCLAMATION 0x00000030L
#define MB_ICONASTERISK 0x00000040L
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Icon before the Text string (declared in second parameter)

The icon are as follows shown respectively to the ID identifier:

ICON ID label
MB_ICONQUESTION

MB_ICONWARNING

MB_ICONINFORMATION

MB_ICONERROR

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 Return value of MessageBox Function

Type: int
Return code/value Description
IDABORT
• If a message box has a Cancel 3
The Abort button was selected.
button, the function returns IDCANCEL
The Cancel button was selected.
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the IDCANCEL value if either
IDCONTINUE
the ESC key is pressed or the The Continue button was selected.
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Cancel button is selected. If the IDIGNORE
The Ignore button was selected.
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message box has no Cancel IDNO
The No button was selected.
button, pressing ESC has no 7
IDOK
effect. 1
The OK button was selected.
• If the function fails, the return IDRETRY
The Retry button was selected.
value is zero. To get extended 4
IDTRYAGAIN
error information, call 10
The Try Again button was selected.

GetLastError. IDYES
The Yes button was selected.
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• If the function succeeds, the
return value is one of the
following menu-item values. 20
 Week 2 Example!
#include <windows.h>
int WINAPI WinMain (HINSTANCE hInstance, HINSTANCE hPrevInstance,
PSTR szCmdLine, int iCmdShow)
{
int nResult=MessageBox(NULL,
L"An example of Cancel,Retry,Continue", //Q1: What is the difference
//between using this L prefix
TEXT("Week 2 Example!"), //and this TEXT prefix
MB_ICONERROR|MB_ABORTRETRYIGNORE);//Q2: What does this “|” operator
//implements on the parameter.
switch(nResult)
{
case IDABORT:
// 'Abort' was pressed
break;
case IDRETRY:
// 'Retry' was pressed
break;
case IDIGNORE:
// 'Ignore' was pressed
break;
}
return 0 ;
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}
 Display of Exercise 1
• The display of the program will be as follows:

• The program does logical dicision but just

exit.
• Answer the Question in the comment field
with prefix Q. 22
 Programming Exercise Week 2
Update the program shown in on week 2 example such that it
will display the following respective message and icon in a new
message box with only a OK button, if the respective button is
selected and then .

Button Icon Displayed

Message in new message box
Selected
IDABORT Abort button was pressed
IDRETRY Retry button was pressed
IDIGNORE Ignore button was pressed
For Lecturer press here for solution
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