This walkthrough shows how to create a traditional Windows desktop application in Visual Studio. The example application you'll create uses the Windows API to display 'Hello, Windows desktop!' in a window. You can use the code that you develop in this walkthrough as a pattern to create other Windows desktop applications.
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The Windows API (also known as the Win32 API, Windows Desktop API, and Windows Classic API) is a C-language-based framework for creating Windows applications. It has been in existence since the 1980s and has been used to create Windows applications for decades. More advanced and easier-to-program frameworks have been built on top of the Windows API. For example, MFC, ATL, the .NET frameworks. Even the most modern Windows Runtime code for UWP and Store apps written in C++/WinRT uses the Windows API underneath. For more information about the Windows API, see Windows API Index. There are many ways to create Windows applications, but the process above was the first.
Important
For the sake of brevity, some code statements are omitted in the text. The Build the code section at the end of this document shows the complete code.
A computer that runs Microsoft Windows 7 or later versions. We recommend Windows 10 for the best development experience.
A copy of Visual Studio. For information on how to download and install Visual Studio, see Install Visual Studio. When you run the installer, make sure that the Desktop development with C++ workload is checked. Don't worry if you didn't install this workload when you installed Visual Studio. You can run the installer again and install it now.
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An understanding of the basics of using the Visual Studio IDE. If you've used Windows desktop apps before, you can probably keep up. For an introduction, see Visual Studio IDE feature tour.
An understanding of enough of the fundamentals of the C++ language to follow along. Don't worry, we don't do anything too complicated.
Follow these steps to create your first Windows desktop project. As you go, you'll enter the code for a working Windows desktop application. To see the documentation for your preferred version of Visual Studio, use the Version selector control. It's found at the top of the table of contents on this page.
From the main menu, choose File > New > Project to open the Create a New Project dialog box.
At the top of the dialog, set Language to C++, set Platform to Windows, and set Project type to Desktop.
From the filtered list of project types, choose Windows Desktop Wizard then choose Next. In the next page, enter a name for the project, for example, DesktopApp.
Choose the Create button to create the project.
The Windows Desktop Project dialog now appears. Under Application type, select Desktop application (.exe). Under Additional options, select Empty project. Choose OK to create the project.
In Solution Explorer, right-click the DesktopApp project, choose Add, and then choose New Item.
In the Add New Item dialog box, select C++ File (.cpp). In the Name box, type a name for the file, for example, HelloWindowsDesktop.cpp. Choose Add.
Your project is now created and your source file is opened in the editor. To continue, skip ahead to Create the code.
On the File menu, choose New and then choose Project.
In the New Project dialog box, in the left pane, expand Installed > Visual C++, then select Windows Desktop. In the middle pane, select Windows Desktop Wizard.
In the Name box, type a name for the project, for example, DesktopApp. Choose OK.
In the Windows Desktop Project dialog, under Application type, select Windows application (.exe). Under Additional options, select Empty project. Make sure Precompiled Header isn't selected. Choose OK to create the project.
In Solution Explorer, right-click the DesktopApp project, choose Add, and then choose New Item.
In the Add New Item dialog box, select C++ File (.cpp). In the Name box, type a name for the file, for example, HelloWindowsDesktop.cpp. Choose Add.
Your project is now created and your source file is opened in the editor. To continue, skip ahead to Create the code.
On the File menu, choose New and then choose Project.
In the New Project dialog box, in the left pane, expand Installed > Templates > Visual C++, and then select Win32. In the middle pane, select Win32 Project.
In the Name box, type a name for the project, for example, DesktopApp. Choose OK.
On the Overview page of the Win32 Application Wizard, choose Next.
On the Application Settings page, under Application type, select Windows application. Under Additional options, uncheck Precompiled header, then select Empty project. Choose Finish to create the project.
In Solution Explorer, right-click the DesktopApp project, choose Add, and then choose New Item.
In the Add New Item dialog box, select C++ File (.cpp). In the Name box, type a name for the file, for example, HelloWindowsDesktop.cpp. Choose Add.
Your project is now created and your source file is opened in the editor.
Next, you'll learn how to create the code for a Windows desktop application in Visual Studio.
Just as every C application and C++ application must have a main
function as its starting point, every Windows desktop application must have a WinMain
function. WinMain
has the following syntax.
For information about the parameters and return value of this function, see WinMain entry point.
Note
What are all those extra words, such as CALLBACK
, or HINSTANCE
, or _In_
? The traditional Windows API uses typedefs and preprocessor macros extensively to abstract away some of the details of types and platform-specific code, such as calling conventions, __declspec declarations, and compiler pragmas. In Visual Studio, you can use the IntelliSense Quick Info feature to see what these typedefs and macros define. Hover your mouse over the word of interest, or select it and press Ctrl+K, Ctrl+I for a small pop-up window that contains the definition. For more information, see Using IntelliSense. Parameters and return types often use SAL Annotations to help you catch programming errors. For more information, see Using SAL Annotations to Reduce C/C++ Code Defects.
Windows desktop programs require <windows.h>. <tchar.h> defines the TCHAR
macro, which resolves ultimately to wchar_t if the UNICODE symbol is defined in your project, otherwise it resolves to char. If you always build with UNICODE enabled, you don't need TCHAR and can just use wchar_t directly.
Along with the WinMain
function, every Windows desktop application must also have a window-procedure function. This function is typically named WndProc
, but you can name it whatever you like. WndProc
has the following syntax.
In this function, you write code to handle messages that the application receives from Windows when events occur. For example, if a user chooses an OK button in your application, Windows will send a message to you and you can write code inside your WndProc
function that does whatever work is appropriate. It's called handling an event. You only handle the events that are relevant for your application.
For more information, see Window Procedures.
In the WinMain
function, you populate a structure of type WNDCLASSEX. The structure contains information about the window: the application icon, the background color of the window, the name to display in the title bar, among other things. Importantly, it contains a function pointer to your window procedure. The following example shows a typical WNDCLASSEX
structure.
For information about the fields of the structure above, see WNDCLASSEX.
Register the WNDCLASSEX
with Windows so that it knows about your window and how to send messages to it. Use the RegisterClassEx function and pass the window class structure as an argument. The _T
macro is used because we use the TCHAR
type.
Now you can create a window. Use the CreateWindow function.
This function returns an HWND
, which is a handle to a window. A handle is somewhat like a pointer that Windows uses to keep track of open windows. For more information, see Windows Data Types.
At this point, the window has been created, but we still need to tell Windows to make it visible. That's what this code does:
The displayed window doesn't have much content because you haven't yet implemented the WndProc
function. In other words, the application isn't yet handling the messages that Windows is now sending to it.
To handle the messages, we first add a message loop to listen for the messages that Windows sends. When the application receives a message, this loop dispatches it to your WndProc
function to be handled. The message loop resembles the following code.
For more information about the structures and functions in the message loop, see MSG, GetMessage, TranslateMessage, and DispatchMessage.
At this point, the WinMain
function should resemble the following code.
To enable the WndProc
function to handle the messages that the application receives, implement a switch statement.
One important message to handle is the WM_PAINT message. The application receives the WM_PAINT
message when part of its displayed window must be updated. The event can occur when a user moves a window in front of your window, then moves it away again. Your application doesn't know when these events occur. Only Windows knows, so it notifies your app with a WM_PAINT
message. When the window is first displayed, all of it must be updated.
To handle a WM_PAINT
message, first call BeginPaint, then handle all the logic to lay out the text, buttons, and other controls in the window, and then call EndPaint. For the application, the logic between the beginning call and the ending call is to display the string 'Hello, Windows desktop!' in the window. In the following code, notice that the TextOut function is used to display the string.
HDC
in the code is a handle to a device context, which is a data structure that Windows uses to enable your application to communicate with the graphics subsystem. The BeginPaint
and EndPaint
functions make your application behave like a good citizen and doesn't use the device context for longer than it needs to. The functions help make the graphics subsystem is available for use by other applications.
An application typically handles many other messages. For example, WM_CREATE when a window is first created, and WM_DESTROY when the window is closed. The following code shows a basic but complete WndProc
function.
As promised, here's the complete code for the working application.
Delete any code you've entered in HelloWindowsDesktop.cpp in the editor. Copy this example code and then paste it into HelloWindowsDesktop.cpp:
On the Build menu, choose Build Solution. The results of the compilation should appear in the Output window in Visual Studio.
To run the application, press F5. A window that contains the text 'Hello, Windows desktop!' should appear in the upper-left corner of the display.
Congratulations! You've completed this walkthrough and built a traditional Windows desktop application.
Perhaps, the capacity of C++ to perform fast graphics display has contributed to the popularity of C++ in graphics and game programming. In this section, you will learn basic C++ graphics programming. This part is a good place to start learning graphics programming with C++. I also guide you to the process of installing graphics library and header files of freeglut package: Download here
Before you can write C++ code to display graphics on the screen, you need to install and configure graphics libraries and header files that C++ compiler can understand. freeglut package is a popular package that provides these libraries and header files. freeglut is an open source alternative to the GLUT toolkit (OpenGL Utility Toolkit) library that is a software interface to graphics harware. It can be used to produce colors images of moving, two and three-dimensional objects. After you download the freeglut package in zip format, unzip it in a proper place that you can find it. Then do the followings:
-Copy freeglut.dll file to Window System32 folder
-Copy all header files from freeglut/include/GL to include/GL folder of Dev-C++ compiler
-Copy libfreeglut.a file from freeglut/lib to lib folder of Dev-C++ compiler
-Open Dev-C++ window editor and create a new C++ project(Console Application)
-Open Project Option by pressing Alt+p
-In Linker box of Parameters, you need to add the following library files:
libopengl32.a
libfreeglut.a
You my find these two files in lib folder of Dev-C++ compiler
-Click Ok to save change
Now you are ready to start your first graphic program. Copy and paste the following code to your project:
#include <GL/freeglut.h>
using namespace std;
void showme(void);
void dis();
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
glutInit(&argc, argv);
glutInitDisplayMode(GLUT_DEPTH GLUT_SINGLE GLUT_RGBA);
glutInitWindowSize(400,400);
glOrtho(-1.2, 1.2, -1.2, 1.2, -1.2, 1.2);
glutCreateWindow('Teapot');
setup();
glutDisplayFunc(showme);
glutMainLoop();
return 0;
}
//--- showme
void showme(void)
{
glutWireTeapot(0.6);
glutSwapBuffers();
}
void setup()
{
glClearColor(0.2,0.5,0.2,0.2);
glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT);
}
You need to include the freeglut.h file to your program by writing #include <GL/freeglut.h>. The glutInit() command initializes GLUT and processes any command-line argument. It should be called before other commands. glutInitDisplayModecommand specifies the color mode (ARGB or index-color) or buffer mode (single or double -buffer) to use. The glutInitWindowSize command specifies the size, in pixel, of the working window. The glOrtho command specifies the coordinate system to draw the images. The glutCreateWindow creates a window with OpenGL context. The window is not yet displayed until the glutMainLoop command. The glClearColor command specifies clearing color. The glClear actually clears the window to a specified color. With the glutDisplayFunc command you can specify objects to display on the window. The glutSwapBuffers command waits until the previous an next buffer completely displayed.