Ivor Horton's Beginning Visual C++ 2013

Chapter 11Windows Programming Concepts

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS CHAPTER:

• The basic structure of a window
• The Windows API and how it is used
• Windows messages and how you deal with them
• The notation that is commonly used in Windows programs
• The basic structure of a Windows program
• How you create an elementary program using the Windows API and how it works
• Microsoft Foundation Classes
• The basic elements of an MFC-based program

WROX.COM CODE DOWNLOADS FOR THIS CHAPTER

You can find the wrox.com code downloads for this chapter on the Download Code tab at www.wrox.com/go/beginningvisualc. The code is in the Chapter 11 download and individually named according to the names throughout the chapter.

This chapter will take you on a tour of the basic ideas that are involved in every Windows program in C++. You’ll first develop a simple example that uses the Windows operating system API directly. This will enable you to understand how a Windows application works behind the scenes, which will be useful when you are developing applications using the more sophisticated facilities provided by Visual C++. Next you will see what you get when you create a Windows program using the Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC) that encapsulates Win32 capabilities.

WINDOWS PROGRAMMING BASICS

The Windows API is referred to as WinAPI or Win32, the latter being a slightly dated term since the availability of 64-bit versions of Windows. When you are developing an application with the Windows API, you are ...