What programming languages have access to the WinAPI?

Question

I'm looking to start a new programming language and for my first task I want to overlay some text on another applications window, similar to the guy in this post:

Overlay text on some else's window - HUD

Clearly from that post, this can be done in VB.NET, and extrapolating from that, I can probably safely assume that C++\C# can also do this similarly.

My question is; are there any other languages that can do the same? Can Ruby do it? :)

I'm looking for the following capabilities:

1. Enumerate open windows to find the one I want to overlay on top of.
2. Overlay text on the 3rd party apps window. (Rich text is a bonus)
3. Detect window bounds so I can resize the text when the user resizes the window.
4. Allow click-through of my created text so it doesn't interfere with the 3rd party apps functionality.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

If you want to use Ruby, you have two options: IronRuby and "classic Ruby".

I guess IronRuby would be the preferred option on Windows as it runs on top of .NET and has access to full Windows API through that.

If .NET is too much for your needs and you need to do something simple, then classic Ruby might be a better fit.

For classic Ruby, check out these pages:

• Ruby and Microsoft Windows
• Microsoft Windows Support

Beware: argument packing and unpacking is not very convenient.