Rich User Interface Application in Visual Studio

Question

I am a noob C++ Programmer. I want to develop GUI applications. I am using Visual Studio 2010. Normally, Visual Studio Projects begin with the old style interface with a frame with a menu in it. But I want to build an application with more rich Graphical elements. Just like the windows 8 start screen.. or the Visual studio start page. Please teach me how to do those fancy effects.

Edit: I don't like to use flash or JavaFX Java because they need additional programs to be installed before using.

Answer 1

Well, basically you have not much options here. Regarding to your choice (MS Visual Studio) they are:

• MFC/C++ - not convinient at all, I can say it's a small pain in the ass. But a lot of program were written exactly with a help of MFC library. It's a canonical way :)
• Windows Forms/C++ - actually it's not usial C++, but C++/CLI. Not so much different, but has a few things to note. You can take a look at C++/CLI Cheat Sheet for example. Not usial, but, hey, you can use Windows Forms!
• Windows Forms/C# - as for me, this combination is almost perfect. Nothing to add.
• WPF/C# - even much more interesting. Any control can be modified in any way, but you have to know a lot of tricks and howtos to make all things work. In that case I highly suggest to use WPF Toolkit. Anyway, you can find a lot of cool stuff for WPF (I even made once a mini-SCADA with a bunch of UI elements related to industrial stuff (valve, pumps, etc.)). Do not forget, you can do animation as well. It is pretty easy.
• Qt addon for MSVS/C++ - the last but not the least option. All UI you make in Qt Quick - GUI IDE. Also you have a greatiest slot/signal interaction model (which was improved in Qt5.0).

My choise now is definitely Qt. It's crossplatform, btw.

Answer 2

For C++ you can create a WinForms (Windows Forms) project.

But nowadays WPF is preferred over WinForms, and WPF is usually used from C# or VB.NET. I'm not sure if it's possible to use from C++, but if so it would have poor support. C# is pretty easy to learn if you already know C++.

If you want to create Windows Store apps in Windows 8, you can also use C++/CX, but that requires VS 2012.

Answer 3

So you really want to make flashy things like these, eh? Well, you can make a Windows Store app, but like previously mentioned it requires Visual Studio 2012.

Take a look at this question too: How to develop unique GUI's in Visual Studio?

Answer 4

You have several options of GUI from which you can choose wxWidgets, Qt, Ultimate++.

Answer 5

or u can use Embarcadero C++ Developer ----> actually Firemonkey is so amazing check it out C++ Builder