Win32 Programming

[ResidentBiscuit]

Ok so I want to get into DirectX/OpenGl but I would like some knowledge of Win32 first. Well I have searched everywhere for a decent tutorial but I cant find anything and it is soooo frustrating. What I do find, either has no explanation of what is going on to just create a window, and sometimes I get code that doesn't even compile. It is rediculous, why is it so hard to find anything good on this topic? This seems like a pretty major part of programming in C++ and I can't find anything. I've grown bored with console apps (Unless you guys have some cool project I can do) so I would love to get into something a little more challenging. So if I could be pointed in the right direction, that would be great.

Thank you

[zb0S216C]

It's hard to find Win32 tutorials because not many people have time to write effective tutorials. Besides, there're a couple of 3^rd party libraries out there, such as Qt, which people prefer over the Windows API.

_Wazzak

[ResidentBiscuit]

Is Qt something like OpenGL/DirectX or is just a different windows library?

[zb0S216C]

Qt is a graphics library but it's not the same as OpenGL or DirectX. As far as I know, it's a GUI API. The Wikipedia link^[1] will give you some insight on Qt (since it's dedicated to the Qt framework).

References:
^[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_(framework)

_Wazzak

[ResidentBiscuit]

Well, I want an understand of what is actually going on with the computer. I'm not looking for "easier" I'm just looking at becoming a better programmer in general.

[gpotw]

There are plenty of books on the subject. I recommend these, in order:

Beginning Visual C++ 2010
Programming Windows
Windows via C/C++

[ResidentBiscuit]

Is the first book there really needed if I already have a good understand of C++ and OOP?

[DSLq5Di1]

MSDN. Use it. Learn it. Love it.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee663300