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I'm working on a Project with outdated, very old looking GUI (the used GUI framework is more than 10 years old)

Since the used programming language is Eiffel, there are almost no good libraries for GUI development. Although Wrappers for C libraries exist, it's not that easy to wrap something like Qt with them. The current GUI framework uses the Windows API to create windows, widgets and so on. But as stated - it's very old.

Now i would like to learn more about how to use the Windows API directly to create state of the art GUI's

Can someone recommend any reading material?

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    I think "Windows API" and "start of the art GUI's" don't belong in the same sentence. I'm pretty sure most native GUIs are written in C#, and Qt really is the best way to go. Commented Apr 9, 2010 at 8:18
  • But since i'm programming in Eiffel, i can't go for Qt. I can't wrap it since it uses a special preprocessor and Eiffels wrapping capabilities are rather limited. Commented Apr 9, 2010 at 8:43
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    @Michael Aaron Safyan - Every GUI element you see in windows (with the exception of Java swing) is created using "Windows API". the various C# librarlies are just wrappers. So in theory you can achieve anything with the plain API. Commented Apr 9, 2010 at 8:55
  • Oh yes. it does. Drawing stuff, on the screen, goes via GDI, or DirectX, both of which are still firmly in the Windows API camp. I get your point tho. WPF doesn't use Windows controls, but draws its own widgets. Commented Apr 9, 2010 at 12:44
  • @shoosh, that wasn't what I meant... I meant that Windows (whether the C API or the C# wrappers) are not "state of the art" at all. Windows has been way behind Mac OS X, for example, when it comes to graphical user interfaces... Mac is the true innovator in the GUI design field. And when it comes to things other than GUIs, UNIX (Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, etc.) tend to be ahead of the curve... lots of CS research tends to be conducted using Linux, for example, so "pushed onto the consumer by EOM agreements with hardware vendors", yes, but "state of the art", no. Commented Apr 9, 2010 at 22:28

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"Windows Programming" by Charles Petzold is an excellent start on Win32 API programming.
It won't show you how to create a WPF-grade interface but it will show you how to create a basic average application.

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It doesn't take a lot of surgery to turn on Windows Visual Styles and get an instant new look. If your toolset doesn't allow creating resources then take a look at mt.exe in the Windows SDK.

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