C++ Text Editor Development

[Natsuki]

Hello everyone! I'm new to this website. I decided to look into a programming community's input for my idea. I need some elaboration on all of it though, so I would appreciate input and experience advice. By the way, my name is Natsuki as the username intends! And I am a Japanese lady.


I am well-taught in C++ so I don't think most concepts would be hard for me to use, all though I do not plan on anything too terribly difficult.


The Basic design is it would use some sort of GTK(I think officially it is called GTK+) on the Windows platform, develop a regular, somewhat basic looking text editor, which can have custom plugins for it that, when activated, allow for certain syntax highlighting to be accepted! If any of you have heard of Notepad++ I am sure you have, it is about what I want to make, only in a less complicated manner.. Using Visual C++ and GTK if I can?

I am not entirely sure if some of this would be possible, as far as like, for example.. maybe just plugins that anyone (and myself) can design to have been activated in the editor itself and deactivated if not wanting to be used..

And the GTK+ deal, I am not sure about GTK, but my friend suggested to use it instead of C++ built in GUI because GUI programming is very difficult without some sort of base other than the original C++ Windows GUI based stuff.. I have never done GUI programming, so perhaps a professional opinion would be useful to me!


Please post thoughtfully! And thank you very much!


P.S.;

I'm sorry! I did not notice the Managed C++ category, I am not sure if this belongs there or not though.. a moderator can make that decision! Pardon me...

[v0id]

Originally Posted by Natsuki

Using Visual C++ and GTK if I can?

You sure can. And if there's some features GTK+ hasn't, I'm sure you can find it in other libraries or toolkits.

Originally Posted by Natsuki

And the GTK+ deal, I am not sure about GTK, but my friend suggested to use it instead of C++ built in GUI because GUI programming is very difficult without some sort of base other than the original C++ Windows GUI based stuff.. I have never done GUI programming, so perhaps a professional opinion would be useful to me!

I'm not a professional, but I'll give it a try. First of all: C++ has not built-in library for GUI. What your friend was thinking of was probably the Windows API (which by the way, isn't C++, but pure C) And your friend is right, it can be tough for a person who has never done any GUI-programming to use the Windows API. And I agree, that using a toolkit is much easier, and more effective. It's good to know what's going on under the hood though, so it would be nice to learn how the Windows API is working.

There are other alternatives than GTK+, so you may want to read about the others, before you start on your project, so that you're sure on which of them to use. I've experience with the toolkit, wxWidgets, and I can only recommend it. It's easy to use, and you get a lot done in very little time. It also has great features for text-processing and file-management (you'll probably need these, if you're planning to make a Notepad++ clone), besides the GUI-features.

[Natsuki]

Wow, thank you, v0id! This was the information I was looking to have answered.

I planned eventually to learn about Windows API, but I do not want to get into it right now, I want to finish my current projects before I study something that requires a lot more of my time!

Are there any good resources out there for helping you choose a GTK+ like toolkit? And the alternatives you spoke of?

I am sure each toolkit that is out there comes with a readme of sorts that helps you get used to using it? Or an instruction manual as to using the built in functionality?



P.S.;

I added to your reputation you, v0id! Thanks again!

[v0id]

Originally Posted by Natsuki

Wow, thank you, v0id! This was the information I was looking to have answered.

I'm just glad that I could help. :-)

Originally Posted by Natsuki

Are there any good resources out there for helping you choose a GTK+ like toolkit? And the alternatives you spoke of?

Unfortunately, no, or at least I don't know any such resource. You will have to read about the different toolkits yourself, and then decide which of them to use, depending on how well the toolkit fits you. Personally, I will suggest you to read about these toolkits: wxWidgets, Qt, JUCE and GTK+. All of them are major toolkits, have big userdatabases, great resources, and of course, great functionality. If you're interested in other alternatives, than those I've mentioned, you can find a big list of toolkits on Wikipedia.

Originally Posted by Natsuki

I am sure each toolkit that is out there comes with a readme of sorts that helps you get used to using it? Or an instruction manual as to using the built in functionality?

Most of them will probably come with some sort of readme, documentation, and even example code to get you started. If one of the toolkits doesn't come with this stuff; don't worry. You'll usually be able to find a lot of information on the internet, and there's usually more information on the internet than in the packages the toolkits arrive in, so even though some of them may come with material to get you started, I'll suggest you to check the internet for resources too.

[Natsuki]

Thanks again, really, you do me too much justice!

I will research those, I already have obtained a piece of treasure here it seems wxWidgets had an e-Book out, so I have that. I wonder if GTK+ has one? I will keep looking..


Your help has been tremendous though! My only other questions would be involving ones you probably canot answer or would just tell me to look up myself, but I will mention them as a final note:

I would probably need to know how to use the GTK+ and or wxWidgets in Visual C++ 2008 express.. but I didn't know it had a visual editing mode, all I have really used it for is making projects and compiling standard C++ code. I do not know how to code in forms like C# does.. would I have to learn?

[v0id]

Originally Posted by Natsuki

I would probably need to know how to use the GTK+ and or wxWidgets in Visual C++ 2008 express.. but I didn't know it had a visual editing mode, all I have really used it for is making projects and compiling standard C++ code. I do not know how to code in forms like C# does.. would I have to learn?

I can't help you much here. I don't have any experience with Visual C++ nor C#. If you've problems in compiling (and linking) the code (when you're using toolkits) you'll have to find out how to add libraries to Visual C++, which is going to be used when compiling. I can't be more specific than this, sorry.

Edit: This link is maybe a help.

[Natsuki]

Thanks for all of your help v0id. I researched a bit and chose to try out wxWidgets first, but I am having issues understanding what exactly they want me to do.. apparently I must custom-compile wxWidgets for my machine using Visual C++ 2008 express.. I reaklly don7t want to have to do all of this un-necessary work really, I used wxWidgets once before with devC++ and it didn't require compiling.. all I did was palce some .dll in the library section and it worked fine. Is GTK+ any easier to install I wonder?

[v0id]

Originally Posted by Natsuki

[...] I used wxWidgets once before with devC++ and it didn't require compiling.. all I did was palce some .dll in the library section and it worked fine.

It did require compiling, and it was compiled, exactly because those .DLL-files were placed in the "library section." You'll have to do the same thing with Visual C++. It's two different IDEs, so the way of adding .DLL-files to a project differs. It would be exactly the same, if you chose GTK+. You would still have to add the files.