Creating application windows

Ok, I now have the basics of C++ down (pointers, classes ect) and would like to do something a littler more advanced than cout/cin.

I want to be able to create a window (I use windows 98) and add all sorts of buttons, pictures, text areas and the like. The problem is that I have no idea where to start on this.

What should I try using to do this? I've read ofhand references about MS32 or win API or something, but not sure what that's about. I'm guessing I need to use a library in windows to create a window.

Also if you know any tutorials that would be good for something like this it would be much appreciated.

I suggest learning DirectX or OpenGL. You can make a lot of 2-D and 3-D stuff with it, and there are some great tutorials on the internet about them if you look.

ok, thanks, I think I will go with directx for now, as that supports graphics and sound so I read.

openGL sounds cool right now, but I save it for later.

well time to eat my hat, but I think I'll go with openGL instead, as a 200+mb download for the directX skd is insane, and not only that it would barely fit on my computer when decompressed.

Who needs sound anyway. ^_^

If you want sound there are a load of other libraries out there that will do it for you without the hideous download time (and size of the sdk when uncompressed). Pretty sure SDL deals with sound (and also works very well with OpenGL) and another great library for it is FMod.

Hope one of these works for you,

-KM-