What To Use For Windows Desktop Apps Development?

ervin-lemark (71)in #programming • 7 years ago (edited)

Calling all the Windows programming gurus out there.

Can you help me out and recommend the tool / environment to develop small, stand alone Windows desktop applications?

My needs are very moderate. Decent GUI with capability of user input and file handling ability. That's it. Preferably Windows XP and up.

I did some Delphi programming ages ago so I am familiar with basic concepts. Before that I was developing DOS applications in Clipper. Now I deal mostly with PL/SQL programming (for living) and php meddling for hobby. I did some VC# and Java / jsp stuff too.

My first web apps were written in asp and javascript years before it was considered a proper language :)

Pretty colorful background, as you can see.

I am ready. Throw your suggestion my way :)

Thanks in advance!

#windows #applications #desktop #minnowsunite

7 years ago in #programming by ervin-lemark (71)

$7.01

Sort:

Trending

[-]

crypticwyrm (59) 7 years ago

Try Red, it creates fully native Windows applications and could not be easier to use. It's still in development, but it's usable. Also outputs macOS binaries (again, fully native, no cross platform GUI toolkit or web view shenanigans, no runtime, small file size!) if you build it from source and Linux, Android and iOS is coming in the future.

Little text editor that loads, displays and writes a text file:

view [
    button "Load" [
        a/text: read %myfile.txt
    ]
    button "Save" [
        write %myfile.txt a/text
    ]
    return
    a: area
]

No, really, that is the whole app. Download Red, double click it (no installation necessary) and a REPL starts. Just copy and paste the code into it, hit return and the app opens. Write some text, hit save. Close the app, paste the code again and hit return, app opens again, click load to load the text you just saved.

I'm going to write some Red tutorials here on Steemit soon, so feel free to follow me if you're interested in that.

$0.06

1 vote

[-]

ervin-lemark (71) 7 years ago

Great. Thanks a lot for the pointer and this quick example. I will try it out.

In the meantime I've already downloaded Visual Studio Community Edition but didn't start using it.

I will try Red first!

Ps: followed :)

$0.07

2 votes

[-]

crypticwyrm (59) 7 years ago

Cool :) Feel free to just reply to me here if you got questions. I'm by no means an expert, but if you have some beginner problems I might be able to help. For more advanced stuff, there are multiple Red Gitter chat rooms where you'll get help from experts, it's a very friendly bunch.

And as for beginner documentation, here is an overview of what Red is: http://redprogramming.com/Home.html

Here is a getting started guide (just ignore the parts about compiling from source, the already compiled binary version of Red is good enough right now, the guide is a bit outdated): http://redprogramming.com/Getting%20Started.html

And here are small examples that help you learn specific features (with lots of screenshots):

http://redprogramming.com/Short%20Red%20Code%20Examples.html

http://www.mycode4fun.co.uk/About-Red-Programming

$0.03

1 vote

[-]

ervin-lemark (71) 7 years ago

Thanks! That will be more than enough to begin with.

$0.06

1 vote

[-]

ibrahim-ym (28) 7 years ago

Gaaaawd....that windows 95 image takes me back. Oh yeah, back to the subject.

For the windows environment you have Visual Code and Visual Studio by microsoft.
Visual Studio Code is mostly a streamlined code editor that is fast and simple and supports a variety of languages.
Try: https://code.visualstudio.com/

Visual Studio is recognized by most developers as the most comprehensive and powerful platform on the market.
With Visual Studio you can develop in a multitude of languages and target not only windows but the Mac, IPhone, Android, Linix and other OSes.

You can also target microcontrollers like the Arduino and Raspberry PI.

$0.03

1 vote

[-]