Hi there,
I'm learning programing windows applications with C++. Now I'm reading about messages and I'm playing with the spy++. What function spy++ use in order to mark/highlight the window under mouse cursor?
Also, can you give me some tips about using MSDN? I'm my opinion is not user friendly at all. I'm learning programming by myself and i can't get some real life experience tips as those which are learning at college or in teams.
ty
Not sure exactly what your problem with MSDN is ... I tend to go to e.g. Win32 and COM development and look around for a suitable category in the listing to the left, then click down from there. Or just enter function names and search if I already know what I'm looking for but want the reference documentation. On the other hand, I'm not much of a Win32 developer.
Writing a Windows application with just the windows API is possible, but you'll end up writing huge amounts of boilerplate code just to create simple things. This is why people normally use libraries built on top of it to make things easier - MFC for example.
The MSDN article Creating Win32 Applications provides a good explanation of the ins-and-outs of a Windows application using the Win32 API. Bare in mind though that you could build the same application in minutes using MFC.
I agree that MSDN is not the most user friendly source of information for a beginner. In my opinion it works much better as a reference.
My advice would be to focus on building some test applications using MFC (assuming you are tied to C++ as a language). Try looking at the codeproject MFC sections for example, and perhaps even buy a book to help get you started. This does of course require Visual Studio, but you can download the free express edition here
I think spy++ is just inverting the colors directly on the window/screen DC (You could use InvertRect() for example) On Windows 2000 and later, it is probably better to use a translucent layered window if you actually wanted to implement this window highlight since some graphic corruption can occur when messing with other windows behind their back.