Ok, on to my next problem in my unceasing struggle to learn both D and the Windows API at the same time.

I've done a LOT of searching and cannot manage to find the correct method of creating and using a resource in a windows program.

What I would like to see is a minimal example of creating a 'hello world' windows application with the strings replaced by string resources.

Obviously, I have no idea how to import the symbol ID_HELLO into my application. I've tried following one example I saw in one news group that suggested replacing the symbol name with the id value and doing:

const char* ID_HELLO = cast (char*) 1;

But that resulted in an Access Violation.

And declaring something like:

extern (D)
const char* ID_HELLO;

resulted in a message box with an empty message. I've never dealt with resource files before, so this is all new to me. It would probably be nice to have a sample available with all the others that shows the proper way of handling resources.

I had the following in my .rc file (It's probably wrong...)
#define ID_HELLO 1

STRINGTABLE
BEGIN
	ID_HELLO	"Hello World!"
END

And this is my program:
import std.c.windows.windows;
extern (C)
{
	void gc_init ();
	void gc_term ();
	void _minit ();
	void _moduleCtor ();
	void _moduleDtor ();
	void _moduleUnitTests ();
}

extern (Windows)
int WinMain (HINSTANCE hInst, HINSTANCE hPrev, LPSTR lpCmdLine, int nCmdShow)
{
	int result;

	gc_init ();
	_minit ();

	try
	{
		_moduleCtor ();
		_moduleUnitTests ();

		result = myWinMain (hInst, hPrev, lpCmdLine, nCmdShow);

		_moduleDtor ();
	}
	catch (Object o)
	{
		MessageBoxA (null, cast (char*) o.toString (), "Error", MB_OK | MB_ICONEXCLAMATION);
		result = 0;
	}

	gc_term ();
	return result;
}

int myWinMain (HINSTANCE hInst, HINSTANCE hPrev, LPSTR lpCmdLine, int nCmdShow)
{
	MessageBoxA (null, ID_HELLO, "Hello world example ", MB_OK);
	return 0;
}

On Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:10:45 +0400, Jim Gadrow <makariverslund@gmail.com> wrote:

> Ok, on to my next problem in my unceasing struggle to learn both D and the Windows API at the same time.
>
> I've done a LOT of searching and cannot manage to find the correct method of creating and using a resource in a windows program.
>
> What I would like to see is a minimal example of creating a 'hello world' windows application with the strings replaced by string resources.
>
> Obviously, I have no idea how to import the symbol ID_HELLO into my application. I've tried following one example I saw in one news group that suggested replacing the symbol name with the id value and doing:
>
> const char* ID_HELLO = cast (char*) 1;
>
> But that resulted in an Access Violation.
>
> And declaring something like:
>
> extern (D)
> const char* ID_HELLO;
>
> resulted in a message box with an empty message. I've never dealt with resource files before, so this is all new to me. It would probably be nice to have a sample available with all the others that shows the proper way of handling resources.
>
> I had the following in my .rc file (It's probably wrong...)
> #define ID_HELLO 1
>
> STRINGTABLE
> BEGIN
> 	ID_HELLO	"Hello World!"
> END
>
> And this is my program:
> import std.c.windows.windows;
> extern (C)
> {
> 	void gc_init ();
> 	void gc_term ();
> 	void _minit ();
> 	void _moduleCtor ();
> 	void _moduleDtor ();
> 	void _moduleUnitTests ();
> }
>
> extern (Windows)
> int WinMain (HINSTANCE hInst, HINSTANCE hPrev, LPSTR lpCmdLine, int nCmdShow)
> {
> 	int result;
> 	
> 	gc_init ();
> 	_minit ();
> 	
> 	try
> 	{
> 		_moduleCtor ();
> 		_moduleUnitTests ();
> 		
> 		result = myWinMain (hInst, hPrev, lpCmdLine, nCmdShow);
> 		
> 		_moduleDtor ();
> 	}
> 	catch (Object o)
> 	{
> 		MessageBoxA (null, cast (char*) o.toString (), "Error", MB_OK | MB_ICONEXCLAMATION);
> 		result = 0;
> 	}
> 	
> 	gc_term ();
> 	return result;
> }
>
> int myWinMain (HINSTANCE hInst, HINSTANCE hPrev, LPSTR lpCmdLine, int nCmdShow)
> {
> 	MessageBoxA (null, ID_HELLO, "Hello world example ", MB_OK);
> 	return 0;
> }

Just looked at the DFL implementation. rctest example has the rctest.res and rctest.rc file of the following contents:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ // beginning of the file
101 ICON DISCARDABLE "tray.ico"

"mspaint" BITMAP DISCARDABLE "rctest.bmp"

STRINGTABLE DISCARDABLE
BEGIN
	3001 "This string was loaded from the resource!"
END
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ // end of file

These can be generated with Visual Studio, for example.
Command line looks like this:
dmd.exe somefile.d somefile.res

There are also a few functions to retrieve resources from executable:
Use LoadIcon, LoadImage, FindResourceEx and LoadResource methods to extract data from those .res files.

For code snippets take a look into dfl.resources module (getIcon, getString etc)
DFL can be downloaded from www.dprogramming.com/dfl.php

Hope you find this useful.

Koroskin Denis Wrote:

> 
> DFL can be downloaded from www.dprogramming.com/dfl.php
> 
> Hope you find this useful.

Thanks for this! It should have some examples that I can see exactly how they're loading the resources.

As far as the generation of the .rc files, I'm attempting to learn how to manually perform the task. Maybe it's a bad idea, but I generally like to learn how to do things in an non-GUI environment before moving to one. I have found that it reduces my dependancy on the IDE and increases my understanding of what's happening.

Jim Gadrow Wrote:

> I'm attempting to learn how to manually perform the task. Maybe it's a bad idea, but I generally like to learn how to do things in an non-GUI environment before moving to one. I have found that it reduces my dependancy on the IDE and increases my understanding of what's happening.

For information about the Win32 API I would recommend downloading the Borland Win32 SDK Help File:

    http://www.zeusedit.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7

It's a fantastic Win32 help resource as it covers the basics of the Win32 API's without the excessive bloat of the MSDN.

Jim Gadrow wrote:
> Ok, on to my next problem in my unceasing struggle to learn both D and the Windows API at the same time.
> 
> I've done a LOT of searching and cannot manage to find the correct method of creating and using a resource in a windows program.
> 
> What I would like to see is a minimal example of creating a 'hello world' windows application with the strings replaced by string resources.
> 
> Obviously, I have no idea how to import the symbol ID_HELLO into my application. I've tried following one example I saw in one news group that suggested replacing the symbol name with the id value and doing:
> 
> const char* ID_HELLO = cast (char*) 1;
> 
> But that resulted in an Access Violation.
> 
> And declaring something like:
> 
> extern (D)
> const char* ID_HELLO;
> 
> resulted in a message box with an empty message. I've never dealt with resource files before, so this is all new to me. It would probably be nice to have a sample available with all the others that shows the proper way of handling resources.
> 
> I had the following in my .rc file (It's probably wrong...)

First, basic how-to questions like this are supposed to go to digitalmars.D.learn.  No biggie though.

As for the answer, you got some answers already about how to compile resource files, but I didn't see anyone yet mention that there is a free resource compiler called 'rcc.exe' in the BUP (Basic Utilities Package):
    http://ftp.digitalmars.com/bup.zip
It doesn't handle some of the newer extensions to RC files like big Vista icons.

That zip also contains the very useful 'implib' program that can be used to create dmd import libs from DLLs, so it's worth downloading in any event.

--bb

Bill Baxter Wrote:
> 
> First, basic how-to questions like this are supposed to go to digitalmars.D.learn.  No biggie though.
> 

I'll try and remember this next time :)

> As for the answer, you got some answers already about how to compile
> resource files, but I didn't see anyone yet mention that there is a free
> resource compiler called 'rcc.exe' in the BUP (Basic Utilities Package):
>      http://ftp.digitalmars.com/bup.zip
> It doesn't handle some of the newer extensions to RC files like big
> Vista icons.
> 

Yeah, I had already downloaded the package. Thanks though!