WinLamb

A lightweight modern C++11 library for Win32 API, using lambdas to handle Windows messages.

1. Overview
2. Setup
3. Example
4. Classes summary
5. License

1. Overview

As far as I can remember, around 2002 I started wrapping all my Win32 routines in classes, to make them reusable to myself, to save my time. Through all these years it took the form of a real library, a thin abstraction layer over raw Win32. People who saw it often commented that it was good, so in 2017 I decided to publish it on GitHub.

Then I wrote CodeProject - WinLamb: using C++11 lambdas to handle Win32 messages, a comprehensive article explaining WinLamb's message handling model, with dialogs and also ordinary windows. Actually, features from C++14 and C++17 are used as well, as much as my compiler (Visual C++) allows it.

Beyond dialog/window message handling, WinLamb also has wrappers for most native Windows controls (textbox, listview, etc.), along with other utility classes (strings, file I/O, COM wrappers, etc.) which play nice together. These controls and utilities, however, are not mandatory: you can use your own classes upon the basic dialog/window infrastructure.

WinLamb by no means covers the whole Win32 API, simply because it's too huge. It just wraps some things. New features are constantly being added, though.

There is a great WinLamb presentation from Utah C++ Programmers here: https://youtu.be/2K52YX-vHv4

2. Setup

WinLamb is a header-only library. You can clone the repository or simply download the files; once referenced in your source code, it should work right away.

It has been tested with Visual C++ 2017.

2.1. Windows 10 manifest file

There's an included win10.exe.manifest file, which you can add to your Visual Studio project. This manifest includes Common Controls and gives you Windows 10 support.

3. Example

This is a simple Win32 program written with WinLamb. Each window has a class, and messages are handled with C++11 lambdas using message crackers. There's no need to write a message loop or window registering.

Declaration: My_Window.h

#include "winlamb/window_main.h"

class My_Window : public wl::window_main {
public:
    My_Window();
};

Implementation: My_Window.cpp

#include "My_Window.h"

RUN(My_Window) // optional, generate WinMain call and instantiate My_Window

My_Window::My_Window()
{
    setup.wndClassEx.lpszClassName = L"SOME_CLASS_NAME"; // class name to be registered
    setup.title = L"This is my window";
    setup.style |= WS_MINIMIZEBOX;

    on_message(WM_CREATE, [this](wl::wm::create p) -> LRESULT
    {
        set_text(L"A new title for the window");
        return 0;
    });

    on_message(WM_LBUTTONDOWN, [](wl::wm::lbuttondown p) -> LRESULT
    {
        bool isCtrlDown = p.has_ctrl();
        long xPos = p.pos().x;
        return 0;
    });
}

3.1. Project examples

I've written the following examples showcasing different things:

• Click lines (very simple example)
• FLAC/LAME frontend
• Chromium Peeker

More projects can be seen browsing winlamb topic.

4. Classes summary

Most files are named after the class they contain; for example, file "button.h" contains button class.

To create your windows, you inherit from these classes below. See the article and the examples to learn how to use them:

Class	Description
dialog_control	Inherit from this class to have a dialog to be used as a control within a parent window.
dialog_main	Inherit from this class to have a dialog as the main window for your application.
dialog_modal	Inherit from this class to have a modal dialog popup.
dialog_modeless	Inherit from this class to have a dialog modeless popup.
window_control	Inherit from this class to have an user-custom window control.
window_main	Inherit from this class to have an ordinary main window for your application.

Wrappers and utilities:

Class	Description
button	Wrapper to native button control.
checkbox	Wrapper to native checkbox control.
com::bstr	Wrapper to BSTR string, used with COM.
com::lib	Smart class to automate CoInitialize and CoUninitialize calls.
com::ptr	Wrapper to a COM pointer.
com::variant	Wrapper to VARIANT object, used with COM.
combobox	Wrapper to native combobox control.
datetime	Wrapper to SYSTEMTIME structure.
datetime_picker	Wrapper to datetime picker control from Common Controls library.
gdi::dc	Wrapper to device context.
gdi::dc_painter	Wrapper to device context which calls BeginPaint/EndPaint automatically.
gdi::dc_painter_buffered	Wrapper to device context which calls BeginPaint/EndPaint automatically with double-buffer.

5. License

Licensed under MIT license, see LICENSE.txt for details.