Since I mostly work with existing code, I try to stay with the style already in the existing code; unless there is something really bad or goofy. I would follow what others have already done in the existing code. Most of the work I do has informal standards, where you only put one variable declaration on a single line. By practice (meaning there is no standard) we out the * on the variable:

int *some = NULL;
int *other = NULL;

Marcus Buckingham has written some great books on finding what you like to do. I've heard him speak, and have the "Go Do" book. I'm a SW engineer, the part about my job I like best if the figuring out what is wrong and fixing that, or figuring out some test in SW to detect some problem in the hardware. They are both problem solving. If you were doing something like that, from what you mention, you might be more interested. Mostly, I'd say figure out what you like, and how your particular talents and passions fit with that and pursue that.

Well, I'm definitely not a C++ programmer, but I prefer C, and have even programmed using a C++ compiler but followed C standards. You could be more concise with the scoping then with something like this:

{
int i;
for (i=0,.....)
foo++;
}

{
int i;
for i=0;....)
bar++;
}

I'm not meaning to pick on your code, but why don't you write better scoped code and declarations that won't cause this, so you don't have this problem?

int i;

for (i=0; i < ++i)
{
foo++;
}
for (i=0; i & lt; ++i)
{
bar++
}

Well, this seems crazy. I know a guy at church that develops WM5 apps with C#, he said there was a form that has the screen layout, and he drags a button onto that, and can create a callback function or whatever. I have not found any such form layout for C++, is there? Also, I have since figured out how to make a button and get it working just fine. If anyone is interested, just let me know and I can post something. (otherwise, I'll keep the secret too).

or FindFirstFile()

OK. I figured this out. It was a missing include file. Kind of strange that Visual Studio in Debug mode would reconcile these without any warnings, and then just skip over these function calls when run in Release mode or on the device. I don't know if there is some build setting to at least warn me about this; if anyone knows of a warning, let me know. Thanks

I'm developing a small app for WM5 and it is using FindFirstFile() and FindNextFile(). These work just great in the WM5 emulator in debug mode. I created a CAB file and ran it on my Axim, but it didn't work correctly. I left the state to Release, as opposed to Debug and ran it in the WM5 emulator, and got similar problems. I think this is working differently for more then just these, but I'm not sure. The code I am having problems with is looking for a specific file by pattern, and then looking to see if there are others that follow the same pattern; I'm looking for the newest dated version of the file that fills the pattern. like \Windows\abc*.txt it works great in debug mode on the emulator, but not so on my Axim or in release mode on the emulator. Does anyone know what is happening here?

This is exactly what I'm doing, but in WM_COMMAND all WPARAM wp ever is is 0x0000FFFF any ideas why? I set it to #define BTN_ONE 301 Thanks

I want to add a button to my app, I am thinking, a function call to create an area that when clicked would jump to some callback function. I could use this to change the image in the area just clicked, and perform what ever action I want due to the button press. I think I need to use CreateWindow() to do this, but I'm not figuring much else about this. I have not been able to find an example that is simple and straightforward for C on a WM5 device. If anyone knows of an example or simple explanation that would help, I'd appreciate it.

OK, I'm used to writing windows apps for national instruments hardware, using Lab Windows, it is SW by NI for their hardware (I use this at work); when I want to add a button to my app, I can use a GUI and add a button to my app panel, and then create a callback function from that. THIS IS ALL I WANT TO DO!!!!!!!!!! [I'm frustrated ... with myself because I cannot find this in Visual Studio!!!!!] Can someone that knows a little about VS, and WM5 development (or even WIndows developement) clue me in as to how this is done? I looked at VS and found a Toolbox on the right side of the panel, but there was nothing in it. I checked the menus, and cannot find anything that looks like it would help me create a SIMPLE BUTTON!!!!!!! PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE Help!!!!!

I'm programming for my WM5 device using C, I really don't know C++, so I'm sticking with C (MFC). All I really want to do is add SOME sort of buttons to my app. I have a list that I'd like the user to be able to select items in the list, I can't find anything that makes any sense (because it is all C++ stuff with the something.somethingElse or something::somethingElse and this doesn't seem to do anything at all. I find it hard to believe that I'm the first one to try this. I found all sorts of stuff but I'm not sure what will actually make a button or check box. I'd like something like this: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa454207.aspx[^] from MSDN, but I settle for something simplier. I searched for how to implement what they show here, but its like the terminology they use from the page I link is so totally different from any sort of implementation that I could not find anything else about that. I would appreciate any help!!!!!

I've found some stuff at MSDN, but not really enough to figure out how to do this. I'm looking to add check boxes to a list, and allow the user to check any of the boxes and capture that. I have not figured out how to do this, and I'm not really sure how to start. If that is not really going to be easy to implement, I would alternately like to just put a blue dot or something in front of each list item, and allow the user to click those, and I'd change them to red, or something. And be able to check which the user selected. I found CheckBox and GetCapture functions from MSDN, but as I say, I'm not sure how ti use them. I searched here, but the GetCapture discussions seem like they are about implementing advanced features. I didn't find anything that seems the right direction for the check box. I'm writing a program for a Windows Mobile 5 handheld with a touch screen, and using C / MFC (I am actually programming as much as I can with C, rather than C++, because I don't know C++ that well.

OK, a little more searching and I found this:

SetBkMode(ps.hdc, TRANSPARENT);

to make the text background transparent. I thought it would be part of the Font or DrawText.

FYI: OK, I got through this, and I am drawing rectangles and filling with text

fbrush = CreateSolidBrush(bcol);
FillRect(ps.hdc, &rect, fbrush);
wsprintf(szLabel, TEXT("Remove"));
rect.top += 2;
rect.left += 2;
DrawText(ps.hdc, szLabel, -1, &rect, DT_LEFT | DT_NOPREFIX | DT_SINGLELINE);

This is creating a rectangle on the screen, filling it with a specified color, and writing the text "Remove" in the rectangle. The problem I was having was the code I was refering to had an image that it was displaying with text under it. I had problems figuring out what was the image part and what was the text part. I basically just looked at the functions, and read about them at MSDN, and created what I have above. The one thing I can't figure out is the background color for the text. The rectangles I'm using are filled with a background color, but the text background fills with white. I have not been able to find where to change that, there does not seem to be an option for DrawText. Anyone know?

References for writing software are good, but NOTHING beats writing software. I've tried reading some books, but rarely get through them. Too often they are targeted toward a narrow market, and I just don't quite fit it; or the book have exercises that I just don't have time to work through. I prefer to read short things on line. I have a few RSS feeds that I browse, and when I want something specific I search the internet. Also, at work there are occasional classes. I work (at work) on embedded development, so our training here is geared toward processors. My boss jsut recently asked me about taking a Infineon TriCore class next month. Once in a while someone has a brown bag lunch where they take about 45 minutes to go over some concept or an aspect of some tool we use (like a debugger, or some algorithm). I think the best think is figuring out what works for you, and keeps you moving forward (you don't want to be stagnant, especially in this economy).

I found an example that I'm trying to use for a reference, but it is doing stuff with pictures, and I just want to display text. It is using the following functions: BeginPaint() LoadString() SHLoadImageResource() CreateFontIndirect() GetClientRect() DrawText() GetClientRect() DrawText() EndPaint() There is a little more, but I think this is the gist of writing to the screen. In tinkering with this example, I keep breaking it trying to figure out which parts are the parts that write just the text; while not displaying the image. The code I'm using (I can't remember where I found it, it might have been here, but I can't find it again) displays a picture with a text caption under it. I'm trying to see how the text part works byt removing the image part, so it just displays the caption. When I do it, I get the caption with the first picture, but not the second picture. The screen is just blank.

I'm new to WM development, but I know C (mostly embedded, but also LabWindows/CVI). (I think I'm developing in MFC -- not exactly sure how that works even thought Joel gave me a good description in another forum.) So, I'm all good with the straight C type stuff, I've opened and read a file, save the data from it in an array. The problem I'm having is finding something to help get me going in a direction to display the data on the screen. What I'd ultimately like to do is have a check box for each line and then two more columns of text from the file (two words, one for each column), sort of like a table. Like this: Check Box First Second x this that x some something I have searched MSDN, but I can't find anything that is straight forward (like CreateWindow(), CreateTable(), and FillCell()). I've searched for a C++ sample, but nothing seems to spring out that is doing anything like this that I can find, everything I've found is displaying pictures, or is in C# or using Classes (which seems too complicated for what I am trying to do). Any hints as to what I can look at to get going in the right direction, or some sample code that I can experiment, or even some functions I can search MSDN for would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

I guess I didn't notice that LPWIN32_FIND_DATAW is just a pointer. I was getting a warning that I looked at and just thought "of course its not initialized, it will get a value from FindFirstFile". So, I'll change that! This is for a Window Mobile device, so there is no C: drive, it is just \\. Then if you want a memory card, you would enter \\<<i>name of card> like mine is \\SD Card. I was searching for a file in a particular directory, but the file can have some parts slightly different, here is what I got working to find my file:

int GetTheFile(LPWSTR lpszDir)
{
LPWIN32_FIND_DATAW ac_file;
_WIN32_FIND_DATAW the_dir[MAX_PATH];
HANDLE fileHandle;
int ret=1;

ac\_file = the\_dir;
wsprintf(lpszDir, TEXT("\\\\My Documents\\\\first\*.txt"));
fileHandle = FindFirstFileW(lpszDir, ac\_file);
if (fileHandle != INVALID\_HANDLE\_VALUE)

For some reason I could not get the types to work correctly for making ac_file like you suggested, but I got it to work like this, and I can tinker with it now. This will look for a file in \My Documents named first.txt, like \My Document\first-1209.txt Thanks for helping me figure this out Dave :) . Ken

I think BartPE would be a good solution. I've used it to make a back up of my HD and it just boots from the CD. You just need to make sure the Bios is set to boot from the CD and keep the CD in the CD reader. You can customize the CD to include or disinclude what ever you want (I didn't do too much customization). There are whole sites for getting the gory details, and they can probably help best (since they are exclusive to BartPE). Just google BartPE and you should find plenty of how-tos.