winapi.md

tagline	platforms
win32 windows & controls	mingw64

Scope

Windows, common controls and dialogs, message loop and system APIs.

Features

• UTF8 Lua strings everywhere (also works with wide char buffers)
• bitmap widget for custom painting
• OpenGL and cairo custom-painting widgets (in separate packages)
• anchor-based layout model for all controls
• object system with virtual properties (win.title = 'hello' sets the title)
• binding helpers for easy binding of new and future APIs
• all calls are error-checked
• automatic memory management (ownership; buffers)
• flags can be passed as 'FLAG1 FLAG2'
• counting from 1 everywhere.

Status

Current status and issues.

Hello World

local winapi = require'winapi'
require'winapi.windowclass'

local win = winapi.Window{
	w = 500,                --all these are "initial fields"
	h = 300,
	title = 'Lua rulez',
	autoquit = true,        --this is to quit app when the window is closed
	visible = false,        --this field is from BaseWindow
}

function win:on_close()    --this is an event handler
	print'Bye'
end

print(win.title)           --this is how to read the value of a property
win.title = 'Lua rulez!'   --this is how to set the value of a property
win:show()                 --this is a method call

os.exit(winapi.MessageLoop()) --start the message loop

Demos

Check out winapi_demo to see all the controls in action:

Also, many modules can be run as standalone scripts, which will showcase their functionality, so there's lots of little demos there too.

Documentation

Architecture

• [winapi_design] - hi-level overview of the library
• [winapi_binding] - how the binding works, aka developer documentation
• [winapi_history] - the reasoning behind various design decisions

Classes

• [VObject][winapi.vobject] - objects with virtual properties
  • [BaseWindow][winapi.basewindowclass] - base class for top-level windows and controls
    • [Window][winapi.windowclass] - final class for top level windows
    • [Control][winapi.controlclass] - base class for controls
      • [Panel][winapi.panelclass] - custom-painted child windows
        • [BitmapPanel][winapi.bitmappanel] - RGBA [bitmap] panels
          • [CairoPanel][winapi.cairopanel] - [cairo] panels
        • [WGLPanel][winapi.wglpanel] - [OpenGL][opengl] panels
      • [Label][winapi.labelclass] - labels
      • [BaseButton][winapi.basebuttonclass] - base class for buttons
        • [Button][winapi.buttonclass] - push-buttons
        • [CheckBox][winapi.checkboxclass] - checkboxes
        • [RadioButton][winapi.radiobuttonclass] - radio buttons
        • [GroupBox][winapi.groupboxclass] - group boxes
      • [Edit][winapi.editclass] - edit boxes
      • [ComboBox][winapi.comboboxclass] - combo boxes and drop-down lists
      • [ListBox][winapi.listboxclass] - list boxes
      • [ListView][winapi.listviewclass] - list views
      • [TabControl][winapi.tabcontrolclass] - tab bars
      • [Toolbar][winapi.toolbarclass] - toolbars
    • [Tooltip][winapi.tooltipclass] - tooltips
  • [Menu][winapi.menuclass] - menus and menu bars
  • [NotifyIcon][winapi.notifyiconclass] - system tray icons

Functions

The "proc" layer is documented in the code, including API quirks and empirical knowledge, so do check out the source code.

Modules

{{{module_list}}}