Creating a gui

Hi everyone,

As part of my final dissertation I’ve created an OpenGL application, using Visual C++, to visualise a database. I won’t go into the details of what my application does but I need to create some GUI’s to allow the creation of new objects. Does opengl have any features to create forms, textboxes, buttons etc. If not do I need to use external api’s. Sorry if this questions sounds silly but I’ve been using Java for ages and just assumed that GUI creation would be similar but am having trouble getting to grips with the visual c++ style of things.

Anyway cheers
Mike

You could use the GLUT library, is has menu and button functions.

Originally posted by Mike_B:
[b]Hi everyone,

As part of my final dissertation I’ve created an OpenGL application, using Visual C++, to visualise a database. I won’t go into the details of what my application does but I need to create some GUI’s to allow the creation of new objects. Does opengl have any features to create forms, textboxes, buttons etc. If not do I need to use external api’s. Sorry if this questions sounds silly but I’ve been using Java for ages and just assumed that GUI creation would be similar but am having trouble getting to grips with the visual c++ style of things.

Anyway cheers
Mike[/b]

Does opengl have any features to create forms, textboxes, buttons etc. If not do I need to use external api’s.

OpenGL is purely a rendering library. It has no GUI facilities. In fact, it has no concept of a window. You will have to rely on some Windows GUI library (MFC, Delphi, pure Win32, etc).

Or you write your GUI in OpenGL as some have done al la Druid’s GL Journal
glGUI release 6.
http://www.gamedev.net/opengl/index.html

Check out GLUI (http://www.cs.unc.edu/~rademach/glui). I just started using it for my dissertation, and it works quite nicely. I have heard of PUI and MUI, and based on an article by Steve Baker (Concerning MUI, PUI and GLUI.) chose GLUI.

Good luck.

Originally posted by Mike_B:
[b]Hi everyone,

As part of my final dissertation I’ve created an OpenGL application, using Visual C++, to visualise a database. I won’t go into the details of what my application does but I need to create some GUI’s to allow the creation of new objects. Does opengl have any features to create forms, textboxes, buttons etc. If not do I need to use external api’s. Sorry if this questions sounds silly but I’ve been using Java for ages and just assumed that GUI creation would be similar but am having trouble getting to grips with the visual c++ style of things.

Anyway cheers
Mike[/b]