3dguru,

I responded to your PM about Visual Basic. Feel free to copy/paste it here if you want to share it with others.

Stevieboy,

Managed C++ is a reasonable way to use C++ and still gain the benefits of the .NET Framework Libraries, such as WinForms.

However, the difficulty of working with MC++ can sometimes turn people away from the .NET API and WinForms. I HIGHLY recommend C# if you're planning on doing Win32 UI development with WinForms. But to answer your question, yes, you can use managed and unmanaged code in the same application.

In fact, you can mix managed and unmanaged code in the same file by using the following pragmas.

#pragma unmanaged
#pragma managed

The .NET Framework and WinForms allows you to quickly create Application UI that is both feature rich and easy to modify. Hope this answers your questions.

If you're talking about Application UI, you dont want to use DirectX.

If you're talking about in-game UI, such as Menus, buttons, consoles, HUD's, etc...then you've entered the realm of what's called "Owner-drawn controls." This requires significant knowledge of DirectX, for both display of the controls, as well as event handling.

Basically, draw a quad over the screen, and capture mouse click in pre-defined hotspots. (the region the quad is in ).

To make this look good, you're also need some artistic ability.

3dguru,

At the most basic level you can just draw a quad (two triangles) with a texture on it that looks like your button, menu, etc...

If you just want a blue button with text, then it wont require any artistic ability.

if you want a semi-transparent button with beveled (sp?) edges or a console with a dragon head on it, well then, you'd better be able to draw a beveled box and a dragon head. =)

In other words, the art will look as good as your artistic ability. But if you dont need anything fancy, than it doesnt matter.