Well first of all, your not going to be able to access the old ASM graphics modes in a windows command line. Windows maintains exlcusive access to the video hardware at all times. This means that access to things like mode13h are not allowed unless you reboot into "DOS" mode.

On to other fun subjects....

First off realize that most of the windows variables you encounter are either Structures, Classes OR renamed common variable types like char, int, long, float.

Next realize that Microsoft uses something called "Hungarian Notation". It''s a way of naming your variables so that you don''t have to go up to the top of your program to find out what the variable data type is. There is no way to tell what a variable named "FOOBAR" is or what it does with out looking at it''s definition. However just by looking at the variable type HINSTANCE, I know that it''s a handle (pointer) to a Instance of a program. Now I also know that an Instance is a counter. It counts how many copies of a certian program are running. Like 5 Netscape windows would have HINSTANCE values of 0 through 4. If I were to program this then HINSTANCE might look like this:

" int *HINSTANCE;
&HINSTANCE = 2;

cout << &HINSTANCE << " Peanut Butter sandwiches ha ha ha!" << endl; "


LCPTLR, I''ve never heard of that variable type. It doesn''t even look familiar possibly a miss type. LPCSTR maybe? If so it most likely is "Long Pointer to Class String". In normal C++ it might look like this :
"
class String
{
// Nothing needed for this example.
};

String *LPCSTR;
"

Well anyway you get my point. The windows variables are nothing "Special". And if you can learn hungarian notation they become simple to decypher. If you want to find out more on hungarian notation search the web with Google.com or metacrawler.com for "Hungarian Notation" you''ll find some good stuff.

As far as the command line stuff goes, it''s the best place to start. You realy shouldn''t be tackeling something as complex as windows until you know C++ real well.

If you really want to learn windows programming without going through all the deep and grueling concepts of C/C++ then try Visual Basic or Delphi. Just be warned, these languages are pretty limited when you start getting into graphics and games.

This may be something of interest to you.

quote:also .. what do you consider as knowing c++ quite well ? ..

My opinion is when you can sit down at the computer or with notepad and paper and determine a software solution to a problem and not struggle with the language itself. Think of it like a hammer. Knowing how to use a hammer is a good thing. Knowing when not to use a hammer is better yet. Just keep in mind you don''t have to use every feature of "insert programming language here" in every single project to do something productive with it.

YAP-YFIO
-deadlinegrunt