Hi everyone,

I know several of you here write Palm software. I've got a couple of simple applications I'd like to write for my Palm. For that matter, I have a couple of little tools I'd like to write for my Windoze machine, too.

I don't know anything about how to get started with this. I've never been a professional programmer, but I have written some medium-lengthy and complex engineering analysis software over the years. This stuff was all in FORTRAN, though, and pretty much entirely batch numerical analysis stuff (non-interactive). I wrote a couple of really simple Mac programs in the early 90's, so I have a basic idea of events and event-based programs. Those were in C, of course. I've been working through the SICP book, which is scheme, and probably not at all applicable to what I want to do. That's my meager programming background.

What do I need to do to get off the ground with writing a Palm application? I'm assuming there is a standard development environment, libraries, etc. Does this cost a small fortune? Is there an open-source alternative, with good documentation? Is there a repository of palm programs I can use as a starting point? Are there any must-read books on the subject?

I have the same questions for Windows. I thought I had heard about a developer program or an educational program through Microsoft where you could get their development environment. Is this the way to go?

I realize these questions are probably all stupid and really basic, but that's where I am. I want to get a development environment set up so I can make some simple programs.

For my first Windows program, I just need a window that can display the result of a specific postgresql query, going through the postgresql ODBC driver (I have no idea how any of that works yet). Even better, it would be great to have the result of this query (a number) display in the toolbar, updating every 5 minutes or so.

I was thinking about writing a networked Pong game for my first "real" Windows application. Or, start with pong vs. computer and then add the possibility to play over the network. Can someone suggest a better starting problem?

I would like to get to the point where I could make a real application, which leads me to believe that C is the way to go. My concern is the huge learning curve associated with learning the libraries (as it was with the Mac). Is this still the situation?

Thanks for helping a newbie get started.

Best,

Jim

Thank you, Mark. I ordered that book and started looking through the docs you linked to.

Is it true that there is a huge amount of "plumbing" type stuff that needs to be recreated for every program? It seemed to me like the event handling and window/menu/screen management stuff turned out to be a large percentage of the code of a simple program! Does this foundational stuff need to be recreated for every application?

Thanks again,

Jim

On the Windows side, (assuming you don't mind it being locked down to Windows), Visual Studio is going to be the way to go. Visual Studio Express is free for a year and programs you make with it can be used after that. More and more the big companies are giving away the dev tools to attract hobbyists, as they are usually the ones making the interesting small apps these days. I didn't truly understand this until my own program that is getting more and more popular among widescreen gamers.

Thanks, I'll download this and take a look at it.

Do you know of a place where I can get source for some simple programs? In the past, I've learned how to write software by modifying existing programs.

Finally, what is the wave of the future? Since I'm just starting out, should I use Visual C#, or use Visual C++?

BTW, I'm a widescreen gamer... What's your program?

Thanks again,

Jim

I'd say learn C# if you can. It has some very nice things in it that the C++ in Visual Studio lacks. Since your starting fresh, might as well start with the one that makes your life easier.

Code wise, not sure of any specific open source C# programs to poke at, but the MSDN documentation usually has enough example code to get me through most issues.

My program is Game Resolution Switcher. Made it more for myself to solve a problem of gaming on one system with multiple resolutions, but it's popular with widescreen gamers since it also sets games to widescreen when they may not expose such resolutions in game. I've gotten some feedback from people who also game on HTPCs, since it makes it easier to set custom resolutions some screens use. I'm planning on expanding it a lot for the 0.7 milestone for letting people set different resolutions. Need to get 0.6 done first though.

Interestingly, I just tried GRS to see if it would help me solve a problem I've been having. It didn't, I'm still getting the same problem, but maybe you know how to fix this...

(Sorry for dragging this thread off topic...)

Back in the days when I was using Windows 2000, before I switched my main PC over to Windows XP, I was able to run Source Engine games (CS:S, HL2) at 1440x1080. This is my current Windows desktop resolution. It's the same number of scan lines as HDTV, but it's the 4:3 width. (1920x1080 would be 16:9 hdtv).

Now, under XP, when I try to make HL2 or CS:S run at 1440x1080, it pops back down to 640x480. Yet my Windows desktop does that rez just fine. And I'm using the same video card as I was using back in Windows 2000 days, so it's not the card at issue.

These games will run at a bunch of different high resolutions, of course, like 1280x1024, just fine. It's something about that particular rez that either Source or DirectX doesn't like.

I also seem to recall vaguely that this problem happens on other directX games, too, not just Souce stuff.

Any ideas, Tom?

Is visual studio express likely to be any good for writing PocketPC apps? I'm keen to get cracking but haven't written anything since Embedded Visual C++.

Digging up an old thread here, to post the solution for posterity's sake:

Quote:
Now, under XP, when I try to make HL2 or CS:S run at 1440x1080, it pops back down to 640x480.

The solution was to make Yet Another Edit to my MONITOR.INF file. Turns out that XP was using a different monitor in MONITOR.INF than I thought it was, and I had only edited the top rez of the wrong monitor inside that INF file.

Once I edited the top rez of the monitor up to 1920 and re-installed the monitor.inf file, it all worked correctly, and now all my games give me the 1440x1080 and 1920x1080 resolution options.