Visual C++ 2019/.NET FormApplication
Visual Studio Community 2019 can be downloaded freely from the website
https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads/
To develop a Visual Studio C++ 2019/.NET Form Application, Visual Studio Community 2019 must be installed with the three options, .NET desktop development, Desktop development with C++, and C++/CLI support for v142 build tools, being checked (Figure 1). CLI (Common Language Infrastructure) is part of Microsoft’s .NET strategy.
Figure 1
After Visual Studio Community 2019 with the options marked by red rectangles in Figure 1 is installed, Start the Visual Studio. Choose “Open a new project” (Figure 2).
Figure 2
The “Create a new project” dialog window will be displayed (Figure 3).
Figure 3
Choose “CLR Empty Project” option. CLR (Common Language Runtime) is the runtime environment in the .NET Framework.
Click the Next button. “Configure your new project” dialog window will be displayed (Figure 4).
Figure 4
Set names of the project and solution, and a location where the solution is put. Click on the Create button. The empty solution will be shown (Figure 5).
Figure 5
Choose menu item “Project|Add New Item...” (Figure 6).
Figure 6
“Add New Item” dialog window will be displayed (Figure 7).
Figure 7
Choose the menu item “Visual C++|UI”, and select the item “Windows Form”. Click the Add button.
The selected new item “Windows Form” will not be displayed. Instead, the error messages will be shown (Figure 8).
Figure 8
Simply close the solution, choosing the menu item “File|Close Solution” (Figure 8).
Then, open the closed solution again (Figure 9).
Figure 9
This time, the added new item “Windows Form” is successfully displayed (Figure 10).
Figure 10
To display the form during execution of the program, let’s see the code for the Windows Form. Choose the menu item “View|Code”.
Figure 11
Code of the Windows Form will be displayed (Figure 12).
Figure 12
The file name is MyForm.h, the namespace name is Project1, and the Class name is MyForm. To prepare a code, which creates an object of the Class MyForm, choose the menu item “Project|Add New Item...” (Figure 13).
Figure 13
The “Add New Item” dialog window will be displayed (Figure 14).
Figure 14
Choose the menu item “Visual C++|Code”, then select the “C++ File (.cpp)” item. Click on the Add button. The new empty code file will be added to the solution, and be displayed (Figure 15).
Figure 15
Write code as shown in Figure 16, to create and display the Form object.
Figure 16
Choose the menu item “Debug|Start Debugging”, or press the F5 key, to execute the project. The form will be displayed as in Figure 17.
Figure 17
For further development of your .NET form application, visit this website, which is written in Japanese, but may be translated into your language by Google.
In the case of Figure 17, behind the form, a console window is also displayed. If you do not want the console window, the following settings of the project are needed.
Choose the menu item “Project|Project Properties” (Figure 18).
Figure 18
In the “Project Property Pages” dialog windows, choose the menu item “Linker|System”. Click on the button at the right end of the “SubSystem” row.
Figure 19
Menu list will be shown. Select the item “Windows (/SUBSYSTEM:WINDOWS)”. This item will be set in the cell (Figure 20).
Figure 20
Click on the Apply button,, and on the OK button.
To set the next setting, choose the menu item “Linker|Advanced”. Set Entry Point for “main”, the main function of the project.
Figure 21
Click on the Apply button, and the OK button.
After these two settings, the console window will not appear when the project is executed.
To learn more on development of .NET form application, visit this website.