Well after creating the basics of an isometric engine I have now run into the problem of how to create a decent windows based game editor. I''ve been able to get a menu bar, some pop up dialog boxes, and almost a toolbar (using VC++ 6.0). But I haven''t been able to create frames within the window and dialog boxes that stay off to the side all the time. So what kind of books, tutorials, source code, documentation, etc does everybody recommend for doing this kind of stuff? Keep in mind that I''d really rather avoid using mfc. I''ve heard that borland''s c++ builder is really good at this kind of stuff but I would rather know more before having to get this.

I''ve been looking into this myself lately, and I see myself doing one of two things:
Learning MFC or learning a whole lot of win32 api.

Either way were headed for a whole lot of learning just to get started. I''ve heard different opinions on which is quicker/easier to learn.... so I''m still left with the choice.

Sorry I probably wasn''t a lot of help
But personally I''m leaning towards MFC.

One person said that the games industry is "a transfer of funds from the rich to the lucky"

If it''s an option, Visual Basic is a killer on Windows interfaces. Let''s you focus on the layout and not the code.

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Daniel Netz, Sentinel Design
"I'm not stupid, I'm from Sweden" - Unknown

Please don''t use MFC.

It''s the spawn of satan (aka Will Gates)

You would probably be better off creating the editor in something like Delphi or Builder, since it doesn''t need to be speed intensive and will cut down your coding time. I''ve also been creating an isometric engine and I''m using just Builder to create the map editor. If you have the money to buy Builder, I would suggest you do, its definitly much quicker and easier to use when it comes to these kinds of things.

Hope this helps.


--Antz
Quanta
http://quanta.virtualave.net

Please... before you go down the MFC route... get Borland C++ Builder and give it a try. You can probably pick up an old (yet perfectly usable) version on a magazine coverdisk if cost is an issue. You really can''t appreciate how overly complex windows application development is in Visual C++ until you have seen how easy Builder makes it