A lightweight modern C++11 library for Win32 API, using lambdas to handle Windows messages.

1. Overview
2. Setup
3. Example
4. Classes summary
5. License

As far as I can remember, around 2002 I started wrapping all my Win32 routines in classes, to make them reusable to myself, to save my time. Through all these years it took the form of a real library, a thin abstraction layer over raw Win32. People who saw it often commented that it was good, so in 2017 I decided to publish it on GitHub.

Then I wrote CodeProject - WinLamb: using C++11 lambdas to handle Win32 messages, a comprehensive article explaining WinLamb's message handling model, with dialogs and also ordinary windows. Actually, features from C++14 and C++17 are used as well, as much as my compiler (Visual C++) allows it.

Beyond dialog/window message handling, WinLamb also has wrappers for most native Windows controls (textbox, listview, etc.), along with other utility classes (strings, file I/O, COM wrappers, etc.) which play nice together. These controls and utilities, however, are not mandatory: you can use your own classes upon the basic dialog/window infrastructure.

WinLamb by no means covers the whole Win32 API, simply because it's too huge. It just wraps some things. New features are constantly being added, though.

There is a great WinLamb presentation from Utah C++ Programmers here: https://youtu.be/2K52YX-vHv4

WinLamb is a header-only library. You can clone the repository or simply download the files; once referenced in your source code, it should work right away.

It has been tested with Visual C++ 2017.

There's an included win10.exe.manifest file, which you can add to your Visual Studio project. This manifest includes Common Controls and gives you Windows 10 support.

This is a simple Win32 program written with WinLamb. Each window has a class, and messages are handled with C++11 lambdas using message crackers. There's no need to write a message loop or window registering.

Declaration: My_Window.h

#include "winlamb/window_main.h"

class My_Window : public wl::window_main {
public:
    My_Window();
};

Implementation: My_Window.cpp

#include "My_Window.h"

RUN(My_Window) // optional, generate WinMain call and instantiate My_Window

My_Window::My_Window()
{
    setup.wndClassEx.lpszClassName = L"SOME_CLASS_NAME"; // class name to be registered
    setup.title = L"This is my window";
    setup.style |= WS_MINIMIZEBOX;

    on_message(WM_CREATE, [this](wl::wm::create p) -> LRESULT
    {
        set_text(L"A new title for the window");
        return 0;
    });

    on_message(WM_LBUTTONDOWN, [](wl::wm::lbuttondown p) -> LRESULT
    {
        bool isCtrlDown = p.has_ctrl();
        long xPos = p.pos().x;
        return 0;
    });
}

I've written the following examples showcasing different things:

• Click lines (very simple example)
• FLAC/LAME frontend
• Chromium Peeker

More projects can be seen browsing winlamb topic.

Most files are named after the class they contain; for example, file "button.h" contains button class.

To create your windows, you inherit from these classes below. See the article and the examples to learn how to use them:

Wrappers and utilities:

Licensed under MIT license, see LICENSE.txt for details.