dwin - Simplify Windows Programming for D

The purpose of the library is to make Win32 programming easier by giving a more D like interface while taking advantage of D's safety features.

Quick Links:

Project home - Source code, issue tracker and more

HALL OF FAME - Contributors
Contributing - Help improve the project
Discuss dwin - Ask for help or discuss dwin

Installation - Compiling and installing the library
Example - A small example application
Modules - List of modules in the project
Changelog - Changes between versions

This is not meant as a OS independent library, and I will not, by far, wrap every win32 function.
Because of this, the library exposes all win32 handles where possible so you can mix regular win32 with this library.

It is a thin wrapper, meaning there are no deep class hieriarcies, and is modelled very much like the win32 calls and using mostly the same names.

The best solution would of course be if Phobos, the standard library, included all functionality, but this is difficult as everything in the stdlib should be cross platform.
Hopefully Phobos will get much of win32's functionality in time, but until then, there's dwin.

Remarks:

Very pre-alpha quality; The API will change, there is very little functionality , very little tested. Do NOT use for mission critical code!
Only Windows 7 support - Hopefully temporary
Only D2 (DMD 2.054) and Phobos support
dwin programs must be compiled with "-version=Unicode -version=WindowsVista"
I have no education, and dwin is a learning exercise for win32, D and open source development

Contributing

As with most open source projects, this project too needs contributors to succeed.

Remember that there are more ways to contribute than just writing code.
The important thing is not how much you contribute, or how groundbreaking the contribution is, just that you do something!

Everything you contribute to this project has to be licensed under Boost License 1.0 or a more liberal license (like Public Domain ).

What you can do to help:

Submit bug reports and feature requests
Contribute to D. Write code for DMD, Phobos, write about D, or just be active on the newsgroup
Discuss dwin in the forum
Give me feedback by mail
Use dwin for your projects
Wrap more win32 functions
Write new modules
Fix bugs
Test the library on different machines
Improve existing code
Improve documentation
Add some CSS to make the documentation prettier
Write sample code, tutorials, or just anything about dwin
.. Or contribute in any other way you feel like!

Getting started:

Fork the project in github
Compile the library
Add your name to ALL_AUTHORS in dwin.ddoc for fame and glory!

Hack away and have fun! (remember to add unittests)
Build the library using build_all.bat, and run the tests with test.exe
Document your new features, breaking changes and bugfixes in changelog.dd.
- If adding a module, add the module name to index.dd
- If doing major changes to a module, add yourself to the Authors section
Send a pull request
Back to 4

Useful links:

[Documentation] Official D website
[Code] Converted win32 headers - Required for dwin
[Wiki] Windows Programming/Handles and Data Types - Recommended as dwin doesn't hide Win32 types
[Documentation] MSDN: Windows API List - Categorical list of Win32 API
[Documentation] DDoc documentation - All code and all documentation for dwin (including this page) is written using DDoc
[Article] Interfacing D to C
[Article] D For Win32
[Article] Converting .h to D modules
[Code] Win32 programming examples for D
[Code] The Juno Project - A dead project with similar objectives as dwin
[Tool] COFFIMPLIB - Convert Import Libraries in COFF Format to OMF Format
[Tool] IMPLIB - Build an OMF Import Library from a DLL
[Tool] HTOD - Automatically convert a C header (.d) to a D module

HALL OF FAME

Contribute to get your name on the wall ;)

Contributors:
Simen Endsjø, Skybert

Modules

The modules are loosely modelled after the categories in MSDN: Windows API List.

build: Tool to build the dwin project
test: Runs tests for the dwin project
dwin.core: Utilities for wrapping win32 functions
dwin.nls: National Language Support. Globalization and localization features
dwin.process: Processes and threads
dwin.keyboard: Keyboard
dwin.console: Console
dwin.window: GUI

Installation

Update your sc.ini file to search the library and import folder:

EXT = "C:\d\ext"
DWIN="%EXT%\dwin"
DWIN_LIB="%DWIN%\lib"
DWIN_IMP="%DWIN%\import"

LIB="%@P%\..\lib";\dm\lib;%DWIN_LIB%
DFLAGS="-I%@P%\..\..\src\phobos" "-I%@P%\..\..\src\druntime\import" "-I%DWIN_IMP%"

Binary distribution

If you don't want to build the library yoursely, you can download the binary distribution
Remember to copy or move dwin\lib\kernel32.lib to "path\to\dmd\lib\kernel32.lib"

Compiling from source

Download the dwin source code.

Download the win32 bindings from the project page , and put it in [dwin folder]\src\win32 folder.
If you have svn installed, you can run fetch_win32_src.bat
If you already have win32, you can just create a symlink.

The win32 libraries that ships with DMD is not up to date with the latest version of windows.
First you need to install the Windows SDK.
Then download COFFIMPLIB.
Use COFFIMPLIB to convert kernel32.lib:

coffimplib "path/to/win/sdk/kernel32.lib" "path/to/dmd/lib/kernel32.lib"

And finally, all should be ready to build the library:

build_all.bat

After you have run the batch file, you can run build.exe directly to rebuild only parts of the project.
Run build.exe without parameters to see the options.

dwin.lib includes the entire win32.lib, so unless you are going to hack on dwin, win32.lib is not needed after compiling dwin.lib

Example

module example;
pragma(lib, "dwin.lib");
import dwin.nls;
void main() {
}

Run it (you must always have these versions when building dwin programs):

dmd -version=Unicode -version=WindowsVista -run example