try FLTK www.fltk.org
(I prefer the stable release: v1.1.10)

it's really cross-platform, and, also if it's C++,
You can create/edit Your GUI whith Fluid in few clicks
and make Your routines with simple plain C.
(But use g++ to compile).
A very little knowledge of C++ is needed to do more
complex GUI editing.

bye,
Giovanni Rosso

If you're going to go with C++, I recommend you try Qt Creator.

It has a great graphical widget layout editor.

I don't see the problem with using a C++ library or whatever to make the gui... C++ is backwards compat. with C. C++ includes C. You can compile a C only source with g++, but not c++ with gcc... So C is compat. with C++ stuff, just not vice-versa, but that's not and issue here. It would be if you were trying to use C libs and stuff with C++... wouldn't work. But I don't see any problem with the other way 'round.

Even if, for some odd unforeseen reason, it doesn't work, then I (personally) don't think it's that difficult to convert C to C++. But there again, that's usually not necessary, since basically anything that works with C++ will work with C.

Basically, C++ IS C. It's an expanded version of C, with all of C fully intact.

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Interesting take on the matter. So a GUI that is written in and requires C++ to use it can be used to create applications written only in C? Sounds a bit miraculous to me. Are there no parts of the GUI API that are defined in terms of C++ constructs? It would be very good news to me, if it is true.

--- rod.

Indeed, it's easy to mix C and C++. You can easily make a C wrapper around the C++ library you use. C and C++ mix very well.

You might also be interested in http://llvm.org/docs/FAQ.html#translatecxx .

How would that be useful in this case? The original intention was to code in C, not C++.
Unless you're proposing to translate the entire Qt lib into C-ish code....
--- rod.

I think it's a possibility. It's an especially interesting possibility if one wants to create, say, Qt bindings to a scripting language which much better supports "C" binding than C++ bindings.

This is all essentially accurate.

Yup.

You do ordinarily need to write a C-callable stub function to pick up the C++ interface in the library you want to use, but after you do that, you are good to go.

I frequently go the other way, writing C++ callable C functions to pick up gtk C interfaces rather than use the gtk C++ libs (since pretty much all systems have the gtk libs, but the gtkmm libs are not as commonly found)

Also, for OP, Glade is a tool that does give you a capability that is strongly reminiscent of what Visual Studio gives, but Glade is far less intrusive than VS because VS imposes certain architectural requirements on you (and overwrites your code if you don't adhere to the requirements) that lead to somewhat bloated code. Glade, on the other hand, generates an XML file that is parsed at runtime by a parser that is built into the gtk libraries. This imposes no architectural constraints on your code, other than the requirement to invoke the builder when you invoke gtk. You also can rearrange your interface with no need to recompile - except, of course, in the case of changed functionality.

Personally I like Glade and recommend it. It isn't hard at all to use.

For a long time, I didn't use QT because of their licensing. However, they have recently changed that and I am looking a bit at QT now.

Qt Designer is awesome!