Turbo C++ Graphics Library
Introduction
In recent years people appreciate user-friendliness and speed of development of
an application to efficiency which led to the making of a new kind of application
development software known as RAD tools. RAD tools include languages such as Visual
Basic, Delphi and so on. Due to the introduction of these RAD tools, application
development using programming languages such as Turbo C++ and JAVA have become
obsolete. Even though Java is used for Web-Based application development it is being
replaced by other tools which achieve the same level of functionality and efficiency by
providing the programmer with libraries that make it easier to develop the application.
All the above technologies are concerned and limited to Windows and high-end
platforms.
These days nobody appreciates DOS programming because it lacks the userfriendliness that windows and other GUI based operating systems provide to the user.
Also applications developed in DOS environment do not look as good as the ones
developed in windows environment nor are they as user-friendly. It also seen that
application development in DOS is at least 100 times more difficult that developing it in
windows or some other OS by using recent tools. These recently developed tools give
even more functionality to the application. But there are a few advantages in using DOS
based applications which are listed as follows: They do not crash as frequently as their windows counterparts.
 They utilize only a minimum amount of you primary/RAM memory and the rest
can be used for other purposes.
 The system requirements are very low for DOS-based applications.
 Systems running MS-DOS are always reliable and have almost negligible
amount of failures
 DOS-Based applications also occupy only a few KB s of your hard disk space
unlike windows-based applications.
Of course there are few disadvantages of using DOS-based applications which I tend to
overcome by using my libraries. These demerits are as follows: DOS-based applications are not user-friendly.
 Creating GUIs for DOS-based applications is a very strenuous and difficult
job.
 Even if mouse support is available for DOS when windows is loaded, it is not so
in the case when you have only DOS installed and no windows present in your
system.
 Multi-Tasking is not available in DOS.
 A lot of skill is required to perform DOS-based application development.
Need for the Turbo C++ Graphics Library
At present there is no proper library provided with the either the Turbo C++
compiler or the Borland C++ compiler. All a programmer can do the provided graphics
library is draw lines, rectangles and ellipses. Using such primitive functions a
programmer has to hard-code a lot to generate GUIs that look at least half as good as the
ones generated by Windows tools. The main aim of this graphics library is to provide
additional functionalities to the programmer which will enable him/her to generate GUIs
that are comparable to its windows counterpart. The usage of the functions provided in
the graphics library is very simple and anyone from the novice level to the expert level
can understand the programming construct to be followed. In short this graphics library
serves as a RAD tool in conjunction with the Turbo C++ compiler for developing DOSbased applications.
Features provided by the graphics library
The Turbo C++ graphics library provides a lot of custom made objects such
labels, buttons and menus that are very to create using by creating the object variable and
calling a single draw() function. The graphics library also follows a strict hierarchical
method of association which is described below. There is also facility provided to add
your own objects which must also have the same functions as the embedded objects. The
hierarchy is as follows
S_Objects (provides the functionality for Simple objects)
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Label
Button
Button3d
AnimeButton
WinLabel
WinButton
LinkButton
DateBox
TextField
RadioGroup
CheckBoxGroup
SelectBox
ListBox
ToggleButton
ProgressBar
LoadingBar
ColorPalette
C_Objects (provides the functionalities for more complex objects such as menus,
menubars and panels)
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Menu
MenuBar
Panel
S_Container
P_Objects (provides the functionalities for pop up objects such as message boxes and
right click menus)
 PopUpMenu
 InputBox
 MessageBox
All the above mentioned objects written in bold are the class names of the respective
objects specified by the graphics library. Apart from these there are other classes that are
specified for special purposes.
The Mouse Class – This class allows the user to enable and control the operation of the
mouse hardware. It even includes functions to change the mouse pointer and control the
sensitivity of the mouse.
The Gui Class – This class lets the programmer to set the line, text and background
colors of the objects that are going to be used. Multiple instances of this class can also be
created in order to have variety of colors. But the programmer must see to that, when
using multiple instances the background color specified by each Gui object must be the
same or else it will result in serious graphics coloring problems.
The Frame Class – This class is a container object to which a maximum of 50 complex
objects specified by C_Objects can be added. The adding function is similar to that of the
gridbaglayout function specified in java. The panel class is also a container object but
can take only simple objects such as labels and buttons.
There are other useful functions specified in the library that solve a lot of problems:restoreDefaultSettings – saves the current graph settings and restores the default settings.
restoreUserSettings – restores the settings saved by restoreDefaultSettings.
isOverLapped – checks if one object is overlapping another object (1–TRUE,0–FALSE).
Super_save – saves the area of the screen to a file.
Super_restore – restores the are of the screen with the file contents.
Clear_keyboard_buffer – makes sure that no key pressed during the mouse movement is
stored in the keyboard buffer.
For further details on the functions provided by the library refer the header file named
“gui.h”.
Programming Construct to be followed
The programming construct to be followed while developing applications using this
graphics library is very simple to understand and if followed as specified as below then
there will not be operational problems and will also be easy to debug errors ( both logical
and syntactical ). The first while which is an infinite one ensures that the program is
running even after the mouse-click event has occurred. The second do-while loop keeps
assigning the button-click, x-co-ordinate and y-co-ordinate values of the mouse object to
the pre-defined global variables B, X and Y respectively. The following B values signify
the following:B=0 -> No button click event has occurred
B=1 -> Left-Button-Click event has occurred
B=2 -> Right-Button-Click event has occurred
B=3 -> Middle-Button-Click event has occurred
The button-click values (i.e. B values) are automatically set to zero after each loop so
there is no need of the user to set it manually. Every function that has to perform Gui
operation has to follow the programming construct as specified by below. Other functions
that perform only calculations need not follow the construct. For the full operational code
please refer the example files provided.
#include <gui.h>
…other header files required….
Gui <gui-object>
Mouse <mouse-object>
…other objects and variables required….
<Function> ( )
{
<gui-object>.init ( ); //Must be written only once per program
<mouse-object>.init ( ); //Must be written only once per program
<mouse-object>.showmouseptr( );
while (1)
{
do
{
clear_keyboard_buffer(); // (Optional)
<mouse-object>.getmousepos(B,X,Y);
…functions that will perform an operation for every movement
of the mouse (like animate functions)…
} while (B==0);
…functions called for every mouse-click (like the operate functions)…
if ( <object-name>.mouseIn( ) )
{
…Your code here…
}
}
<gui-object>.close( ); //Must be written only once per program
}
Add-on Libraries
DOS graphics library
Apart from the library specified in the previous section, I have also created
another library for the use in situations where the mouse hardware is not present. This
DOS graphics library uses a custom made mouse pointer that is controlled using the numpad of the keyboard. This is very useful when the application developed is going to be
run on systems without the mouse hardware or in a pure DOS environment (where the
mouse hardware cannot be initialized). The programmer need not be worried about this
fact because the DOS graphics library also follows the same programming construct as
the previous library. All he/she has to do is to prefix a ‘D’ to the object names while
declaring them. The name of the header file to be included is “dgui.h”. The following are
the analogous class names in dgui.h to that in gui.h.
Gui.h class name
Mouse
Gui
S_Objects
C_Objects
P_Objects
Frame
Label
Button
Button3d
AnimeButton
WinLabel
WinButton
LinkButton
DateBox
TextField
RadioGroup
CheckBoxGroup
SelectBox
Dgui.h class name
DMouse
DGui
DS_Objects
DC_Objects
DP_Objects
DFrame
DLabel
DButton
DButton3d
DAnimeButton
DWinLabel
DWinButton
DLinkButton
DDateBox
DTextField
DRadioGroup
DCheckBoxGroup
DSelectBox
ListBox
ProgressBar
LoadingBar
ColorPalette
Menu
MenuBar
Panel
S_Container
PopUpMenu
InputBox
MessageBox
DListBox
DProgressBar
DLoadingBar
DColorPalette
DMenu
DMenuBar
DPanel
DS_Container
DPopUpMenu
DInputBox
DMessageBox
*Please note that the clear_keyboard_buffer function is not specified the dos graphics
library and should also not be used while developing applications using the same.*
Extended Library
The extended graphics library is used by including the header file “egui.h”. The
objects specified are mostly going to be editors such mouse pointer editor, icon editor, fill
pattern editor, image editor and so on. The main purpose of the extended graphics library
is to provide tools for editing mouse cursors and other things during the running of an
application. As of now only the mouse pointer editor has been completed. The rest of the
editors will be completed in due course of time. Using the extended graphics library will
also provide the functionalities of the basic GUI development graphics library specified
by “gui.h”
Advantages
 Easy to develop GUI based DOS applications that provide the user with all the
user-friendliness he/she requires.
 Application can be used on machines that do not have the compiler installed.
 Memory utilized by the application developed is very less.
 Application developed using these libraries rarely enter into a deadlocked state.
 Skills required for using these libraries are minimal.
 System requirements are minimal.
 Applications can be developed in very less time.
 Applications Developed can be easily transferred by floppies or e-mail.
Disadvantages
 Programmer must change memory model to medium. To do so
option->compiler->code generation->model (medium)
 Does not provide multi-tasking facility.
Future Developments
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Multi-Tasking feature to be added
Network support to be added.
Encryption functions to be added.
More objects to be added.
Editor classes are to be added.
Printer feature are to be added.
New types of data types are to be added.
Conclusion
Overall, these new graphics libraries provided can be used to generate GUIs for
DOS-based applications with great ease and efficiency with minimum skill. It also
decreases the time for application development by great deal of time. This library can be
used by anyone with great ease and understanding.