Designing Screen Interfaces in C (Yourdon Press Computing Series)

With an emphasis on developing easy-to-use, intuitive software, this volume demonstrates how C programmers can add windowing, pull-down menus, help screens, data input screens, point-and-shoot file selection and other features to enhance software for IBM PCs and clones. A practical, theoretical approach to interface design in C, the book offers readers techniques for producing software that will work with any display adapter, from the orginal monochrome display adapter to the VGA graphics card. The software described also works with multi-tasking environments such as DESQview. In step-by-step detail, the author walks the reader through constructing text-based window systems; building several popular menu systems, including pop-up, Lotus-style moving light bar, stacked light bar and pull-down menus; creating line editor and and data input screens; developing a function that allows users to select from lists of items via point-and-shoot or speed-search techniques; building a function for displaying and selecting files from a directory; and creating help screen editors.