Prompting a user with an input box? [C++]

Question

My goal is to simply use a pop-up box to ask the user for an input. I\'ve searched around quite a bit and pretty much all the results say that creating a messageBox is reall

Answer 1

I have to admit that I haven't really done much in the way of input boxes in ages, but you basically have to go outside C++ in order to get any kind of graphical input box. There's simply no mechanism built into the language for that kind of stuff for portability reasons. I don't remember if it applied to C++ as well, but C doesn't even assume you have a console. Anyway, your best bet would be something along the lines you were already trying: Win32 API, Qt, etc. If you can use the console, however, feel free to just use the iostream library to get the job done.

Answer 2

Unlike Visual Basic and other languages, there is no "built in" Input Box like command in c++. Unlike MessageBox that can be just invoked, InputBox() needs to be written. In fact, I have done so. The following article describes how to implement such InputBox as part of a small Static Library that can be used, with no Resources, from any Win32 c++ program. Source code at Github. It can be used as follow:

LPWSTR GetString(LPCTSTR szCaption, LPCTSTR szPrompt, LPCTSTR szDefaultText = L"");

For example:

LPWSTR result = SG_InputBox::GetString(
     L"Code Project Demo", 
     L"What is your name");