- 1 year ago
Can you make a Windows desktop app in Rust and winapi?
Yes, you can make a Windows desktop app using Rust and the winapi. The winapi is a Rust crate that provides bindings for Windows APIs and enables you to write Windows desktop applications in Rust. It is a powerful library that allows you to interact with the Windows operating system at a low level, and can be used to create Windows desktop applications, services, and drivers.
To get started, you will need to install Rust and the winapi crate. Once you have Rust installed, you can install the winapi crate using Cargo, Rust's package manager, by running the following command:
cargo install winapi
Once you have the winapi crate installed, you can start building your Windows desktop app. You will need to import the necessary functions and structures from the winapi crate, and then use them to interact with the Windows operating system.
Here's a basic example of a Windows desktop app written in Rust using the winapi:
rustuse std::ptr;
use winapi::um::winuser::{MessageBoxW, MB_OK};
fn main() {
let message = "Hello, Windows!";
let wide_message: Vec<u16> = message.encode_utf16().chain(Some(0)).collect();
let caption = "Greetings";
let wide_caption: Vec<u16> = caption.encode_utf16().chain(Some(0)).collect();
unsafe {
MessageBoxW(
ptr::null_mut(),
wide_message.as_ptr(),
wide_caption.as_ptr(),
MB_OK,
);
}
}
This example shows how to display a message box in Windows using the MessageBoxW
function from the winuser API. The unsafe
block is used to indicate that the code inside it is interacting with the operating system at a low level and could be unsafe.
This is just a simple example, but you can use the winapi to create more complex Windows desktop apps in Rust.