Introduction to 3D Game Programming with DirectX 10

Appendix A

Introduction to Windows Programming

To use the Direct3D API (application programming interface), it is necessary to create a Windows (Win32) application with a main window, upon which we will render our 3D scenes. This appendix serves as an introduction to writing Windows applications using the native Win32 API. Loosely, the Win32 API is a set of low-level functions and structures exposed to us in the C programming language that enables us to create Windows applications. For example, to define a window class, we fill out an instance of the Win32 API WNDCLASS structure; to create a window, we use the Win32 API CreateWindow function; to notify Windows to show a particular window, we use the Win32 API function ShowWindow.

Windows programming ...