[GD-Windows] Complex GUIs

[Brett B. <res...@ga...>]

Hello,
Hope this is the correct forum to post this. We currently develop PS2 =
and GameCube titles and our Windows programming is limited to tools so =
far. Also, we have only made "twitch" games for consoles before, so the =
idea of doing something more complex leads us to wonder how much of the =
low-level to-the-metal approach we should give up.

If we wanted to do a complex GUI for a Windows game, on the order of an =
MMORPGs (toolbars, menus, windows, buttons, lists, etc.), would it be =
best to:
1. Use Windows native functions but overriding the drawing, etc. with =
hooks to render a game interface instead of windows default application =
interface.
2. Use a third party gui widget toolkit and put in our own rendering =
functions to render the widgets.
3. Just do it how we do on consoles and use a thin, lightweight GUI =
built over the immediate mode toolkit.

The second related part (or maybe this should come first?) would be the =
event system that the above is all hooked up into. Would you:
1. Use Windows native event/messaging to drive the gui.
2. Use Direct Input and develop you own event messaging to drive the =
gui.
3. ???

As an example, I was particularly impressed with Star Wars Galaxies GUI =
and that would be a good example of the different kinds of things we =
want a gui to do.

Thanks,
Brett