win32 1.6.2

A Dart library for accessing common Win32 APIs using FFI. No C required!

A package that wraps some of the most common Win32 API calls using FFI to make them accessible to Dart code without requiring a C compiler or the Windows SDK.

Perhaps of as much use as the APIs themselves, this package provides a variety of instructive examples for more complex FFI usage scenarios.

By design, this package provides minimal modifications to the Win32 API to support Dart idioms. The goal is to provide high familiarity to an existing Win32 developer. Other plugins may build on these primitives to provide a friendly API for Dart and Flutter developers. A good example of that is filepicker_windows, which offers a common item dialog suitable for incorporation into an existing Flutter app.

Requirements

This package assumes the Dart 32-bit or 64-bit compiler, running on Windows.

Usage

A simple Petzoldian Hello World example can be found in the example subdirectory. This example demonstrates creating a Win32 window and responding to common messages such as WM_PAINT through a WindowProc callback function.

To run it, type:

dart example\hello.dart

This should display a window with a text message.

This can be compiled into a standalone Win32 executable by running:

dart2native example\hello.dart -o example\bin\hello.exe

Samples

Dart samples

The package includes a number of examples in the example subdirectory. These examples use the Win32 API for all UI display and do not require Flutter.

Example	Description
hello.dart	Basic Petzoldian "hello world" Win32 app
paint.dart	Demonstrates simple GDI drawing and min/max window sizing
scroll.dart	Example of horizontal and vertical scrolling text window
console.dart	Shows usage of console APIs
msgbox.dart	Demonstrates a MessageBox from the console
calendar.dart	Gets information about the calendar from a WinRT API
sendinput.dart	Sends keyboard and mouse input to another window
knownfolder.dart	Retrieves known folders from the current user profile
window.dart	Enumerates open windows and basic window manipulation
guid.dart	Creates a globally unique identifier (GUID)
devices.dart	Uses volume management APIs to list all disk devices
modules.dart	Enumerates all loaded modules on the current system
snake.dart	Snake game using various GDI features
dialogshow.dart	Creates a common item dialog (file picker) using COM
wmi.dart	Using WMI from COM to retrieve device/OS information
tetris\main.dart	Port of an open-source Tetris game to Dart
notepad\notepad.dart	Lightweight replica of the Windows notepad applet

Flutter samples

The explorer\ subdirectory contains an example of a simple Flutter app that uses the volume management Win32 APIs to find the disk drives connected to your computer and their volume IDs and attached paths.

Features and bugs

Let me know what APIs you're interested in seeing. I'm not planning to project the entire Windows API, but I'm particularly interested in examples that either unblock a plugin for Windows or that demonstrate more complex Windows APIs that represent an important pattern.

Please file feature requests and bugs at the issue tracker. This is a hobby project, and should not be viewed as having the same level of quality assurance as an official package from the Dart team. I'm a product manager having fun on my weekends!

Acknowledgements

The Tetris example listed above is a fuller worked example of a reasonably complete program that uses the Dart Win32 package. It is a port of a C version of the game by Chang-Hung Liang. More information...

The C implementation of the Snake game is by David Jones, and is ported with his permission.

The original C version of the Notepad example was originally authored by Charles Petzold, and is kindly licensed by him without restriction.