Fortran Windows applications (.EXE) are main programs selected by choosing the Fortran Windows Application project type. This type of project lets you calls the Windows APIs directly from Visual Fortran. This provides full access to the Win32 APIs, giving you a larger (and different) set of functions to work with than QuickWin.
Although you can call some of the Win32® APIs from the other project types, Fortran Windows applications allow you to use the full set of Win32 routines and use certain system features not available for the other project types.
The DFWIN.F90 module contains interfaces to the most common Win32 APIs. If you include the USE DFWIN statement in your program, nearly all of the Win32 routines are available to you. The DFWIN.F90 module gives you access to a full range of routines including window management, graphic device interface, system services, multimedia, and remote procedure calls.
Window management gives your application the means to create and manage a user interface. You can create windows to display output or prompt for input. Graphics Device Interface (GDI) functions provide ways for you to generate graphical output for displays, printers, and other devices. Win32 system functions allow you to manage and monitor resources such as memory, access to files, directories, and I/O devices. System service functions provide features that your application can use to handle special conditions such as errors, event logging, and exception handling.
Using multimedia functions, your application can create documents and presentations that incorporate music, sound effects, and video clips as well as text and graphics. Multimedia functions provide services for audio, video, file I/O, media control, joystick, and timers.
Remote Procedure Calls (RPC) gives you the means to carry out distributed computing, letting applications tap the resources of computers on a network. A distributed application runs as a process in one address space and makes procedure calls that execute in an address space on another computer. You can create distributed applications using RPC, each consisting of a client that presents information to the user and a server that stores, retrieves, and manipulates data as well as handling computing tasks. Shared databases and remote file servers are examples of distributed applications.
Writing Fortran Windows applications is much more complex than other kinds of Visual Fortran projects. For more information on how to create Fortran Windows applications, see Creating Windows Applications.
You can access the Windows API online documentation help file, Platform SDK, included with Visual Fortran. You can also obtain information through the Microsoft Developer Network. Microsoft offers Developer Network membership, which includes a development library and a quarterly CD containing technical information for Windows programming.
For information on calling Win32 routines, see Calling Win32 Routines.