Starting off grid based program

I have a okay understanding off C++ console programming and an extensive understanding of many other OOP languages but I'm kinda lost when it comes to developing with the win32 GUI.

I have to say I'm at a loss when it comes to finding suitable documentation for the win32 stuff and maybe I'm just looking in all of the wrong places but all I can seem to find is information about setting up the main WINAPI loop and the base message system on how to close a window. I can use Code blocks or Visual Studios Express and the template are close to the same thing barring a few differences with definitions.

What I'm trying to accomplish

I need a win32 program for employees to go in and enter in the following information:

Customer Name

Appointment ID

Employee Name

and an ETA on when the job will be finished

I want this information to be recorded in a DB so if another employee opens up the same program they can see the all of the records in I want them to show up in a table form like so

Appointment ID Customer Name Emp Name CountDown

#97234665 John Smith Jane Smith you have 1hr and 23min left


When the count down hits 5 min I want a notification.

I understand I'm gonna need access to the offsite mySQL database
I'll need it to query for new jobs every 5 min or so.

I understand step by step what functionality needs to happen and if I were doing this in python or PHP this would take 2 hrs

If anyone can provide links to win32 libraries, code snippets, tutorials, or anything else that might be applicable it would be greatly appreciated.

Applications like this are almost universally web based these days OP. There is no doubt that you'll get a huge performance boost using C++ atomic ops instead of something like JS for the back end but as far as the UI to DB interface goes I would think something like AJAX would be a more natural choice. Also this:
... if I were doing this in python or PHP this would take 2 hrs.

Is either impossibly naive or you're some kind of programming deity to be able to do this correctly in that amount of time. This is a multi year development project for most medium sized companies.

Of course if this is all academic then I've just made a fool of myself and you can feel free to ignore all of that. In that case I would be happy to get you started, your primary resource for all things Windows will, as always, be MSDN. Personally I wouldn't use GDI or DirectX for the GUI, that would just be a masochistic waste of time. Something like SFML would give you flexibility and fine tune control while something like QT will give you a uniform build with a quick turn around.

- MSDN: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bg126469.aspx

- SFML: http://www.sfml-dev.org/

OR

- QT: http://qt-project.org/

I personally don't have a huge amount of experience with QT, but it has a positive reputation from what I've read on this site overall. I've been working with the other two on various projects for a number of years (although I am not a professional developer).
Thanks for your input.

Most of the stuff I develop for the company is web based for the purpose of it being universally accessible.

This project however will only need to be accessed in the building on 5 specific machines. If it was online it would require either a web based program on a local server or a user password combo so it's not accessible by the public. therefor I'm left with the assumption that a windows native application would be the best choice.

It's true it's easier to connect to a db with web based development but from what I've seen of visual studios connecting to a data source is done with a wizard.

p.s
I'm by no means a deity and 2 hrs may have been an exaggeration but based on my previous turn around a web based application for this definitely wouldn't take more than a week.
In that case most of what you want to do will likely be accomplished through the use of a Wizard. Menu's, hot-keys, dialog boxes, buttons etc. are defined in resource files which are compiled (or is it linked? I honestly can't remember) into the application binary when it is built. You could write this kind of script by hand and I have personally done that before which is exactly why I recommend using a tool of some sort. Writing resource files by hand is just mindless repetitive data entry without anything interesting about it. Qt will help you speed this up if you find the MSVS tool to be a bad fit.

- Menus and Resources: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms632583(v=vs.85).aspx
Thanks again for your input it was very helpful
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