If these softwares were not made with . NET, and as far as I know they haven’t, they don’t really use Windows Forms, which is nothing more than a layer on top of the Windows API.
When you want to manipulate windows on the operating system you don’t have much to escape from the window API of it. To what extent you will use all or only the main features and do the rest at hand is a decision of your or the library you want to use.
Most programmers prefer to use libraries that facilitate the use of the OS API.
In fact if your intention is to make an application that runs on more than one platform there are two alternatives: create a code to manipulate the screens on each platform or use a library that can abstract a good part of them.
If you are going to create a GUI system for each platform some options would be the MFC for Windows, GTK for Linux or Cocoa for Macos.
There are other options mainly for Windows but everyone complains that none is good enough. And they work well, but they’re usually hard-to-handle libraries.
It is possible to use GTK on other platforms but the result is not good. A Binding since this library was written in C.
It is almost impractical to use Cocoa directly in C++.
If the option is to create a single system for all of them the best options seem to be Wxwidgets and Qt.
The first uses the native resources a lot but it is not so simple to work with it and not always the result is adequate. The look works well but the experience leaves to be desired. I’ve seen some reports of bugs that are never solved.
The second does not always achieve perfect visual result but it is simpler to make everything work on all platforms. It even allows you to make the applications for the 3 major mobile platforms. Of course, taking advantage of desktop screens on mobile is not something that usually works. It is considered native in Linux and the look for Windows is very well played, fool around as much as or more than WPF which is also not perfect.
In almost all of them it is possible to make a custom look that escapes the standard of the operating system. But the problem is whether to change the behavior, the overall experience. As good as usability is on one platform, when it is applied on another, it doesn’t usually work very well.
Even if you want to use Windows-only as the question title demonstrates, you’ll probably prefer a higher-level library, like Qt. By its flexibility, it seems to be as close as you want it to be. But don’t take my word for it, search further.
Qt lets you make the look of the application look the way you want it to look. It allows your entire drawing to be customized.
Opt for MFC, ATL or WTL. that are official or almost official Microsoft options is not easy. Some find that the pure Win32 API is even easier :)
There are other options but few people use: eGUI, Ultimate++, Smartwin.
There is also a library VCL Builder, but only works with Embarcadero compilers.
The list does not end here, the amount of options is impressive.
This is the basis for you to research further and see what meets your need. But I warn you that none is perfect.
From what I understand you are looking for a cross Plataform window manager for your application? If this is the case I recommend GTK, I used a lot with C#, but it works the same for other languages.http://www.gtkmm.org/pt_BR/index.html
– Pedro Soares
In fact, at first, my interest was really to discover a solution that would give me a more personalized interface and not so much based on windows windows.
– Douglas Ramos
I think that more than not directly using the operating system schema your desire is to have a window with a totally own style, independent of the native style (given the examples of Popcorntime and Ccleaner). In that case, I would go by the answer already given, using Qt. You can simply "shut down" the native rendering of the window (using
Qt::FramelessWindowHint) and then draw yours any way you want. Here is an example in Qt, with a semi-transparent window: http://www.qtcentre.org/wiki/index.php?title=ARGB-Widgets– Luiz Vieira
Another more complete example (the page is in French, but nothing that Google Translation can’t help): http://qt.developpez.com/tutoriels/braindeadbzh/customwindow/
– Luiz Vieira
Take a look at [tour]. You can accept an answer if it solved your problem. You can vote on every post on the site as well. Did any help you more? You need something to be improved?
– Maniero