Since I’m going to extend my knowledge of programming, I selected wxWidgets as the next target. It has some advantages when comparing with other frameworks:

1. cross platform: vs Win32, Cocoa, Gnome, KDE
2. can develop commercial applications: vs Qt
3. has more features: vs FLTK
4. active community

So here’s how to setup wxWidgets on Windows Vista. I assume you already setup MinGW and Code::Blocks.

1. download and install wxWidgets: wxMSW-2.8.9-Setup.exe, I installed it to c:\apps\wxWidgets-2.8.9
2. endter the directory wxWidgets-2.8.9\build\msw, run the command:

   make -f makefile.gcc BUILD=release SHARED=1 MONOLITHIC=1 UNICODE=1
   make -f makefile.gcc BUILD=debugSHARED=1 MONOLITHIC=1 UNICODE=1

3. after finished, copy wxWidgets-2.8.9\lib\gcc_dll\wxmsw28u_gcc_custom.dll and wxmsw28ud_gcc_custom.dll to c:\windows\system32
4. start code::blocks, create a wxWidgets project, when asking wxWidgets Library Settings, check the Use wxWidgets DLL, wxWidgts is built as a monolithic library and Enable unicode
5. build and run the project, you should have your 1st wxWidgets applications with wxSmith GUI editor.

Here’s some wxSmith tutorial