[wxWidgets.git] / docs / html / faqgen.htm


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<HEAD>
<TITLE>wxWindows 2 FAQ: General</TITLE>
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<font face="Arial, Lucida Sans, Helvetica">

<table width=100% border=0 cellpadding=3 cellspacing=0>
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<td bgcolor="#004080" align=left height=24 background="images/bluetitlegradient.gif">
<font size=+1 face="Arial, Lucida Sans, Helvetica" color="#FFFFFF">
<b>wxWindows 2 FAQ: General</b>
</font>
</td>
</tr>
</table>

<P>

See also <a href="faq.htm">top-level FAQ page</a>.
<hr>
<h3>List of questions in this category</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="#whatis">What is wxWindows?</a></li>
<li><a href="#users">Who uses wxWindows?</a></li>
<li><a href="#platforms">What platforms are supported by wxWindows 2?</a></li>
<li><a href="#specific">How does wxWindows 2 support platform-specific features?</a></li>
<li><a href="#stl">Does wxWindows use STL? or the standard string class?</a></li>
<li><a href="#richedit">Is there a rich edit/markup widget for wxWindows 2?</a></ li>
<li><a href="#dev">How is wxWindows 2 being developed?</a></li>
<li><a href="#distrib">How is wxWindows 2 distributed?</a></li>
<li><a href="#future">What are the plans for the future?</a></li>
<li><a href="#univ">What is wxUniversal?</a></li>
<li><a href="#jave">What about Java?</a></li>
<li><a href="#help">How can I help the project?</a></li>
</ul>
<hr>

<H3><a name="whatis">What is wxWindows?</a></H3>

wxWindows is a class library that allows you to compile graphical C++ programs on a range of
different platforms. wxWindows defines a common API across platforms, but uses the native graphical user interface (GUI) on each platform,
so your program will take on the native &#39;look and feel&#39; that users are familiar with.<P>

Although GUI applications are mostly built programmatically, there is a dialog editor to help
build attractive dialogs and panels. Robert Roebling&#39;s <a href="http://www.roebling.com">wxDesigner</a>
makes light work of resizable, portable dialogs.<P>

You don&#39;t have to use C++ to use wxWindows: there is a <a href="http://wxpython.org">Python interface</a> for wxWindows 2,
and also a <a href="http://wxperl.sourceforge.net" target=_top>Perl interface</a>.
<P>

<h3>Can I use wxWindows 2 for both proprietary (commercial) projects, and GPL&#39;ed projects?</h3>

Yes. Please see the <a href="newlicen.htm">licence</a> for details, but basically
you can distribute proprietary binaries without distributing any source code, and neither will wxWindows
conflict with GPL code you may be using or developing with it.
<P>
The conditions for using wxWindows 2 are the same whether you are a personal, academic
or commercial developer.
<P>

<h3>Is there support?</h3>

No official support, but the mailing list is very helpful and some people say that
wxWindows support is better than for much commercial software. The developers are
keen to fix bugs as soon as possible, though obviously there are no guarantees.
<P>

<H3><a name="users">Who uses wxWindows?</a></H3>

Many organisations - commercial, government, and academic - across the
world. It&#39;s impossible to estimate the true number of users, since
wxWindows is obtained by many different means, and we cannot monitor
distribution. The mailing list contains around 300-400 entries which is
quite large for a list of this type.<P>

See <a href="users.htm">Users</a> for a list of some users and their applications, and
also <A href="feedback.htm">Feedback</a> for comments.<P>

<H3><a name="platforms">What platforms are supported by wxWindows 2?</a></H3>

<ul>
<li>Windows 3.1, Windows 95/98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows ME.
<li>Linux and other Unix platforms with GTK+.
<li>Unix with Motif or the free Motif clone Lesstif.
<li>Mac OS.
<li>Embedded platforms are being investigated. See the <a href="wxuniv.htm">wxUniversal</a> project.
<li>An OS/2 port is in progress, and you can also compile wxWindows for GTK+ or Motif
on OS/2.
</ul>
<P>

<H3><a name="specific">How does wxWindows 2 support platform-specific
features?</a></H3>

This is a hotly-debated topic amongst the developers. My own philosophy
is to make wxWindows as platform-independent as possible, but allow in a
few classes (functions, window styles) that are platform-specific.
For example, Windows metafiles and Windows 95 taskbar icons have
their own classes on Windows, but nowhere else. Because these classes
are provided and are wxWindows-compatible, it doesn&#39;t take much
coding effort for an application programmer to add support for
some functionality that the user on a particular platform might otherwise
miss. Also, some classes that started off as platform-specific, such
as the MDI classes, have been emulated on other platforms. I can imagine
that even wxTaskBarIcon may be implemented for Unix desktops one day.
<P>

In other words, wxWindows is not a &#39;lowest common denominator&#39; approach,
but it will still be possible to write portable programs using the
core API. Forbidding some platform-specific classes would be a stupid
approach that would alienate many potential users, and encourage
the perception that toolkits such as wxWindows are not up to the demands
of today&#39;s sophisticated applications.<P>

Currently resources such as bitmaps and icons are handled in a platform-specific
way, but it is hoped to reduce this dependence in due course.<P>

Another reason why wxWindows 2 is not a &#39;lowest common denominator&#39; toolkit is that
some functionality missing on some platform has been provided using generic,
platform-independent code, such as the wxTreeCtrl and wxListCtrl classes.<P>

<H3><a name="stl">Does wxWindows use STL? or the standard string class?</a></H3>

No. This is a much-discussed topic that has (many times) ended with the conclusion that it is in
wxWindows&#39; best interests to avoid use of templates. Not all compilers can handle
templates adequately so it would dramatically reduce the number of compilers
and platforms that could be supported. It would also be undersirable to make
wxWindows dependent on another large library that may have to be downloaded and installed.
In addition, use of templates can lead to executable bloat, which is something
wxWindows 2 is strenously trying to avoid.<P>

The standard C++ string class is not used, again because it is not available to all compilers,
and it is not necessarily a very efficient implementation. Also, we retain more flexibility
by being able to modify our own string class. Some compatibility with the string class
has been built into wxString.<P>

There is nothing to stop an application using templates or the string class for its own
purposes. With wxWindows debugging options on, you may find you get errors when including
STL headers. You can work around it either by switching off memory checking,
or by adding this to a header before you include any STL files:<P>

<PRE>
&#35;ifdef new
&#35;undef new
&#35;endif
</PRE>

<P>


<H3><a name="richedit">Is there a rich edit/markup widget for wxWindows 2?</a></H3>

These are the possibilities so far:<P>

<ul>
<li>The richedit sample has a text editor that does markup.
<li>See <a href="http://www.scintilla.org" target=_top>www.scintilla.org</a> for
a very nice syntax-highlighting editor widget. Robin Dunn is writing a wxWindows wrapper
for this widget.
<li>If you only need to display marked-up information, rather than edit it,
then wxHTML will suit your needs. wxHTML is built into wxWindows - please see the reference
manual for details, and samples/html.
<li>There are rich edit widgets in both WIN32 and GTK+, but there is currently
no wxWindows wrapper for these (but text attribute functions are being added in the wxWindows 2.3.x series).
</ul>

<P>

<H3><a name="dev">How is wxWindows 2 being developed?</a></H3>

We are using the <a href="cvs.htm">CVS</a> system to develop and maintain wxWindows. This allows
us to make alterations and upload them instantly to the SourceForge server, from
which others can update their source.<P>

To build source from CVS, see the file BuildCVS.txt in the top-level wxWindows distribution
directory.<P>

<H3><a name="distrib">How is wxWindows 2 distributed?</a></H3>

By ftp, and via the <a href="cdrom2.htm">wxWindows CD-ROM</a>.
<P>
If you are feeling adventurous, you may also check out the sources directly
from the <a href="cvs.htm">cvs</a>
<p>

<H3><a name="future">What are the plans for the future?</a></H3>

Currently we&#39;re working too hard on getting wxWindows 2 finished (are GUI toolkits ever
finished?) to think very far ahead. However, we know we want to make wxWindows as robust
and well-publicised as possible. We also want to aim for better platform-independence of
resources such as icons and bitmaps, standardising on the PNG for all platforms.<P>

Other possibilities include: DCOM/CORBA compatibility; a wxWindows book;
<a href="http://wxworkshop.sourceforge.net/">wxWorkshop</a>, an IDE;
other platforms, especially embedded systems; other interface abilities such as speech output.<P>

We will investigate the possibility of compiler or operating system vendors bundling wxWindows with
their product.<P>

The high-level goal of wxWindows is to be thought of as the number one C++ framework,
for virtually any platform. Move over, MFC!<P>

<H3><a name="univ">What is wxUniversal?</a></H3>

wxUniversal is a new port of wxWindows being currently actively developed. The
main difference is that wxUniversal implements all controls (or widgets) in
wxWindows itself thus allowing to have much more flexibility (i.e. support for
themes even under MS Windows!). It also means that it is now much easier to
port wxWindows to a new platform as only the low-level classes must be ported
which make for a small part of the library.
<p>
You may find more about wxUniversal <a href=wxuniv.htm>here</a>.

<H3><a name="jave">What about Java?</a></H3>

The Java honeymoon period is over :-) and people are realising that it cannot
meet all their cross-platform development needs. We don&#39;t anticipate a major threat
from Java, and the level of interest in wxWindows is as high as ever.<P>

<H3><a name="help">How can I help the project?</a></H3>

Please check out the <a href="http://www.wxwindows.org/develop2.htm">Community</a> pages,
in particular the <a href="projects.htm">suggested projects</a>, and
mail <a href="mailto:julian.smart@btopenworld.com">Julian Smart</a> or the developers&#39; mailing list with your own suggestions.<P>

</font>

</BODY>

</HTML>
Commit	Line	Data
8b283bb8	1
ce3ed50d JS	2	<HTML>
	3
	4	<HEAD>
	5	<TITLE>wxWindows 2 FAQ: General</TITLE>
	6	</HEAD>
	7
4e4dc03d	8	<BODY BGCOLOR=#FFFFFF TEXT=#000000 VLINK="#00376A" LINK="#00529C" ALINK="#313063">
ce3ed50d JS	9
	10	<font face="Arial, Lucida Sans, Helvetica">
	11
4e4dc03d	12	<table width=100% border=0 cellpadding=3 cellspacing=0>
ce3ed50d	13	<tr>
4e4dc03d JS	14	<td bgcolor="#004080" align=left height=24 background="images/bluetitlegradient.gif">
	15	<font size=+1 face="Arial, Lucida Sans, Helvetica" color="#FFFFFF">
	16	<b>wxWindows 2 FAQ: General</b>
ce3ed50d JS	17	</font>
	18	</td>
	19	</tr>
	20	</table>
	21
	22	<P>
	23
	24	See also <a href="faq.htm">top-level FAQ page</a>.
	25	<hr>
8b283bb8 JS	26	<h3>List of questions in this category</h3>
	27	<ul>
	28	<li><a href="#whatis">What is wxWindows?</a></li>
	29	<li><a href="#users">Who uses wxWindows?</a></li>
	30	<li><a href="#platforms">What platforms are supported by wxWindows 2?</a></li>
	31	<li><a href="#specific">How does wxWindows 2 support platform-specific features?</a></li>
	32	<li><a href="#stl">Does wxWindows use STL? or the standard string class?</a></li>
	33	<li><a href="#richedit">Is there a rich edit/markup widget for wxWindows 2?</a></ li>
	34	<li><a href="#dev">How is wxWindows 2 being developed?</a></li>
	35	<li><a href="#distrib">How is wxWindows 2 distributed?</a></li>
	36	<li><a href="#future">What are the plans for the future?</a></li>
	37	<li><a href="#univ">What is wxUniversal?</a></li>
	38	<li><a href="#jave">What about Java?</a></li>
	39	<li><a href="#help">How can I help the project?</a></li>
	40	</ul>
	41	<hr>
ce3ed50d JS	42
	43	<H3><a name="whatis">What is wxWindows?</a></H3>
	44
	45	wxWindows is a class library that allows you to compile graphical C++ programs on a range of
	46	different platforms. wxWindows defines a common API across platforms, but uses the native graphical user interface (GUI) on each platform,
8b283bb8	47	so your program will take on the native 'look and feel' that users are familiar with.<P>
ce3ed50d JS	48
ce3ed50d JS	49	Although GUI applications are mostly built programmatically, there is a dialog editor to help
8b283bb8	50	build attractive dialogs and panels. Robert Roebling's <a href="http://www.roebling.com">wxDesigner</a>
51ab9400	51	makes light work of resizable, portable dialogs.<P>
ce3ed50d	52
8b283bb8 JS	53	You don't have to use C++ to use wxWindows: there is a <a href="http://wxpython.org">Python interface</a> for wxWindows 2,
8b283bb8 JS	54	and also a <a href="http://wxperl.sourceforge.net" target=_top>Perl interface</a>.
ce3ed50d JS	55	<P>
ce3ed50d JS	56
8b283bb8	57	<h3>Can I use wxWindows 2 for both proprietary (commercial) projects, and GPL'ed projects?</h3>
ce3ed50d JS	58
	59	Yes. Please see the <a href="newlicen.htm">licence</a> for details, but basically
	60	you can distribute proprietary binaries without distributing any source code, and neither will wxWindows
	61	conflict with GPL code you may be using or developing with it.
	62	<P>
	63	The conditions for using wxWindows 2 are the same whether you are a personal, academic
	64	or commercial developer.
	65	<P>
	66
	67	<h3>Is there support?</h3>
	68
	69	No official support, but the mailing list is very helpful and some people say that
	70	wxWindows support is better than for much commercial software. The developers are
	71	keen to fix bugs as soon as possible, though obviously there are no guarantees.
	72	<P>
	73
	74	<H3><a name="users">Who uses wxWindows?</a></H3>
	75
	76	Many organisations - commercial, government, and academic - across the
8b283bb8	77	world. It's impossible to estimate the true number of users, since
ce3ed50d JS	78	wxWindows is obtained by many different means, and we cannot monitor
	79	distribution. The mailing list contains around 300-400 entries which is
	80	quite large for a list of this type.<P>
	81
51ab9400 JS	82	See <a href="users.htm">Users</a> for a list of some users and their applications, and
51ab9400 JS	83	also <A href="feedback.htm">Feedback</a> for comments.<P>
b953bdc2	84
8b283bb8	85	<H3><a name="platforms">What platforms are supported by wxWindows 2?</a></H3>
b953bdc2 JS	86
b953bdc2 JS	87	<ul>
8b283bb8 JS	88	<li>Windows 3.1, Windows 95/98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows ME.
	89	<li>Linux and other Unix platforms with GTK+.
	90	<li>Unix with Motif or the free Motif clone Lesstif.
	91	<li>Mac OS.
	92	<li>Embedded platforms are being investigated. See the <a href="wxuniv.htm">wxUniversal</a> project.
51ab9400 JS	93	<li>An OS/2 port is in progress, and you can also compile wxWindows for GTK+ or Motif
51ab9400 JS	94	on OS/2.
b953bdc2 JS	95	</ul>
	96	<P>
	97
8b283bb8 JS	98	<H3><a name="specific">How does wxWindows 2 support platform-specific
8b283bb8 JS	99	features?</a></H3>
b953bdc2 JS	100
	101	This is a hotly-debated topic amongst the developers. My own philosophy
	102	is to make wxWindows as platform-independent as possible, but allow in a
	103	few classes (functions, window styles) that are platform-specific.
	104	For example, Windows metafiles and Windows 95 taskbar icons have
	105	their own classes on Windows, but nowhere else. Because these classes
8b283bb8	106	are provided and are wxWindows-compatible, it doesn't take much
b953bdc2 JS	107	coding effort for an application programmer to add support for
	108	some functionality that the user on a particular platform might otherwise
	109	miss. Also, some classes that started off as platform-specific, such
	110	as the MDI classes, have been emulated on other platforms. I can imagine
	111	that even wxTaskBarIcon may be implemented for Unix desktops one day.
	112	<P>
	113
8b283bb8	114	In other words, wxWindows is not a 'lowest common denominator' approach,
b953bdc2 JS	115	but it will still be possible to write portable programs using the
	116	core API. Forbidding some platform-specific classes would be a stupid
	117	approach that would alienate many potential users, and encourage
	118	the perception that toolkits such as wxWindows are not up to the demands
8b283bb8	119	of today's sophisticated applications.<P>
b953bdc2 JS	120
	121	Currently resources such as bitmaps and icons are handled in a platform-specific
	122	way, but it is hoped to reduce this dependence in due course.<P>
	123
8b283bb8	124	Another reason why wxWindows 2 is not a 'lowest common denominator' toolkit is that
b953bdc2 JS	125	some functionality missing on some platform has been provided using generic,
	126	platform-independent code, such as the wxTreeCtrl and wxListCtrl classes.<P>
	127
8b283bb8	128	<H3><a name="stl">Does wxWindows use STL? or the standard string class?</a></H3>
b953bdc2 JS	129
b953bdc2 JS	130	No. This is a much-discussed topic that has (many times) ended with the conclusion that it is in
8b283bb8	131	wxWindows' best interests to avoid use of templates. Not all compilers can handle
b953bdc2 JS	132	templates adequately so it would dramatically reduce the number of compilers
	133	and platforms that could be supported. It would also be undersirable to make
	134	wxWindows dependent on another large library that may have to be downloaded and installed.
	135	In addition, use of templates can lead to executable bloat, which is something
	136	wxWindows 2 is strenously trying to avoid.<P>
	137
	138	The standard C++ string class is not used, again because it is not available to all compilers,
	139	and it is not necessarily a very efficient implementation. Also, we retain more flexibility
	140	by being able to modify our own string class. Some compatibility with the string class
	141	has been built into wxString.<P>
	142
	143	There is nothing to stop an application using templates or the string class for its own
8b283bb8 JS	144	purposes. With wxWindows debugging options on, you may find you get errors when including
	145	STL headers. You can work around it either by switching off memory checking,
	146	or by adding this to a header before you include any STL files:<P>
	147
	148	<PRE>
	149	#ifdef new
	150	#undef new
	151	#endif
	152	</PRE>
	153
	154	<P>
	155
b953bdc2	156
8b283bb8	157	<H3><a name="richedit">Is there a rich edit/markup widget for wxWindows 2?</a></H3>
790ad94f JS	158
	159	These are the possibilities so far:<P>
	160
	161	<ul>
	162	<li>The richedit sample has a text editor that does markup.
	163	<li>See <a href="http://www.scintilla.org" target=_top>www.scintilla.org</a> for
	164	a very nice syntax-highlighting editor widget. Robin Dunn is writing a wxWindows wrapper
	165	for this widget.
	166	<li>If you only need to display marked-up information, rather than edit it,
	167	then wxHTML will suit your needs. wxHTML is built into wxWindows - please see the reference
	168	manual for details, and samples/html.
	169	<li>There are rich edit widgets in both WIN32 and GTK+, but there is currently
8b283bb8	170	no wxWindows wrapper for these (but text attribute functions are being added in the wxWindows 2.3.x series).
790ad94f JS	171	</ul>
	172
	173	<P>
	174
8b283bb8	175	<H3><a name="dev">How is wxWindows 2 being developed?</a></H3>
b953bdc2 JS	176
b953bdc2 JS	177	We are using the <a href="cvs.htm">CVS</a> system to develop and maintain wxWindows. This allows
51ab9400	178	us to make alterations and upload them instantly to the SourceForge server, from
b953bdc2 JS	179	which others can update their source.<P>
b953bdc2 JS	180
91c93c99 JS	181	To build source from CVS, see the file BuildCVS.txt in the top-level wxWindows distribution
	182	directory.<P>
	183
8b283bb8	184	<H3><a name="distrib">How is wxWindows 2 distributed?</a></H3>
b953bdc2	185
8b283bb8 JS	186	By ftp, and via the <a href="cdrom2.htm">wxWindows CD-ROM</a>.
	187	<P>
	188	If you are feeling adventurous, you may also check out the sources directly
	189	from the <a href="cvs.htm">cvs</a>
	190	<p>
b953bdc2	191
8b283bb8	192	<H3><a name="future">What are the plans for the future?</a></H3>
b953bdc2	193
8b283bb8	194	Currently we're working too hard on getting wxWindows 2 finished (are GUI toolkits ever
b953bdc2 JS	195	finished?) to think very far ahead. However, we know we want to make wxWindows as robust
	196	and well-publicised as possible. We also want to aim for better platform-independence of
	197	resources such as icons and bitmaps, standardising on the PNG for all platforms.<P>
	198
91c93c99	199	Other possibilities include: DCOM/CORBA compatibility; a wxWindows book;
8b283bb8 JS	200	<a href="http://wxworkshop.sourceforge.net/">wxWorkshop</a>, an IDE;
8b283bb8 JS	201	other platforms, especially embedded systems; other interface abilities such as speech output.<P>
b953bdc2 JS	202
	203	We will investigate the possibility of compiler or operating system vendors bundling wxWindows with
	204	their product.<P>
	205
	206	The high-level goal of wxWindows is to be thought of as the number one C++ framework,
	207	for virtually any platform. Move over, MFC!<P>
	208
8b283bb8 JS	209	<H3><a name="univ">What is wxUniversal?</a></H3>
	210
	211	wxUniversal is a new port of wxWindows being currently actively developed. The
	212	main difference is that wxUniversal implements all controls (or widgets) in
	213	wxWindows itself thus allowing to have much more flexibility (i.e. support for
	214	themes even under MS Windows!). It also means that it is now much easier to
	215	port wxWindows to a new platform as only the low-level classes must be ported
	216	which make for a small part of the library.
	217	<p>
	218	You may find more about wxUniversal <a href=wxuniv.htm>here</a>.
	219
	220	<H3><a name="jave">What about Java?</a></H3>
b953bdc2 JS	221
b953bdc2 JS	222	The Java honeymoon period is over :-) and people are realising that it cannot
8b283bb8	223	meet all their cross-platform development needs. We don't anticipate a major threat
b953bdc2 JS	224	from Java, and the level of interest in wxWindows is as high as ever.<P>
b953bdc2 JS	225
8b283bb8	226	<H3><a name="help">How can I help the project?</a></H3>
b953bdc2	227
8b283bb8 JS	228	Please check out the <a href="http://www.wxwindows.org/develop2.htm">Community</a> pages,
	229	in particular the <a href="projects.htm">suggested projects</a>, and
	230	mail <a href="mailto:julian.smart@btopenworld.com">Julian Smart</a> or the developers' mailing list with your own suggestions.<P>
b953bdc2	231
ce3ed50d JS	232	</font>
	233
	234	</BODY>
	235
	236	</HTML>