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[wxWidgets.git] / docs / readme.txt

wxWidgets 2.5.3
---------------

*** Please note that this is an UNSTABLE DEVELOPMENT SNAPSHOT.
*** Unless you need the new features and bug fixes, you may wish to
*** use the official 2.4.x stable series. You are still encouraged
*** to try the releases from 2.5.x branch, of course, and unstable
*** doesn't mean that they crash all the time -- just that the API
*** may change in backwards incompatible way. If this doesn't frighten
*** you, do try this release and please let us know what you think!

Welcome to wxWidgets, a sophisticated cross-platform C++
framework for writing advanced GUI applications using (where
possible) the native controls.

In addition to common and advanced GUI facilities such as
frames, scrolling windows, toolbars, tree controls, icons,
device contexts, printing, splitter windows and so on, there are
wrappers for common file operations, and facilities for writing
TCP/IP applications, thread handling, and more. Where certain
features are not available on a platform, such as MDI and tree
controls on Unix, they are emulated.

A detailed 1800-page reference manual is supplied in HTML, PDF
and Windows Help form: see the docs hierarchy.

For a quick start, point your Web browser at docs/html/index.htm
for a list of important documents and samples.

Changes in this release
-----------------------

Please see changes.txt for details.

Platforms supported
-------------------

wxWidgets currently supports the following platforms:

- Windows 95/98/ME, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Pocket PC
- Most Unix variants with GTK+ 1 and GTK+ 2
- Most Unix variants with X11 (beta)
- Most Unix variants with Motif/Lesstif
- MacOS 9.x and 10.x using Carbon (10.3 and above preferred)
- MacOS 10.x using Cocoa (beta)
- OS/2 (beta)

Most popular C++ compilers are supported; see the install.txt
file for each platform (available via docs/html/index.htm) for details.
See also http://www.wxwidgets.org/platform.htm.

Files
-----

The distribution is available in archive formats appropriate to the
target system. See the download pages for details.

Installation
------------

wxWidgets needs to be compiled before you can test out the samples
or write your own applications. For installation information, please
see the install.txt file in the individual directories:

  docs/msw
  docs/gtk
  docs/motif
  docs/mac
  docs/cocoa
  docs/x11
  docs/mgl
  docs/os2

Licence information
-------------------

For licensing information, please see the files:

  docs/preamble.txt
  docs/licence.txt
  docs/licendoc.txt
  docs/gpl.txt
  docs/lgpl.txt

Although this may seem complex, it is there to allow authors of
proprietary/commercial applications to use wxWidgets in
addition to those writing GPL'ed applications. In summary,
the licence is LGPL plus a clause allowing unrestricted
distribution of application binaries. To answer a FAQ, you
don't have to distribute any source if you wish to write
commercial applications using wxWidgets. 

However, if you distribute wxGTK or wxMotif (with Lesstif) version
of your application, don't forget that it is linked against
GTK+ (or Lesstif) which is covered by LGPL *without* exception
notice. Under Linux systems your app is probably linked
against LGPL glibc as well. Please read carefully LGPL, section 6.
which describes conditions for distribution of closed source applications
linked against LGPL library. Basically you should link dynamically and
include source code of LGPL libraries with your product (unless it is
already present in user's system - like glibc usually is).
If compiled with --enable-odbc (Unix only), wxWidgets library will 
contain iODBC library which is covered by LGPL.

If you use TIFF image handler, please see src/tiff/COPYRIGHT
for libtiff licence details.

If you use JPEG image handler, documentation for your program should
contain following sentence: "This software is based in part on the work of
the Independent JPEG Group". See src/jpeg/README for details.

If you use wxRegEx class on a system without native regular expressions
support (i.e. MS Windows), see src/regex/COPYRIGHT file for Henry Spencer's
regular expression library copyright.

If you use wxXML classes or XRC, see src/expat/COPYING for licence details.

Documentation
-------------

See docs/html/index.htm for an HTML index of the major documents.

See docs/changes.txt for a summary of changes to wxWidgets.

See docs/tech for an archive of technical notes.

The wxWidgets bug database can be browsed at:

  http://sourceforge.net/bugs/?group_id=9863

The Windows help files are located in docs/winhelp.
The PDF help files are located in docs/pdf.

Further information
-------------------

The wxWidgets Web site is located at:

  http://www.wxwidgets.org

The main wxWidgets ftp site is at:

  ftp://biolpc22.york.ac.uk/pub

A wxWidgets CD-ROM with the latest distribution plus an HTML
front-end and hundreds of MB of compilers, utilities and other
material may be ordered from the CD-ROM page: see the wxWidgets
web site.

Have fun!

The wxWidgets Team, October 2004