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

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<TITLE>wxWindows 2 for GTK FAQ</TITLE>
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<b>wxWindows 2 for GTK FAQ</b>
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<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="#wxgtk">What is wxWindows 2 for GTK?</a></li>
<li><a href="#locale">Why doesn&#39;t reading floating point numbers work when using wxWindows?</a></li>
<li><a href="#gnome">Does wxGTK have GNOME support?</a></li>
<li><a href="#redhat">Warning about GTK libraries supplied with RedHat</a></li>
<li><a href="#wxgtk">What is wxWindows 2 for GTK?</a></li>
<li><a href="#bincompat">What range of Intel Linux platforms will a given application binary be usable on?</a></li>
</ul>

<hr>

<h3><a name="wxgtk">What is wxWindows 2 for GTK?</a></h3>

wxWindows 2 for GTK is a port of wxWindows to the <a href="http://www.gimp.org/gtk" target=_top>GTK+ toolkit</a>,
which is freely available for most flavours of Unix with X. wxWindows 2 for GTK is
often abbreviated to wxGTK. wxGTK has a separate home page <a href="http://www.freiburg.linux.de/~wxxt" target=_top>here</a>.
<P>

<h3><a name="locale">Why doesn&#39;t reading floating point numbers work when using wxWindows?</a></h3>

If your program reads the floating point numbers in the format <tt>123.45</tt>
from a file, it may suddently start returning just <tt>123</tt> instead of the
correct value on some systems -- which is all the more mysterious as the same
code in a standalone program works just fine.

<p>
The explanation is that GTK+ changes the current locale on program startup. If
the decimal point character in the current locale is not the period (for
example, it is comma in the French locale), all the standard C functions won&#39;t
recognize the numbers such as above as floating point ones any more.

<p>
The solution is to either use your own function for reading the floating point
numbers (probably the best one) or to call <tt>setlocale(LC_NUMERIC, "C")</tt>
before reading from file and restore the old locale back afterwards if needed.

<h3><a name="gnome">Does wxGTK have GNOME support?</a></h3>

Currently wxGTK does not have any features that would involve dependence on any desktop
environment&#39;s libraries, so it can work on GNOME, KDE and with other window managers
without installation hassles. Some GNOME and KDE integration features are file based, and
so may be added without dependence on libraries. Other features may be supported in the
future, probably as a separate library.
<P>

<h3><a name="redhat">Warning about GTK libraries supplied with RedHat</a></h3>

It seems that some versions of RedHat include a badly patched version of GTK (not wxGTK)
which causes some trouble with wxWindows&#39; socket code. Common symptoms are that when
a client tries to establish a connection to an existing server which refuses the request,
the client will get notified twice, first getting a LOST event and then a CONNECT event.
This problem can be solved by updating GTK with an official distribution of the library.
<P>

<h3><a name="bincompat">What range of Intel Linux platforms will a given application binary be usable on?</h3>

Robert Roebling replies:<P>

"The important thing is the libc version that your app
is linked against. The most recent version is 2.2.5
and programs linked against it will not run with version
2.1.X so that you will fare best if you compile your app
on a 2.1.X system. It will then run on practically all
Linux distros (if you link you app statically against
the image libraries and std C++ lib)."

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Commit	Line	Data
ce3ed50d JS	1	<HTML>
	2
	3	<HEAD>
	4	<TITLE>wxWindows 2 for GTK FAQ</TITLE>
	5	</HEAD>
	6
4e4dc03d	7	<BODY BGCOLOR=#FFFFFF TEXT=#000000 VLINK="#00376A" LINK="#00529C" ALINK="#313063">
ce3ed50d JS	8
	9	<font face="Arial, Lucida Sans, Helvetica">
	10
4e4dc03d	11	<table width=100% border=0 cellpadding=3 cellspacing=0>
ce3ed50d	12	<tr>
4e4dc03d JS	13	<td bgcolor="#004080" align=left height=24 background="images/bluetitlegradient.gif">
	14	<font size=+1 face="Arial, Lucida Sans, Helvetica" color="#FFFFFF">
	15	<b>wxWindows 2 for GTK FAQ</b>
ce3ed50d JS	16	</font>
	17	</td>
	18	</tr>
	19	</table>
	20
	21	<P>
	22
	23	See also <a href="faq.htm">top-level FAQ page</a>.
	24	<hr>
8b283bb8	25	<h3>List of questions in this category</h3>
4f3b37fd JS	26
4f3b37fd JS	27	<ul>
8b283bb8	28	<li><a href="#wxgtk">What is wxWindows 2 for GTK?</a></li>
4f3b37fd	29	<li><a href="#locale">Why doesn't reading floating point numbers work when using wxWindows?</a></li>
8b283bb8 JS	30	<li><a href="#gnome">Does wxGTK have GNOME support?</a></li>
	31	<li><a href="#redhat">Warning about GTK libraries supplied with RedHat</a></li>
	32	<li><a href="#wxgtk">What is wxWindows 2 for GTK?</a></li>
4f3b37fd JS	33	<li><a href="#bincompat">What range of Intel Linux platforms will a given application binary be usable on?</a></li>
4f3b37fd JS	34	</ul>
53e112a0	35
8b283bb8	36	<hr>
ce3ed50d	37
4f3b37fd JS	38	<h3><a name="wxgtk">What is wxWindows 2 for GTK?</a></h3>
4f3b37fd JS	39
ce3ed50d JS	40	wxWindows 2 for GTK is a port of wxWindows to the <a href="http://www.gimp.org/gtk" target=_top>GTK+ toolkit</a>,
	41	which is freely available for most flavours of Unix with X. wxWindows 2 for GTK is
	42	often abbreviated to wxGTK. wxGTK has a separate home page <a href="http://www.freiburg.linux.de/~wxxt" target=_top>here</a>.
	43	<P>
	44
4f3b37fd JS	45	<h3><a name="locale">Why doesn't reading floating point numbers work when using wxWindows?</a></h3>
	46
	47	If your program reads the floating point numbers in the format <tt>123.45</tt>
	48	from a file, it may suddently start returning just <tt>123</tt> instead of the
	49	correct value on some systems -- which is all the more mysterious as the same
	50	code in a standalone program works just fine.
	51
	52	<p>
	53	The explanation is that GTK+ changes the current locale on program startup. If
	54	the decimal point character in the current locale is not the period (for
	55	example, it is comma in the French locale), all the standard C functions won't
	56	recognize the numbers such as above as floating point ones any more.
	57
	58	<p>
	59	The solution is to either use your own function for reading the floating point
	60	numbers (probably the best one) or to call <tt>setlocale(LC_NUMERIC, "C")</tt>
	61	before reading from file and restore the old locale back afterwards if needed.
	62
8b283bb8	63	<h3><a name="gnome">Does wxGTK have GNOME support?</a></h3>
ce3ed50d JS	64
ce3ed50d JS	65	Currently wxGTK does not have any features that would involve dependence on any desktop
8b283bb8	66	environment's libraries, so it can work on GNOME, KDE and with other window managers
ce3ed50d JS	67	without installation hassles. Some GNOME and KDE integration features are file based, and
	68	so may be added without dependence on libraries. Other features may be supported in the
	69	future, probably as a separate library.
	70	<P>
	71
8b283bb8 JS	72	<h3><a name="redhat">Warning about GTK libraries supplied with RedHat</a></h3>
	73
	74	It seems that some versions of RedHat include a badly patched version of GTK (not wxGTK)
	75	which causes some trouble with wxWindows' socket code. Common symptoms are that when
	76	a client tries to establish a connection to an existing server which refuses the request,
	77	the client will get notified twice, first getting a LOST event and then a CONNECT event.
	78	This problem can be solved by updating GTK with an official distribution of the library.
	79	<P>
	80
53e112a0 JS	81	<h3><a name="bincompat">What range of Intel Linux platforms will a given application binary be usable on?</h3>
	82
	83	Robert Roebling replies:<P>
	84
	85	"The important thing is the libc version that your app
	86	is linked against. The most recent version is 2.2.5
	87	and programs linked against it will not run with version
	88	2.1.X so that you will fare best if you compile your app
	89	on a 2.1.X system. It will then run on practically all
	90	Linux distros (if you link you app statically against
	91	the image libraries and std C++ lib)."
ce3ed50d JS	92
	93	</font>
	94
	95	</BODY>
	96
	97	</HTML>