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


<HTML>

<HEAD>
<TITLE>wxWidgets 2 FAQ: General</TITLE>
</HEAD>

<BODY BGCOLOR=#FFFFFF TEXT=#000000 VLINK="#00376A" LINK="#00529C" ALINK="#313063">

<font face="Arial, Lucida Sans, Helvetica">

<table width=100% border=0 cellpadding=3 cellspacing=0>
<tr>
<td bgcolor="#004080" align=left height=24 background="images/bluetitlegradient.gif">
<font size=+1 face="Arial, Lucida Sans, Helvetica" color="#FFFFFF">
<b>wxWidgets 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 wxWidgets?</a></li>
<li><a href="#licence">Can I use wxWidgets 2 for both proprietary projects, and GPL&#39;ed projects?</a></li>
<li><a href="#support">Is there support?</a></li>
<li><a href="#users">Who uses wxWidgets?</a></li>
<li><a href="#platforms">What platforms are supported by wxWidgets?</a></li>
<li><a href="#specific">How does wxWidgets support platform-specific features?</a></li>
<li><a href="#stl">Does wxWidgets use STL? or the standard string class?</a></li>
<li><a href="#richedit">Is there a rich edit/markup widget for wxWidgets?</a></ li>
<li><a href="#exceptions">How to use C++ exceptions with wxWidgets?</a></ li>
<li><a href="#dev">How is wxWidgets being developed?</a></li>
<li><a href="#distrib">How is wxWidgets distributed?</a></li>
<li><a href="#future">What are the plans for the future?</a></li>
<li><a href="#base">What is wxBase?</a></li>
<li><a href="#univ">What is wxUniversal?</a></li>
<li><a href="#jave">What about Java?</a></li>
<li><a href="#dotnet">What about .NET/Mono?</a></li>
<li><a href="#help">How can I help the project?</a></li>
</ul>
<hr>

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

wxWidgets is a class library that allows you to compile graphical C++ programs on a range of
different platforms. wxWidgets 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 are several dialog editors to help
build attractive dialogs and panels. Robert Roebling&#39;s <a href="http://www.roebling.com">wxDesigner</a>
and Anthemion Software's <a href="http://www.anthemion.co.uk/dialogblocks/" target=_new>DialogBlocks</a>
are two commercial examples, but there are others: see the <a href="lnk_tools.htm">Useful Tools</a> page.<P>

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

<h3><a name="licence">Can I use wxWidgets 2 for both proprietary (commercial) projects, and GPL&#39;ed projects?</a></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 wxWidgets
conflict with GPL code you may be using or developing with it.
<P>
The conditions for using wxWidgets 2 are the same whether you are a personal, academic
or commercial developer.
<P>

<h3><a name="support">Is there support?</a></h3>

No official support, but the mailing list is very helpful and some people say that
wxWidgets 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 wxWidgets?</a></H3>

Many organisations - commercial, government, and academic - across the
world. It&#39;s impossible to estimate the true number of users, since
wxWidgets 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>
Our highest-profile user yet is industry veteran and Lotus Corp. founder Mitch Kapor
and his <a href="http://www.osafoundation.org" target=_new>Open Source Applications Foundation</a>.
<P>

<H3><a name="platforms">What platforms are supported by wxWidgets 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 wxWidgets for GTK+ or Motif
on OS/2.
</ul>
<P>

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

This is a hotly-debated topic amongst the developers. My own philosophy
is to make wxWidgets 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 wxWidgets-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, wxWidgets 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 wxWidgets 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 wxWidgets 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 wxWidgets 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
wxWidgets&#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
wxWidgets 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
wxWidgets 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 wxWidgets 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 wxWidgets 2?</a></H3>

These are the possibilities so far:<P>

<ul>
<li>See <a href="http://www.scintilla.org" target=_top>www.scintilla.org</a> for
a very nice syntax-highlighting editor widget. Robin Dunn has written a wxWidgets wrapper
for this widget, available in the wxWidgets distribution under contrib/src/stc.
<li>If you only need to display marked-up information, rather than edit it,
then wxHTML will suit your needs. wxHTML is built into wxWidgets - 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 wxWidgets wrapper for these (but text attribute functions are being added in the wxWidgets 2.3.x series).
</ul>

<P>

<h3><a name="exceptions">How to use C++ exceptions with wxWidgets?</a></h3>

wxWidgets library itself is unfortunately <i>not</i> exception-safe (as its
initial version predates, by far, the addition of the exceptions to the C++
language). However you can still use the exceptions in your own code and use
the other libraries using the exceptions for the error reporting together with
wxWidgets.

<p>
There are a few issues to keep in mind, though:
<ul>
    <li>You shouldn&#39;t let the exceptions propagate through wxWidgets code,
        in particular you should always catch the exceptions thrown by the
        functions called from an event handler in the handler itself and not
        let them propagate upwards to wxWidgets.

    <li>You may need to ensure that the compiler support for the exceptions is
        enabled as, considering that wxWidgets itself doesn&#39;t use the
        exceptions and turning their support on results in the library size
        augmentation of 10% to 20%, it is turned off by default for a few
        compilers. Moreover, for gcc (or at least its mingw version) you must
        also turn on the RTTI support to be able to use the exceptions, so you
        should use <tt>--disable-no_rtti --disable-no_exceptions</tt> options
        when configuring the library (attention to the double negation).
</ul>

<p>

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

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

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

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

By ftp, and via the <a href="cdrom2.htm">wxWidgets CD-ROM</a>.
<P>
If you are feeling adventurous, you may also check out the sources directly
from <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 wxWidgets finished (are GUI toolkits ever
finished?) to think very far ahead. However, we know we want to make wxWidgets 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 PNG and XPM for all platforms.<P>

Other possibilities include: DCOM/CORBA compatibility; a wxWidgets 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 wxWidgets with
their product.<P>

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

<h3><a name="base">What is wxBase?</a></h3>

wxBase is a subset of wxWidgets comprised by the non-GUI classes. It includes
wxWidgets container and primitive data type classes (including wxString,
wxDateTime and so on) and also useful wrappers for the operating system objects
such as files, processes, threads, sockets and so on. With very minor
exceptions wxBase may be used in exactly the same way as wxWidgets but it
doesn&#39;t require a GUI to run and so is ideal for creating console mode
utilities or server programs. It is also possible to create a program which can
be compiled either as a console application (using wxBase) or a GUI one (using
a full featured wxWidgets port).

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

The main difference between wxUniversal-based ports (such as wxX11, wxMGL) and other ports (such as wxMSW, wxGTK+, wxMac)
is that wxUniversal implements all controls (or widgets) in
wxWidgets itself thus allowing to have much more flexibility (for example, support for
themes even under MS Windows). It also means that it is now much easier to
port wxWidgets 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 wxWidgets is as high as ever.<P>

<H3><a name="dotnet">What about .NET/Mono?</a></H3>

Microsoft is spending a lot on promoting the .NET initiative, which
is a set of languages, APIs and web service components for Windows.
Ximian has started an open source version of .NET, mostly for Linux.
C&#35; is Microsoft's alternative to Java, supporting 'managed code',
garbage collection and various other Java-like language features.<P>

Although this may be attractive to some developers, there
is a variety of reasons why the .NET/Mono combination is unlikely
to make wxWidgets redundant. Please note that the following comments
are Julian Smart's opinions.<P>

<ol>
<li>Not everyone wants or needs net services.
<li>C++ will be used for a long time to come; compared with C++, C&#35; is a recent development and its future is not certain.
<li>Mono Forms may only target Winelib (at least to begin with), so the end result is not as native as
wxWidgets (I'm aware there is GTK&#35; for use with the C&#35; language).
<li>C&#35; is usually byte-compiled and therefore slower. Plus, .NET adds a layer of overhead to the client computer
that wxWidgets does not require.
<li>Mono hasn't proven its long-term viability yet (it's a complex system of components); wxWidgets is ready now.
<li>You may not wish to buy into Microsoft marketing spin and APIs.
<li>Microsoft may at some point sue developers of non-Microsoft .NET implementations. After all,
platform-independence is not in Microsoft's interest.
<li>.NET might never be implemented on some platforms, especially Mac and embedded variants of Linux.
<li>wxPython and other language variants provide further reasons for wxWidgets to continue.
<li>The same issue exists for Qt: if Qt sales remain strong, it's a good indication that
the market for a C++-based approach is still there. (Either that, or everyone's turning to wxWidgets!)
</ol>

There is nothing to stop folk from developing a C&#35; version of the wxWidgets API;
we already have bindings to Python, Perl, JavaScript, Lua, Basic, and Eiffel.
Update: a <a href="http://wxnet.sourceforge.net/" target=_new>wx.NET</a> project is now in progress.

<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 the developers&#39; mailing list with your own suggestions.<P>

</font>

</BODY>

</HTML>
Commit	Line	Data
2b5f62a0	1
ce3ed50d JS	2	<HTML>
	3
	4	<HEAD>
c140b7e7	5	<TITLE>wxWidgets 2 FAQ: General</TITLE>
ce3ed50d JS	6	</HEAD>
ce3ed50d JS	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">
4e4dc03d JS	15	<font size=+1 face="Arial, Lucida Sans, Helvetica" color="#FFFFFF">
c140b7e7	16	<b>wxWidgets 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>
8b283bb8 JS	27	<ul>
c140b7e7 JS	28	<li><a href="#whatis">What is wxWidgets?</a></li>
c140b7e7 JS	29	<li><a href="#licence">Can I use wxWidgets 2 for both proprietary projects, and GPL'ed projects?</a></li>
2b5f62a0	30	<li><a href="#support">Is there support?</a></li>
c140b7e7 JS	31	<li><a href="#users">Who uses wxWidgets?</a></li>
	32	<li><a href="#platforms">What platforms are supported by wxWidgets?</a></li>
	33	<li><a href="#specific">How does wxWidgets support platform-specific features?</a></li>
	34	<li><a href="#stl">Does wxWidgets use STL? or the standard string class?</a></li>
	35	<li><a href="#richedit">Is there a rich edit/markup widget for wxWidgets?</a></ li>
	36	<li><a href="#exceptions">How to use C++ exceptions with wxWidgets?</a></ li>
	37	<li><a href="#dev">How is wxWidgets being developed?</a></li>
	38	<li><a href="#distrib">How is wxWidgets distributed?</a></li>
8b283bb8	39	<li><a href="#future">What are the plans for the future?</a></li>
2b5f62a0	40	<li><a href="#base">What is wxBase?</a></li>
8b283bb8 JS	41	<li><a href="#univ">What is wxUniversal?</a></li>
8b283bb8 JS	42	<li><a href="#jave">What about Java?</a></li>
c2d48b36	43	<li><a href="#dotnet">What about .NET/Mono?</a></li>
8b283bb8 JS	44	<li><a href="#help">How can I help the project?</a></li>
	45	</ul>
	46	<hr>
ce3ed50d	47
c140b7e7	48	<H3><a name="whatis">What is wxWidgets?</a></H3>
ce3ed50d	49
c140b7e7 JS	50	wxWidgets is a class library that allows you to compile graphical C++ programs on a range of
c140b7e7 JS	51	different platforms. wxWidgets defines a common API across platforms, but uses the native graphical user interface (GUI) on each platform,
8b283bb8	52	so your program will take on the native 'look and feel' that users are familiar with.<P>
ce3ed50d	53
eb269381	54	Although GUI applications are mostly built programmatically, there are several dialog editors to help
8b283bb8	55	build attractive dialogs and panels. Robert Roebling's <a href="http://www.roebling.com">wxDesigner</a>
eb269381 JS	56	and Anthemion Software's <a href="http://www.anthemion.co.uk/dialogblocks/" target=_new>DialogBlocks</a>
eb269381 JS	57	are two commercial examples, but there are others: see the <a href="lnk_tools.htm">Useful Tools</a> page.<P>
ce3ed50d	58
c140b7e7	59	You don't have to use C++ to use wxWidgets: there is a <a href="http://wxpython.org">Python interface</a> for wxWidgets 2,
8b283bb8	60	and also a <a href="http://wxperl.sourceforge.net" target=_top>Perl interface</a>.
ce3ed50d JS	61	<P>
ce3ed50d JS	62
c140b7e7	63	<h3><a name="licence">Can I use wxWidgets 2 for both proprietary (commercial) projects, and GPL'ed projects?</a></h3>
ce3ed50d JS	64
ce3ed50d JS	65	Yes. Please see the <a href="newlicen.htm">licence</a> for details, but basically
c140b7e7	66	you can distribute proprietary binaries without distributing any source code, and neither will wxWidgets
ce3ed50d JS	67	conflict with GPL code you may be using or developing with it.
ce3ed50d JS	68	<P>
c140b7e7	69	The conditions for using wxWidgets 2 are the same whether you are a personal, academic
ce3ed50d JS	70	or commercial developer.
	71	<P>
	72
2b5f62a0	73	<h3><a name="support">Is there support?</a></h3>
ce3ed50d JS	74
ce3ed50d JS	75	No official support, but the mailing list is very helpful and some people say that
c140b7e7	76	wxWidgets support is better than for much commercial software. The developers are
ce3ed50d JS	77	keen to fix bugs as soon as possible, though obviously there are no guarantees.
	78	<P>
	79
c140b7e7	80	<H3><a name="users">Who uses wxWidgets?</a></H3>
ce3ed50d JS	81
ce3ed50d JS	82	Many organisations - commercial, government, and academic - across the
8b283bb8	83	world. It's impossible to estimate the true number of users, since
c140b7e7	84	wxWidgets is obtained by many different means, and we cannot monitor
ce3ed50d JS	85	distribution. The mailing list contains around 300-400 entries which is
	86	quite large for a list of this type.<P>
	87
51ab9400 JS	88	See <a href="users.htm">Users</a> for a list of some users and their applications, and
51ab9400 JS	89	also <A href="feedback.htm">Feedback</a> for comments.<P>
2b5f62a0 VZ	90	Our highest-profile user yet is industry veteran and Lotus Corp. founder Mitch Kapor
	91	and his <a href="http://www.osafoundation.org" target=_new>Open Source Applications Foundation</a>.
	92	<P>
b953bdc2	93
c140b7e7	94	<H3><a name="platforms">What platforms are supported by wxWidgets 2?</a></H3>
b953bdc2 JS	95
b953bdc2 JS	96	<ul>
8b283bb8 JS	97	<li>Windows 3.1, Windows 95/98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows ME.
	98	<li>Linux and other Unix platforms with GTK+.
	99	<li>Unix with Motif or the free Motif clone Lesstif.
	100	<li>Mac OS.
	101	<li>Embedded platforms are being investigated. See the <a href="wxuniv.htm">wxUniversal</a> project.
c140b7e7	102	<li>An OS/2 port is in progress, and you can also compile wxWidgets for GTK+ or Motif
51ab9400	103	on OS/2.
b953bdc2 JS	104	</ul>
	105	<P>
	106
c140b7e7	107	<H3><a name="specific">How does wxWidgets 2 support platform-specific
8b283bb8	108	features?</a></H3>
b953bdc2 JS	109
b953bdc2 JS	110	This is a hotly-debated topic amongst the developers. My own philosophy
c140b7e7	111	is to make wxWidgets as platform-independent as possible, but allow in a
b953bdc2 JS	112	few classes (functions, window styles) that are platform-specific.
	113	For example, Windows metafiles and Windows 95 taskbar icons have
	114	their own classes on Windows, but nowhere else. Because these classes
c140b7e7	115	are provided and are wxWidgets-compatible, it doesn't take much
b953bdc2 JS	116	coding effort for an application programmer to add support for
	117	some functionality that the user on a particular platform might otherwise
	118	miss. Also, some classes that started off as platform-specific, such
	119	as the MDI classes, have been emulated on other platforms. I can imagine
	120	that even wxTaskBarIcon may be implemented for Unix desktops one day.
	121	<P>
	122
c140b7e7	123	In other words, wxWidgets is not a 'lowest common denominator' approach,
b953bdc2 JS	124	but it will still be possible to write portable programs using the
	125	core API. Forbidding some platform-specific classes would be a stupid
	126	approach that would alienate many potential users, and encourage
c140b7e7	127	the perception that toolkits such as wxWidgets are not up to the demands
8b283bb8	128	of today's sophisticated applications.<P>
b953bdc2 JS	129
	130	Currently resources such as bitmaps and icons are handled in a platform-specific
	131	way, but it is hoped to reduce this dependence in due course.<P>
	132
c140b7e7	133	Another reason why wxWidgets 2 is not a 'lowest common denominator' toolkit is that
b953bdc2 JS	134	some functionality missing on some platform has been provided using generic,
	135	platform-independent code, such as the wxTreeCtrl and wxListCtrl classes.<P>
	136
c140b7e7	137	<H3><a name="stl">Does wxWidgets use STL? or the standard string class?</a></H3>
b953bdc2 JS	138
b953bdc2 JS	139	No. This is a much-discussed topic that has (many times) ended with the conclusion that it is in
c140b7e7	140	wxWidgets' best interests to avoid use of templates. Not all compilers can handle
b953bdc2	141	templates adequately so it would dramatically reduce the number of compilers
cd508246	142	and platforms that could be supported. It would also be undersirable to make
c140b7e7	143	wxWidgets dependent on another large library that may have to be downloaded and installed.
b953bdc2	144	In addition, use of templates can lead to executable bloat, which is something
c140b7e7	145	wxWidgets 2 is strenously trying to avoid.<P>
b953bdc2 JS	146
	147	The standard C++ string class is not used, again because it is not available to all compilers,
	148	and it is not necessarily a very efficient implementation. Also, we retain more flexibility
	149	by being able to modify our own string class. Some compatibility with the string class
	150	has been built into wxString.<P>
	151
	152	There is nothing to stop an application using templates or the string class for its own
c140b7e7	153	purposes. With wxWidgets debugging options on, you may find you get errors when including
8b283bb8 JS	154	STL headers. You can work around it either by switching off memory checking,
	155	or by adding this to a header before you include any STL files:<P>
	156
	157	<PRE>
	158	#ifdef new
	159	#undef new
	160	#endif
	161	</PRE>
	162
	163	<P>
	164
b953bdc2	165
c140b7e7	166	<H3><a name="richedit">Is there a rich edit/markup widget for wxWidgets 2?</a></H3>
790ad94f JS	167
	168	These are the possibilities so far:<P>
	169
	170	<ul>
790ad94f	171	<li>See <a href="http://www.scintilla.org" target=_top>www.scintilla.org</a> for
c140b7e7 JS	172	a very nice syntax-highlighting editor widget. Robin Dunn has written a wxWidgets wrapper
c140b7e7 JS	173	for this widget, available in the wxWidgets distribution under contrib/src/stc.
790ad94f	174	<li>If you only need to display marked-up information, rather than edit it,
c140b7e7	175	then wxHTML will suit your needs. wxHTML is built into wxWidgets - please see the reference
790ad94f JS	176	manual for details, and samples/html.
790ad94f JS	177	<li>There are rich edit widgets in both WIN32 and GTK+, but there is currently
c140b7e7	178	no wxWidgets wrapper for these (but text attribute functions are being added in the wxWidgets 2.3.x series).
790ad94f JS	179	</ul>
	180
	181	<P>
	182
c140b7e7	183	<h3><a name="exceptions">How to use C++ exceptions with wxWidgets?</a></h3>
53e112a0	184
c140b7e7	185	wxWidgets library itself is unfortunately <i>not</i> exception-safe (as its
53e112a0 JS	186	initial version predates, by far, the addition of the exceptions to the C++
	187	language). However you can still use the exceptions in your own code and use
	188	the other libraries using the exceptions for the error reporting together with
c140b7e7	189	wxWidgets.
53e112a0 JS	190
	191	<p>
	192	There are a few issues to keep in mind, though:
	193	<ul>
c140b7e7	194	<li>You shouldn't let the exceptions propagate through wxWidgets code,
53e112a0 JS	195	in particular you should always catch the exceptions thrown by the
53e112a0 JS	196	functions called from an event handler in the handler itself and not
c140b7e7	197	let them propagate upwards to wxWidgets.
53e112a0 JS	198
53e112a0 JS	199	<li>You may need to ensure that the compiler support for the exceptions is
c140b7e7	200	enabled as, considering that wxWidgets itself doesn't use the
53e112a0 JS	201	exceptions and turning their support on results in the library size
	202	augmentation of 10% to 20%, it is turned off by default for a few
	203	compilers. Moreover, for gcc (or at least its mingw version) you must
	204	also turn on the RTTI support to be able to use the exceptions, so you
	205	should use <tt>--disable-no_rtti --disable-no_exceptions</tt> options
	206	when configuring the library (attention to the double negation).
	207	</ul>
	208
	209	<p>
	210
c140b7e7	211	<H3><a name="dev">How is wxWidgets being developed?</a></H3>
b953bdc2	212
c140b7e7	213	We are using the <a href="cvs.htm">CVS</a> system to develop and maintain wxWidgets. This allows
2b5f62a0	214	us to make alterations and upload them instantly to the server, from
b953bdc2 JS	215	which others can update their source.<P>
b953bdc2 JS	216
c140b7e7	217	To build source from CVS, see the file BuildCVS.txt in the top-level wxWidgets distribution
91c93c99 JS	218	directory.<P>
91c93c99 JS	219
c140b7e7	220	<H3><a name="distrib">How is wxWidgets distributed?</a></H3>
b953bdc2	221
c140b7e7	222	By ftp, and via the <a href="cdrom2.htm">wxWidgets CD-ROM</a>.
8b283bb8 JS	223	<P>
8b283bb8 JS	224	If you are feeling adventurous, you may also check out the sources directly
2b5f62a0	225	from <a href="cvs.htm">cvs</a>.
8b283bb8	226	<p>
b953bdc2	227
8b283bb8	228	<H3><a name="future">What are the plans for the future?</a></H3>
b953bdc2	229
c140b7e7 JS	230	Currently we're working too hard on getting wxWidgets finished (are GUI toolkits ever
c140b7e7 JS	231	finished?) to think very far ahead. However, we know we want to make wxWidgets as robust
b953bdc2	232	and well-publicised as possible. We also want to aim for better platform-independence of
2b5f62a0	233	resources such as icons and bitmaps, standardising on PNG and XPM for all platforms.<P>
b953bdc2	234
c140b7e7	235	Other possibilities include: DCOM/CORBA compatibility; a wxWidgets book;
8b283bb8 JS	236	<a href="http://wxworkshop.sourceforge.net/">wxWorkshop</a>, an IDE;
8b283bb8 JS	237	other platforms, especially embedded systems; other interface abilities such as speech output.<P>
b953bdc2	238
c140b7e7	239	We will investigate the possibility of compiler or operating system vendors bundling wxWidgets with
b953bdc2 JS	240	their product.<P>
b953bdc2 JS	241
c140b7e7	242	The high-level goal of wxWidgets is to be thought of as the number one C++ framework,
b953bdc2 JS	243	for virtually any platform. Move over, MFC!<P>
b953bdc2 JS	244
2b5f62a0 VZ	245	<h3><a name="base">What is wxBase?</a></h3>
2b5f62a0 VZ	246
c140b7e7 JS	247	wxBase is a subset of wxWidgets comprised by the non-GUI classes. It includes
c140b7e7 JS	248	wxWidgets container and primitive data type classes (including wxString,
2b5f62a0 VZ	249	wxDateTime and so on) and also useful wrappers for the operating system objects
2b5f62a0 VZ	250	such as files, processes, threads, sockets and so on. With very minor
c140b7e7	251	exceptions wxBase may be used in exactly the same way as wxWidgets but it
2b5f62a0 VZ	252	doesn't require a GUI to run and so is ideal for creating console mode
	253	utilities or server programs. It is also possible to create a program which can
	254	be compiled either as a console application (using wxBase) or a GUI one (using
c140b7e7	255	a full featured wxWidgets port).
2b5f62a0	256
8b283bb8 JS	257	<H3><a name="univ">What is wxUniversal?</a></H3>
8b283bb8 JS	258
2b5f62a0 VZ	259	The main difference between wxUniversal-based ports (such as wxX11, wxMGL) and other ports (such as wxMSW, wxGTK+, wxMac)
2b5f62a0 VZ	260	is that wxUniversal implements all controls (or widgets) in
c140b7e7	261	wxWidgets itself thus allowing to have much more flexibility (for example, support for
2b5f62a0	262	themes even under MS Windows). It also means that it is now much easier to
c140b7e7	263	port wxWidgets to a new platform as only the low-level classes must be ported
8b283bb8 JS	264	which make for a small part of the library.
	265	<p>
	266	You may find more about wxUniversal <a href=wxuniv.htm>here</a>.
	267
	268	<H3><a name="jave">What about Java?</a></H3>
b953bdc2 JS	269
b953bdc2 JS	270	The Java honeymoon period is over :-) and people are realising that it cannot
8b283bb8	271	meet all their cross-platform development needs. We don't anticipate a major threat
c140b7e7	272	from Java, and the level of interest in wxWidgets is as high as ever.<P>
b953bdc2	273
c2d48b36 JS	274	<H3><a name="dotnet">What about .NET/Mono?</a></H3>
	275
	276	Microsoft is spending a lot on promoting the .NET initiative, which
	277	is a set of languages, APIs and web service components for Windows.
	278	Ximian has started an open source version of .NET, mostly for Linux.
	279	C# is Microsoft's alternative to Java, supporting 'managed code',
	280	garbage collection and various other Java-like language features.<P>
	281
	282	Although this may be attractive to some developers, there
	283	is a variety of reasons why the .NET/Mono combination is unlikely
c140b7e7	284	to make wxWidgets redundant. Please note that the following comments
c2d48b36 JS	285	are Julian Smart's opinions.<P>
	286
	287	<ol>
	288	<li>Not everyone wants or needs net services.
	289	<li>C++ will be used for a long time to come; compared with C++, C# is a recent development and its future is not certain.
	290	<li>Mono Forms may only target Winelib (at least to begin with), so the end result is not as native as
c140b7e7	291	wxWidgets (I'm aware there is GTK# for use with the C# language).
c2d48b36	292	<li>C# is usually byte-compiled and therefore slower. Plus, .NET adds a layer of overhead to the client computer
c140b7e7 JS	293	that wxWidgets does not require.
c140b7e7 JS	294	<li>Mono hasn't proven its long-term viability yet (it's a complex system of components); wxWidgets is ready now.
c2d48b36	295	<li>You may not wish to buy into Microsoft marketing spin and APIs.
eb269381 JS	296	<li>Microsoft may at some point sue developers of non-Microsoft .NET implementations. After all,
eb269381 JS	297	platform-independence is not in Microsoft's interest.
c2d48b36	298	<li>.NET might never be implemented on some platforms, especially Mac and embedded variants of Linux.
c140b7e7	299	<li>wxPython and other language variants provide further reasons for wxWidgets to continue.
c2d48b36	300	<li>The same issue exists for Qt: if Qt sales remain strong, it's a good indication that
c140b7e7	301	the market for a C++-based approach is still there. (Either that, or everyone's turning to wxWidgets!)
c2d48b36 JS	302	</ol>
c2d48b36 JS	303
c140b7e7	304	There is nothing to stop folk from developing a C# version of the wxWidgets API;
c2d48b36 JS	305	we already have bindings to Python, Perl, JavaScript, Lua, Basic, and Eiffel.
	306	Update: a <a href="http://wxnet.sourceforge.net/" target=_new>wx.NET</a> project is now in progress.
	307
	308	<P>
	309
8b283bb8	310	<H3><a name="help">How can I help the project?</a></H3>
b953bdc2	311
8b283bb8 JS	312	Please check out the <a href="http://www.wxwindows.org/develop2.htm">Community</a> pages,
8b283bb8 JS	313	in particular the <a href="projects.htm">suggested projects</a>, and
2b5f62a0	314	mail the developers' mailing list with your own suggestions.<P>
b953bdc2	315
ce3ed50d JS	316	</font>
	317
	318	</BODY>
	319
	320	</HTML>