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<TITLE>wxWindows 2 FAQ: General</TITLE>
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<b>wxWindows 2 FAQ: General</b>
</font>
</td>
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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="#whatis">What is wxWindows?</a></li>
<li><a href="#licence">Can I use wxWindows 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 wxWindows?</a></li>
<li><a href="#platforms">What platforms are supported by wxWindows?</a></li>
<li><a href="#specific">How does wxWindows 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?</a></ li>
<li><a href="#exceptions">How to use C++ exceptions with wxWindows?</a></ li>
<li><a href="#dev">How is wxWindows being developed?</a></li>
<li><a href="#distrib">How is wxWindows 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 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><a name="licence">Can I use wxWindows 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 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><a name="support">Is there support?</a></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>
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 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>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 wxWindows wrapper
for this widget, available in the wxWindows 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 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="exceptions">How to use C++ exceptions with wxWindows?</a></h3>

wxWindows 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
wxWindows.

<p>
There are a few issues to keep in mind, though:
<ul>
    <li>You shouldn&#39;t let the exceptions propagate through wxWindows 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 wxWindows.

    <li>You may need to ensure that the compiler support for the exceptions is
        enabled as, considering that wxWindows 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 wxWindows 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 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 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 <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 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 PNG and XPM 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="base">What is wxBase?</a></h3>

wxBase is a subset of wxWindows comprised by the non-GUI classes. It includes
wxWindows 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 wxWindows 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 wxWindows 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
wxWindows 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 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="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 wxWindows 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
wxWindows (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 wxWindows does not require.
<li>Mono hasn't proven its long-term viability yet (it's a complex system of components); wxWindows is ready now.
<li>You may not wish to buy into Microsoft marketing spin and APIs.
<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 wxWindows 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 wxWindows!)
</ol>

There is nothing to stop folk from developing a C&#35; version of the wxWindows 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>

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