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[wxWidgets.git] / docs / readme.txt

wxWidgets 2.5.1
---------------

*** 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
- Most Unix variants with GTK+
- Most Unix variants with X11
- Most Unix variants with Motif/Lesstif
- MacOS 9.x and 10.x
- OS/2 (alpha)

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. Documentation is available mainly in zip format.
In the following, x.y.z represents the current version number.

wxWidgets for GTK+ distribution
-------------------------------

wxGTK-x.y.z.tar.gz                 wxGTK source distribution. You will
                                   need the HTML, HTB and/or PDF documentation
                                   (see below)
wxGTK-demos-x.y.z.tar.gz           wxGTK demos source
wxGTK-samples-x.y.z.tar.gz         wxGTK samples source
wxGTK-x.y.z-0.src.rpm              wxGTK Linux source as an RPM, without manuals
wxGTK-x.y.z-0.i386.rpm             wxGTK Linux binaries as an RPM, without manuals
wxGTK-devel-x.y.z-0.i386.rpm       wxGTK Linux minimum development system as an RPM
wxGTK-gl-x.y.z-0.i386.rpm          Add-on OpenGL binary as an RPM

wxWidgets for X11 and Motif distribution
----------------------------------------

wxX11-x.y.z.tar.gz                 wxX11 and wxMotif source distribution, without
                                   documentation.

wxWidgets for MS Windows distribution
-------------------------------------

setup.exe, setup-*.bin             Setup files in floppy-disk-sized chunks
wxMSW-x.y.z-setup.zip              Zip archive containing the
                                   setup files
wxMSW-x.y.z.zip                    Zip archive containing all the files that are
                                   in the setup distribution

As well as the core source, the wxMSW distribution contains:

- Windows HTML Help versions of the documentation (docs/htmlhelp);
- a Tex2RTF binary;
- Life! sample binary.

wxWidgets for MacOS distribution
--------------------------------

wxMac-x.y.z.zip                    Zip archive containing all
                                   source files (excludes documentation)
wxMac-x.y.z.tar.gz                 Gzipped tar archive containing all
                                   source files (excludes documentation).
                                   You might prefer this format if building on
                                   MacOS X, since it preserves file permissions.

wxWidgets for OS/2 distribution
-------------------------------

wxOS2-x.y.z.zip                    Zip archive containing all source files
                                   (excludes documentation)

Documentation files
-------------------

wxWidgets-x.y.z-WinHelp.zip        WinHelp documentation
wxWidgets-x.y.z-PDF.zip            Acrobat PDF documentation
wxWidgets-x.y.z-HTML.zip           HTML documentation
wxWidgets-x.y.z-HTMLHelp.zip       Windows HTML Help documentation
wxWidgets-x.y.z-HTB.zip            wxHTML documentation (for
                                   use with the helpview utility)

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

wxWidgets 2 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/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 2.

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, February 2004