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	5	<TITLE>wxWidgets 2 FAQ: General</TITLE>
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	16	<b>wxWidgets 2 FAQ: General</b>
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	22	<P>
	23
	24	See also <a href="faq.htm">top-level FAQ page</a>.
	25	<hr>
	26	<h3>List of questions in this category</h3>
	27	<ul>
	28	<li><a href="#whatis">What is wxWidgets?</a></li>
	29	<li><a href="#licence">Can I use wxWidgets 2 for both proprietary projects, and GPL'ed projects?</a></li>
	30	<li><a href="#support">Is there support?</a></li>
	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>
	39	<li><a href="#future">What are the plans for the future?</a></li>
	40	<li><a href="#base">What is wxBase?</a></li>
	41	<li><a href="#univ">What is wxUniversal?</a></li>
	42	<li><a href="#jave">What about Java?</a></li>
	43	<li><a href="#dotnet">What about .NET/Mono?</a></li>
	44	<li><a href="#help">How can I help the project?</a></li>
	45	<li><a href="#newport">How do I start a new port?</a></li>
	46	</ul>
	47	<hr>
	48
	49	<H3><a name="whatis">What is wxWidgets?</a></H3>
	50
	51	wxWidgets is a class library that allows you to compile graphical C++ programs on a range of
	52	different platforms. wxWidgets defines a common API across platforms, but uses the native graphical user interface (GUI) on each platform,
	53	so your program will take on the native 'look and feel' that users are familiar with.<P>
	54
	55	Although GUI applications are mostly built programmatically, there are several dialog editors to help
	56	build attractive dialogs and panels. Robert Roebling's <a href="http://www.roebling.com">wxDesigner</a>
	57	and Anthemion Software's <a href="http://www.anthemion.co.uk/dialogblocks/" target=_new>DialogBlocks</a>
	58	are two commercial examples, but there are others: see the <a href="lnk_tool.htm">Useful Tools</a> page.<P>
	59
	60	You don't have to use C++ to use wxWidgets: there is a <a href="http://wxpython.org">Python interface</a> for wxWidgets 2,
	61	and also a <a href="http://wxperl.sourceforge.net" target=_top>Perl interface</a>.
	62	<P>
	63
	64	<h3><a name="licence">Can I use wxWidgets 2 for both proprietary (commercial) projects, and GPL'ed projects?</a></h3>
	65
	66	Yes. Please see the <a href="newlicen.htm">licence</a> for details, but basically
	67	you can distribute proprietary binaries without distributing any source code, and neither will wxWidgets
	68	conflict with GPL code you may be using or developing with it.
	69	<P>
	70	The conditions for using wxWidgets 2 are the same whether you are a personal, academic
	71	or commercial developer.
	72	<P>
	73
	74	<h3><a name="support">Is there support?</a></h3>
	75
	76	No official support, but the mailing list is very helpful and some people say that
	77	wxWidgets support is better than for much commercial software. The developers are
	78	keen to fix bugs as soon as possible, though obviously there are no guarantees.
	79	<P>
	80
	81	<H3><a name="users">Who uses wxWidgets?</a></H3>
	82
	83	Many organisations - commercial, government, and academic - across the
	84	world. It's impossible to estimate the true number of users, since
	85	wxWidgets is obtained by many different means, and we cannot monitor
	86	distribution. The mailing list contains around 300-400 entries which is
	87	quite large for a list of this type.<P>
	88
	89	See <a href="users.htm">Users</a> for a list of some users and their applications, and
	90	also <A href="feedback.htm">Feedback</a> for comments.<P>
	91	Our highest-profile user yet is industry veteran and Lotus Corp. founder Mitch Kapor
	92	and his <a href="http://www.osafoundation.org" target=_new>Open Source Applications Foundation</a>.
	93	<P>
	94
	95	<H3><a name="platforms">What platforms are supported by wxWidgets 2?</a></H3>
	96
	97	<ul>
	98	<li>Windows 3.1, Windows 95/98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows ME.
	99	<li>Linux and other Unix platforms with GTK+.
	100	<li>Unix with Motif or the free Motif clone Lesstif.
	101	<li>Mac OS.
	102	<li>Embedded platforms are being investigated. See the <a href="wxuniv.htm">wxUniversal</a> project.
	103	<li>An OS/2 port is in progress, and you can also compile wxWidgets for GTK+ or Motif
	104	on OS/2.
	105	</ul>
	106	<P>
	107
	108	<H3><a name="specific">How does wxWidgets 2 support platform-specific
	109	features?</a></H3>
	110
	111	This is a hotly-debated topic amongst the developers. My own philosophy
	112	is to make wxWidgets as platform-independent as possible, but allow in a
	113	few classes (functions, window styles) that are platform-specific.
	114	For example, Windows metafiles and Windows 95 taskbar icons have
	115	their own classes on Windows, but nowhere else. Because these classes
	116	are provided and are wxWidgets-compatible, it doesn't take much
	117	coding effort for an application programmer to add support for
	118	some functionality that the user on a particular platform might otherwise
	119	miss. Also, some classes that started off as platform-specific, such
	120	as the MDI classes, have been emulated on other platforms. I can imagine
	121	that even wxTaskBarIcon may be implemented for Unix desktops one day.
	122	<P>
	123
	124	In other words, wxWidgets is not a 'lowest common denominator' approach,
	125	but it will still be possible to write portable programs using the
	126	core API. Forbidding some platform-specific classes would be a stupid
	127	approach that would alienate many potential users, and encourage
	128	the perception that toolkits such as wxWidgets are not up to the demands
	129	of today's sophisticated applications.<P>
	130
	131	Currently resources such as bitmaps and icons are handled in a platform-specific
	132	way, but it is hoped to reduce this dependence in due course.<P>
	133
	134	Another reason why wxWidgets 2 is not a 'lowest common denominator' toolkit is that
	135	some functionality missing on some platform has been provided using generic,
	136	platform-independent code, such as the wxTreeCtrl and wxListCtrl classes.<P>
	137
	138	<H3><a name="stl">Does wxWidgets use STL? or the standard string class?</a></H3>
	139
	140	No. This is a much-discussed topic that has (many times) ended with the conclusion that it is in
	141	wxWidgets' best interests to avoid use of templates. Not all compilers can handle
	142	templates adequately so it would dramatically reduce the number of compilers
	143	and platforms that could be supported. It would also be undersirable to make
	144	wxWidgets dependent on another large library that may have to be downloaded and installed.
	145	In addition, use of templates can lead to executable bloat, which is something
	146	wxWidgets 2 is strenously trying to avoid.<P>
	147
	148	The standard C++ string class is not used, again because it is not available to all compilers,
	149	and it is not necessarily a very efficient implementation. Also, we retain more flexibility
	150	by being able to modify our own string class. Some compatibility with the string class
	151	has been built into wxString.<P>
	152
	153	There is nothing to stop an application using templates or the string class for its own
	154	purposes. With wxWidgets debugging options on, you may find you get errors when including
	155	STL headers. You can work around it either by switching off memory checking,
	156	or by adding this to a header before you include any STL files:<P>
	157
	158	<PRE>
	159	#ifdef new
	160	#undef new
	161	#endif
	162	</PRE>
	163
	164	<P>
	165
	166
	167	<H3><a name="richedit">Is there a rich edit/markup widget for wxWidgets 2?</a></H3>
	168
	169	These are the possibilities so far:<P>
	170
	171	<ul>
	172	<li>See <a href="http://www.scintilla.org" target=_top>www.scintilla.org</a> for
	173	a very nice syntax-highlighting editor widget. Robin Dunn has written a wxWidgets wrapper
	174	for this widget, available in the wxWidgets distribution under contrib/src/stc.
	175	<li>If you only need to display marked-up information, rather than edit it,
	176	then wxHTML will suit your needs. wxHTML is built into wxWidgets - please see the reference
	177	manual for details, and samples/html.
	178	<li>There are rich edit widgets in both WIN32 and GTK+, but there is currently
	179	no wxWidgets wrapper for these (but text attribute functions are being added in the wxWidgets 2.3.x series).
	180	</ul>
	181
	182	<P>
	183
	184	<h3><a name="exceptions">How to use C++ exceptions with wxWidgets?</a></h3>
	185
	186	wxWidgets library itself is unfortunately <i>not</i> exception-safe (as its
	187	initial version predates, by far, the addition of the exceptions to the C++
	188	language). However you can still use the exceptions in your own code and use
	189	the other libraries using the exceptions for the error reporting together with
	190	wxWidgets.
	191
	192	<p>
	193	There are a few issues to keep in mind, though:
	194	<ul>
	195	<li>You shouldn't let the exceptions propagate through wxWidgets code,
	196	in particular you should always catch the exceptions thrown by the
	197	functions called from an event handler in the handler itself and not
	198	let them propagate upwards to wxWidgets.
	199
	200	<li>You may need to ensure that the compiler support for the exceptions is
	201	enabled as, considering that wxWidgets itself doesn't use the
	202	exceptions and turning their support on results in the library size
	203	augmentation of 10% to 20%, it is turned off by default for a few
	204	compilers. Moreover, for gcc (or at least its mingw version) you must
	205	also turn on the RTTI support to be able to use the exceptions, so you
	206	should use <tt>--disable-no_rtti --disable-no_exceptions</tt> options
	207	when configuring the library (attention to the double negation).
	208	</ul>
	209
	210	<p>
	211
	212	<H3><a name="dev">How is wxWidgets being developed?</a></H3>
	213
	214	We are using the <a href="cvs.htm">CVS</a> system to develop and maintain wxWidgets. This allows
	215	us to make alterations and upload them instantly to the server, from
	216	which others can update their source.<P>
	217
	218	To build source from CVS, see the file BuildCVS.txt in the top-level wxWidgets distribution
	219	directory.<P>
	220
	221	<H3><a name="distrib">How is wxWidgets distributed?</a></H3>
	222
	223	By ftp, and via the <a href="cdrom2.htm">wxWidgets CD-ROM</a>.
	224	<P>
	225	If you are feeling adventurous, you may also check out the sources directly
	226	from <a href="cvs.htm">cvs</a>.
	227	<p>
	228
	229	<H3><a name="future">What are the plans for the future?</a></H3>
	230
	231	Currently we're working too hard on getting wxWidgets finished (are GUI toolkits ever
	232	finished?) to think very far ahead. However, we know we want to make wxWidgets as robust
	233	and well-publicised as possible. We also want to aim for better platform-independence of
	234	resources such as icons and bitmaps, standardising on PNG and XPM for all platforms.<P>
	235
	236	Other possibilities include: DCOM/CORBA compatibility; a wxWidgets book;
	237	<a href="http://wxworkshop.sourceforge.net/">wxWorkshop</a>, an IDE;
	238	other platforms, especially embedded systems; other interface abilities such as speech output.<P>
	239
	240	We will investigate the possibility of compiler or operating system vendors bundling wxWidgets with
	241	their product.<P>
	242
	243	The high-level goal of wxWidgets is to be thought of as the number one C++ framework,
	244	for virtually any platform. Move over, MFC!<P>
	245
	246	<h3><a name="base">What is wxBase?</a></h3>
	247
	248	wxBase is a subset of wxWidgets comprised by the non-GUI classes. It includes
	249	wxWidgets container and primitive data type classes (including wxString,
	250	wxDateTime and so on) and also useful wrappers for the operating system objects
	251	such as files, processes, threads, sockets and so on. With very minor
	252	exceptions wxBase may be used in exactly the same way as wxWidgets but it
	253	doesn't require a GUI to run and so is ideal for creating console mode
	254	utilities or server programs. It is also possible to create a program which can
	255	be compiled either as a console application (using wxBase) or a GUI one (using
	256	a full featured wxWidgets port).
	257
	258	<H3><a name="univ">What is wxUniversal?</a></H3>
	259
	260	The main difference between wxUniversal-based ports (such as wxX11, wxMGL) and other ports (such as wxMSW, wxGTK+, wxMac)
	261	is that wxUniversal implements all controls (or widgets) in
	262	wxWidgets itself thus allowing to have much more flexibility (for example, support for
	263	themes even under MS Windows). It also means that it is now much easier to
	264	port wxWidgets to a new platform as only the low-level classes must be ported
	265	which make for a small part of the library.
	266	<p>
	267	You may find more about wxUniversal <a href=wxuniv.htm>here</a>.
	268
	269	<H3><a name="jave">What about Java?</a></H3>
	270
	271	The Java honeymoon period is over :-) and people are realising that it cannot
	272	meet all their cross-platform development needs. We don't anticipate a major threat
	273	from Java, and the level of interest in wxWidgets is as high as ever.<P>
	274
	275	<H3><a name="dotnet">What about .NET/Mono?</a></H3>
	276
	277	Microsoft is spending a lot on promoting the .NET initiative, which
	278	is a set of languages, APIs and web service components for Windows.
	279	Ximian has started an open source version of .NET, mostly for Linux.
	280	C# is Microsoft's alternative to Java, supporting 'managed code',
	281	garbage collection and various other Java-like language features.<P>
	282
	283	Although this may be attractive to some developers, there
	284	is a variety of reasons why the .NET/Mono combination is unlikely
	285	to make wxWidgets redundant. Please note that the following comments
	286	are Julian Smart's opinions.<P>
	287
	288	<ol>
	289	<li>Not everyone wants or needs net services.
	290	<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.
	291	<li>Mono Forms may only target Winelib (at least to begin with), so the end result is not as native as
	292	wxWidgets (I'm aware there is GTK# for use with the C# language).
	293	<li>C# is usually byte-compiled and therefore slower. Plus, .NET adds a layer of overhead to the client computer
	294	that wxWidgets does not require.
	295	<li>Mono hasn't proven its long-term viability yet (it's a complex system of components); wxWidgets is ready now.
	296	<li>You may not wish to buy into Microsoft marketing spin and APIs.
	297	<li>Microsoft may at some point sue developers of non-Microsoft .NET implementations. After all,
	298	platform-independence is not in Microsoft's interest.
	299	<li>.NET might never be implemented on some platforms, especially Mac and embedded variants of Linux.
	300	<li>wxPython and other language variants provide further reasons for wxWidgets to continue.
	301	<li>The same issue exists for Qt: if Qt sales remain strong, it's a good indication that
	302	the market for a C++-based approach is still there. (Either that, or everyone's turning to wxWidgets!)
	303	</ol>
	304
	305	There is nothing to stop folk from developing a C# version of the wxWidgets API;
	306	we already have bindings to Python, Perl, JavaScript, Lua, Basic, and Eiffel.
	307	Update: a <a href="http://wxnet.sourceforge.net/" target=_new>wx.NET</a> project is now in progress.
	308
	309	<P>
	310
	311	<H3><a name="help">How can I help the project?</a></H3>
	312
	313	Please check out the <a href="http://www.wxwidgets.org/develop2.htm">Community</a> pages,
	314	in particular the <a href="projects.htm">suggested projects</a>, and
	315	mail the developers' mailing list with your own suggestions.<P>
	316
	317	<H3><a name="newport">How do I start a new port?</a></H3>
	318
	319	Please subscribe to the wx-dev <a href="maillst2.htm">developers' mailing list</a> and
	320	ask if anyone else is interested in helping with the port, or
	321	has specific suggestions. Also please read the <a href="standard.htm">coding standards</a>.
	322
	323	<P>
	324	Each port consists of a platform-specific part (e.g. src/msw, include/wx/msw),
	325	a generic set of widgets and dialogs for when the port doesn't support
	326	them natively (src/generic, include/wx/generic) and the common code
	327	that all ports use (src/common, include/wx). By browsing the source
	328	you should get a good idea of the general pattern.<P>
	329
	330	Take a port that most closely matches your port, and strip out
	331	the implementation so you have a skeleton port that compiles. Ask on wx-dev
	332	first for the wxStubs port - however, any such predefined skeleton
	333	port may be out of date, so make a judgement on whether to use it.
	334	Perhaps it will still save you time to clean up wxStubs, and
	335	others may benefit from this too.<P>
	336
	337	You will need to define a symbol for the new port, e.g. __WXXBOX__.
	338	Look at files such as wx/defs.h, wx/wxchar.h for areas where you'll
	339	need to add to existing conditionals to set up wide character
	340	support and other issues. If the GUI runs on a Unix variant,
	341	define the __UNIX__ variable in your makefile.<P>
	342
	343	Then you can start implementing the port, starting with
	344	wxWindow, wxTopLevelWindow, wxFrame, wxDialog so you
	345	can get the minimal sample running as soon as possible.<P>
	346
	347	If GDI objects (wxPen, wxBrush, etc.) are not concepts in your
	348	native GUI, you may wish to use very generic versions of
	349	some of these - see the wxX11 port.<P>
	350
	351	Consider using the wxUniversal widget set as a quick way
	352	to implement wxWidgets on your platform. You only need
	353	to define some basic classes such as device contexts,
	354	wxWindow, wxTopLevelWindow, GDI objects etc. and
	355	the actual widgets will be drawn for you. See wxX11,
	356	wxMGL, and wxMSW/Univ for sample wxUniversal ports.<P>
	357
	358	To begin with, you can use whatever makefiles or project
	359	files work for you. Look at existing makefiles to see what
	360	generic/common/Unix files need to be included. Later, you'll want to integrate support
	361	for your port into configure (Unix-like systems and gcc under Windows),
	362	and bakefile (for other makefiles on Windows).<P>
	363
	364	Submit your port as patches via SourceForge; you might
	365	wish to separate it into one patch that touches common headers
	366	and source files, and another containing the port-specific code, to make
	367	it much easier for us to review and apply the patches.<P>
	368
	369	Good luck!
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