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5<TITLE>wxWindows 2 FAQ: General</TITLE>
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16wxWindows 2 FAQ: General
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22<P>
23
24See 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 wxWindows?</a></li>
29<li><a href="#users">Who uses wxWindows?</a></li>
30<li><a href="#platforms">What platforms are supported by wxWindows 2?</a></li>
31<li><a href="#specific">How does wxWindows 2 support platform-specific features?</a></li>
32<li><a href="#stl">Does wxWindows use STL? or the standard string class?</a></li>
33<li><a href="#richedit">Is there a rich edit/markup widget for wxWindows 2?</a></ li>
34<li><a href="#dev">How is wxWindows 2 being developed?</a></li>
35<li><a href="#distrib">How is wxWindows 2 distributed?</a></li>
36<li><a href="#future">What are the plans for the future?</a></li>
37<li><a href="#univ">What is wxUniversal?</a></li>
38<li><a href="#jave">What about Java?</a></li>
39<li><a href="#help">How can I help the project?</a></li>
40</ul>
41<hr>
42
43<H3><a name="whatis">What is wxWindows?</a></H3>
44
45wxWindows is a class library that allows you to compile graphical C++ programs on a range of
46different platforms. wxWindows defines a common API across platforms, but uses the native graphical user interface (GUI) on each platform,
47so your program will take on the native &#39;look and feel&#39; that users are familiar with.<P>
48
49Although GUI applications are mostly built programmatically, there is a dialog editor to help
50build attractive dialogs and panels. Robert Roebling&#39;s <a href="http://www.roebling.com">wxDesigner</a>
51makes light work of resizable, portable dialogs.<P>
52
53You don&#39;t have to use C++ to use wxWindows: there is a <a href="http://wxpython.org">Python interface</a> for wxWindows 2,
54and also a <a href="http://wxperl.sourceforge.net" target=_top>Perl interface</a>.
55<P>
56
57<h3>Can I use wxWindows 2 for both proprietary (commercial) projects, and GPL&#39;ed projects?</h3>
58
59Yes. Please see the <a href="newlicen.htm">licence</a> for details, but basically
60you can distribute proprietary binaries without distributing any source code, and neither will wxWindows
61conflict with GPL code you may be using or developing with it.
62<P>
63The conditions for using wxWindows 2 are the same whether you are a personal, academic
64or commercial developer.
65<P>
66
67<h3>Is there support?</h3>
68
69No official support, but the mailing list is very helpful and some people say that
70wxWindows support is better than for much commercial software. The developers are
71keen to fix bugs as soon as possible, though obviously there are no guarantees.
72<P>
73
74<H3><a name="users">Who uses wxWindows?</a></H3>
75
76Many organisations - commercial, government, and academic - across the
77world. It&#39;s impossible to estimate the true number of users, since
78wxWindows is obtained by many different means, and we cannot monitor
79distribution. The mailing list contains around 300-400 entries which is
80quite large for a list of this type.<P>
81
82See <a href="users.htm">Users</a> for a list of some users and their applications, and
83also <A href="feedback.htm">Feedback</a> for comments.<P>
84
85<H3><a name="platforms">What platforms are supported by wxWindows 2?</a></H3>
86
87<ul>
88<li>Windows 3.1, Windows 95/98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows ME.
89<li>Linux and other Unix platforms with GTK+.
90<li>Unix with Motif or the free Motif clone Lesstif.
91<li>Mac OS.
92<li>Embedded platforms are being investigated. See the <a href="wxuniv.htm">wxUniversal</a> project.
93<li>An OS/2 port is in progress, and you can also compile wxWindows for GTK+ or Motif
94on OS/2.
95</ul>
96<P>
97
98<H3><a name="specific">How does wxWindows 2 support platform-specific
99features?</a></H3>
100
101This is a hotly-debated topic amongst the developers. My own philosophy
102is to make wxWindows as platform-independent as possible, but allow in a
103few classes (functions, window styles) that are platform-specific.
104For example, Windows metafiles and Windows 95 taskbar icons have
105their own classes on Windows, but nowhere else. Because these classes
106are provided and are wxWindows-compatible, it doesn&#39;t take much
107coding effort for an application programmer to add support for
108some functionality that the user on a particular platform might otherwise
109miss. Also, some classes that started off as platform-specific, such
110as the MDI classes, have been emulated on other platforms. I can imagine
111that even wxTaskBarIcon may be implemented for Unix desktops one day.
112<P>
113
114In other words, wxWindows is not a &#39;lowest common denominator&#39; approach,
115but it will still be possible to write portable programs using the
116core API. Forbidding some platform-specific classes would be a stupid
117approach that would alienate many potential users, and encourage
118the perception that toolkits such as wxWindows are not up to the demands
119of today&#39;s sophisticated applications.<P>
120
121Currently resources such as bitmaps and icons are handled in a platform-specific
122way, but it is hoped to reduce this dependence in due course.<P>
123
124Another reason why wxWindows 2 is not a &#39;lowest common denominator&#39; toolkit is that
125some functionality missing on some platform has been provided using generic,
126platform-independent code, such as the wxTreeCtrl and wxListCtrl classes.<P>
127
128<H3><a name="stl">Does wxWindows use STL? or the standard string class?</a></H3>
129
130No. This is a much-discussed topic that has (many times) ended with the conclusion that it is in
131wxWindows&#39; best interests to avoid use of templates. Not all compilers can handle
132templates adequately so it would dramatically reduce the number of compilers
133and platforms that could be supported. It would also be undersirable to make
134wxWindows dependent on another large library that may have to be downloaded and installed.
135In addition, use of templates can lead to executable bloat, which is something
136wxWindows 2 is strenously trying to avoid.<P>
137
138The standard C++ string class is not used, again because it is not available to all compilers,
139and it is not necessarily a very efficient implementation. Also, we retain more flexibility
140by being able to modify our own string class. Some compatibility with the string class
141has been built into wxString.<P>
142
143There is nothing to stop an application using templates or the string class for its own
144purposes. With wxWindows debugging options on, you may find you get errors when including
145STL headers. You can work around it either by switching off memory checking,
146or by adding this to a header before you include any STL files:<P>
147
148<PRE>
149&#35;ifdef new
150&#35;undef new
151&#35;endif
152</PRE>
153
154<P>
155
156
157<H3><a name="richedit">Is there a rich edit/markup widget for wxWindows 2?</a></H3>
158
159These are the possibilities so far:<P>
160
161<ul>
162<li>The richedit sample has a text editor that does markup.
163<li>See <a href="http://www.scintilla.org" target=_top>www.scintilla.org</a> for
164a very nice syntax-highlighting editor widget. Robin Dunn is writing a wxWindows wrapper
165for this widget.
166<li>If you only need to display marked-up information, rather than edit it,
167then wxHTML will suit your needs. wxHTML is built into wxWindows - please see the reference
168manual for details, and samples/html.
169<li>There are rich edit widgets in both WIN32 and GTK+, but there is currently
170no wxWindows wrapper for these (but text attribute functions are being added in the wxWindows 2.3.x series).
171</ul>
172
173<P>
174
175<H3><a name="dev">How is wxWindows 2 being developed?</a></H3>
176
177We are using the <a href="cvs.htm">CVS</a> system to develop and maintain wxWindows. This allows
178us to make alterations and upload them instantly to the SourceForge server, from
179which others can update their source.<P>
180
181To build source from CVS, see the file BuildCVS.txt in the top-level wxWindows distribution
182directory.<P>
183
184<H3><a name="distrib">How is wxWindows 2 distributed?</a></H3>
185
186By ftp, and via the <a href="cdrom2.htm">wxWindows CD-ROM</a>.
187<P>
188If you are feeling adventurous, you may also check out the sources directly
189from the <a href="cvs.htm">cvs</a>
190<p>
191
192<H3><a name="future">What are the plans for the future?</a></H3>
193
194Currently we&#39;re working too hard on getting wxWindows 2 finished (are GUI toolkits ever
195finished?) to think very far ahead. However, we know we want to make wxWindows as robust
196and well-publicised as possible. We also want to aim for better platform-independence of
197resources such as icons and bitmaps, standardising on the PNG for all platforms.<P>
198
199Other possibilities include: DCOM/CORBA compatibility; a wxWindows book;
200<a href="http://wxworkshop.sourceforge.net/">wxWorkshop</a>, an IDE;
201other platforms, especially embedded systems; other interface abilities such as speech output.<P>
202
203We will investigate the possibility of compiler or operating system vendors bundling wxWindows with
204their product.<P>
205
206The high-level goal of wxWindows is to be thought of as the number one C++ framework,
207for virtually any platform. Move over, MFC!<P>
208
209<H3><a name="univ">What is wxUniversal?</a></H3>
210
211wxUniversal is a new port of wxWindows being currently actively developed. The
212main difference is that wxUniversal implements all controls (or widgets) in
213wxWindows itself thus allowing to have much more flexibility (i.e. support for
214themes even under MS Windows!). It also means that it is now much easier to
215port wxWindows to a new platform as only the low-level classes must be ported
216which make for a small part of the library.
217<p>
218You may find more about wxUniversal <a href=wxuniv.htm>here</a>.
219
220<H3><a name="jave">What about Java?</a></H3>
221
222The Java honeymoon period is over :-) and people are realising that it cannot
223meet all their cross-platform development needs. We don&#39;t anticipate a major threat
224from Java, and the level of interest in wxWindows is as high as ever.<P>
225
226<H3><a name="help">How can I help the project?</a></H3>
227
228Please check out the <a href="http://www.wxwindows.org/develop2.htm">Community</a> pages,
229in particular the <a href="projects.htm">suggested projects</a>, and
230mail <a href="mailto:julian.smart@btopenworld.com">Julian Smart</a> or the developers&#39; mailing list with your own suggestions.<P>
231
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