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	5	<TITLE>wxWindows 2 FAQ: General</TITLE>
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	16	<b>wxWindows 2 FAQ: General</b>
	17	</font>
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	20	</table>
	21
	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 wxWindows?</a></li>
	29	<li><a href="#licence">Can I use wxWindows 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 wxWindows?</a></li>
	32	<li><a href="#platforms">What platforms are supported by wxWindows?</a></li>
	33	<li><a href="#specific">How does wxWindows support platform-specific features?</a></li>
	34	<li><a href="#stl">Does wxWindows use STL? or the standard string class?</a></li>
	35	<li><a href="#richedit">Is there a rich edit/markup widget for wxWindows?</a></ li>
	36	<li><a href="#exceptions">How to use C++ exceptions with wxWindows?</a></ li>
	37	<li><a href="#dev">How is wxWindows being developed?</a></li>
	38	<li><a href="#distrib">How is wxWindows 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	</ul>
	46	<hr>
	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,
	52	so your program will take on the native 'look and feel' that users are familiar with.<P>
	53
	54	Although GUI applications are mostly built programmatically, there are several dialog editors to help
	55	build attractive dialogs and panels. Robert Roebling's <a href="http://www.roebling.com">wxDesigner</a>
	56	and Anthemion Software's <a href="http://www.anthemion.co.uk/dialogblocks/" target=_new>DialogBlocks</a>
	57	are two commercial examples, but there are others: see the <a href="lnk_tools.htm">Useful Tools</a> page.<P>
	58
	59	You don't have to use C++ to use wxWindows: there is a <a href="http://wxpython.org">Python interface</a> for wxWindows 2,
	60	and also a <a href="http://wxperl.sourceforge.net" target=_top>Perl interface</a>.
	61	<P>
	62
	63	<h3><a name="licence">Can I use wxWindows 2 for both proprietary (commercial) projects, and GPL'ed projects?</a></h3>
	64
	65	Yes. Please see the <a href="newlicen.htm">licence</a> for details, but basically
	66	you can distribute proprietary binaries without distributing any source code, and neither will wxWindows
	67	conflict with GPL code you may be using or developing with it.
	68	<P>
	69	The conditions for using wxWindows 2 are the same whether you are a personal, academic
	70	or commercial developer.
	71	<P>
	72
	73	<h3><a name="support">Is there support?</a></h3>
	74
	75	No official support, but the mailing list is very helpful and some people say that
	76	wxWindows support is better than for much commercial software. The developers are
	77	keen to fix bugs as soon as possible, though obviously there are no guarantees.
	78	<P>
	79
	80	<H3><a name="users">Who uses wxWindows?</a></H3>
	81
	82	Many organisations - commercial, government, and academic - across the
	83	world. It's impossible to estimate the true number of users, since
	84	wxWindows is obtained by many different means, and we cannot monitor
	85	distribution. The mailing list contains around 300-400 entries which is
	86	quite large for a list of this type.<P>
	87
	88	See <a href="users.htm">Users</a> for a list of some users and their applications, and
	89	also <A href="feedback.htm">Feedback</a> for comments.<P>
	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>
	93
	94	<H3><a name="platforms">What platforms are supported by wxWindows 2?</a></H3>
	95
	96	<ul>
	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.
	102	<li>An OS/2 port is in progress, and you can also compile wxWindows for GTK+ or Motif
	103	on OS/2.
	104	</ul>
	105	<P>
	106
	107	<H3><a name="specific">How does wxWindows 2 support platform-specific
	108	features?</a></H3>
	109
	110	This is a hotly-debated topic amongst the developers. My own philosophy
	111	is to make wxWindows as platform-independent as possible, but allow in a
	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
	115	are provided and are wxWindows-compatible, it doesn't take much
	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
	123	In other words, wxWindows is not a 'lowest common denominator' approach,
	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
	127	the perception that toolkits such as wxWindows are not up to the demands
	128	of today's sophisticated applications.<P>
	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
	133	Another reason why wxWindows 2 is not a 'lowest common denominator' toolkit is that
	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
	137	<H3><a name="stl">Does wxWindows use STL? or the standard string class?</a></H3>
	138
	139	No. This is a much-discussed topic that has (many times) ended with the conclusion that it is in
	140	wxWindows' best interests to avoid use of templates. Not all compilers can handle
	141	templates adequately so it would dramatically reduce the number of compilers
	142	and platforms that could be supported. It would also be undersirable to make
	143	wxWindows dependent on another large library that may have to be downloaded and installed.
	144	In addition, use of templates can lead to executable bloat, which is something
	145	wxWindows 2 is strenously trying to avoid.<P>
	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
	153	purposes. With wxWindows debugging options on, you may find you get errors when including
	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
	165
	166	<H3><a name="richedit">Is there a rich edit/markup widget for wxWindows 2?</a></H3>
	167
	168	These are the possibilities so far:<P>
	169
	170	<ul>
	171	<li>See <a href="http://www.scintilla.org" target=_top>www.scintilla.org</a> for
	172	a very nice syntax-highlighting editor widget. Robin Dunn has written a wxWindows wrapper
	173	for this widget, available in the wxWindows distribution under contrib/src/stc.
	174	<li>If you only need to display marked-up information, rather than edit it,
	175	then wxHTML will suit your needs. wxHTML is built into wxWindows - please see the reference
	176	manual for details, and samples/html.
	177	<li>There are rich edit widgets in both WIN32 and GTK+, but there is currently
	178	no wxWindows wrapper for these (but text attribute functions are being added in the wxWindows 2.3.x series).
	179	</ul>
	180
	181	<P>
	182
	183	<h3><a name="exceptions">How to use C++ exceptions with wxWindows?</a></h3>
	184
	185	wxWindows library itself is unfortunately <i>not</i> exception-safe (as its
	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
	189	wxWindows.
	190
	191	<p>
	192	There are a few issues to keep in mind, though:
	193	<ul>
	194	<li>You shouldn't let the exceptions propagate through wxWindows code,
	195	in particular you should always catch the exceptions thrown by the
	196	functions called from an event handler in the handler itself and not
	197	let them propagate upwards to wxWindows.
	198
	199	<li>You may need to ensure that the compiler support for the exceptions is
	200	enabled as, considering that wxWindows itself doesn't use the
	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
	211	<H3><a name="dev">How is wxWindows being developed?</a></H3>
	212
	213	We are using the <a href="cvs.htm">CVS</a> system to develop and maintain wxWindows. This allows
	214	us to make alterations and upload them instantly to the server, from
	215	which others can update their source.<P>
	216
	217	To build source from CVS, see the file BuildCVS.txt in the top-level wxWindows distribution
	218	directory.<P>
	219
	220	<H3><a name="distrib">How is wxWindows distributed?</a></H3>
	221
	222	By ftp, and via the <a href="cdrom2.htm">wxWindows CD-ROM</a>.
	223	<P>
	224	If you are feeling adventurous, you may also check out the sources directly
	225	from <a href="cvs.htm">cvs</a>.
	226	<p>
	227
	228	<H3><a name="future">What are the plans for the future?</a></H3>
	229
	230	Currently we're working too hard on getting wxWindows finished (are GUI toolkits ever
	231	finished?) to think very far ahead. However, we know we want to make wxWindows as robust
	232	and well-publicised as possible. We also want to aim for better platform-independence of
	233	resources such as icons and bitmaps, standardising on PNG and XPM for all platforms.<P>
	234
	235	Other possibilities include: DCOM/CORBA compatibility; a wxWindows book;
	236	<a href="http://wxworkshop.sourceforge.net/">wxWorkshop</a>, an IDE;
	237	other platforms, especially embedded systems; other interface abilities such as speech output.<P>
	238
	239	We will investigate the possibility of compiler or operating system vendors bundling wxWindows with
	240	their product.<P>
	241
	242	The high-level goal of wxWindows is to be thought of as the number one C++ framework,
	243	for virtually any platform. Move over, MFC!<P>
	244
	245	<h3><a name="base">What is wxBase?</a></h3>
	246
	247	wxBase is a subset of wxWindows comprised by the non-GUI classes. It includes
	248	wxWindows container and primitive data type classes (including wxString,
	249	wxDateTime and so on) and also useful wrappers for the operating system objects
	250	such as files, processes, threads, sockets and so on. With very minor
	251	exceptions wxBase may be used in exactly the same way as wxWindows but it
	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
	255	a full featured wxWindows port).
	256
	257	<H3><a name="univ">What is wxUniversal?</a></H3>
	258
	259	The main difference between wxUniversal-based ports (such as wxX11, wxMGL) and other ports (such as wxMSW, wxGTK+, wxMac)
	260	is that wxUniversal implements all controls (or widgets) in
	261	wxWindows itself thus allowing to have much more flexibility (for example, support for
	262	themes even under MS Windows). It also means that it is now much easier to
	263	port wxWindows to a new platform as only the low-level classes must be ported
	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>
	269
	270	The Java honeymoon period is over :-) and people are realising that it cannot
	271	meet all their cross-platform development needs. We don't anticipate a major threat
	272	from Java, and the level of interest in wxWindows is as high as ever.<P>
	273
	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
	284	to make wxWindows redundant. Please note that the following comments
	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
	291	wxWindows (I'm aware there is GTK# for use with the C# language).
	292	<li>C# is usually byte-compiled and therefore slower. Plus, .NET adds a layer of overhead to the client computer
	293	that wxWindows does not require.
	294	<li>Mono hasn't proven its long-term viability yet (it's a complex system of components); wxWindows is ready now.
	295	<li>You may not wish to buy into Microsoft marketing spin and APIs.
	296	<li>Microsoft may at some point sue developers of non-Microsoft .NET implementations. After all,
	297	platform-independence is not in Microsoft's interest.
	298	<li>.NET might never be implemented on some platforms, especially Mac and embedded variants of Linux.
	299	<li>wxPython and other language variants provide further reasons for wxWindows to continue.
	300	<li>The same issue exists for Qt: if Qt sales remain strong, it's a good indication that
	301	the market for a C++-based approach is still there. (Either that, or everyone's turning to wxWindows!)
	302	</ol>
	303
	304	There is nothing to stop folk from developing a C# version of the wxWindows API;
	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
	310	<H3><a name="help">How can I help the project?</a></H3>
	311
	312	Please check out the <a href="http://www.wxwindows.org/develop2.htm">Community</a> pages,
	313	in particular the <a href="projects.htm">suggested projects</a>, and
	314	mail the developers' mailing list with your own suggestions.<P>
	315
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