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	2	<HTML>
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	4	<HEAD>
	5	<TITLE>wxWindows 2 for Windows FAQ</TITLE>
	6	</HEAD>
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	8	<BODY BGCOLOR=#FFFFFF TEXT=#000000 VLINK="#00376A" LINK="#00529C" ALINK="#313063">
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	10	<font face="Arial, Lucida Sans, Helvetica">
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	12	<table width=100% border=0 cellpadding=3 cellspacing=0>
	13	<tr>
	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 for Windows FAQ</b>
	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>
	26	<h3>List of questions in this category</h3>
	27	<ul>
	28	<li><a href="#platforms">Which Windows platforms are supported?</a></li>
	29	<li><a href="#wince">What about Windows CE?</a></li>
	30	<li><a href="#winxp">What do I need to do for Windows XP?</a></li>
	31	<li><a href="#compilers">What compilers are supported?</a></li>
	32	<li><a href="#bestcompiler">Which is the best compiler to use with wxWindows 2?</a></li>
	33	<li><a href="#unicode">Is Unicode supported?</a></li>
	34	<li><a href="#doublebyte">Does wxWindows support double byte fonts (Chinese/Japanese/Korean etc.)?</a></li>
	35	<li><a href="#dll">Can you compile wxWindows 2 as a DLL?</a></li>
	36	<li><a href="#exesize">How can I reduce executable size?</a></li>
	37	<li><a href="#mfc">Is wxWindows compatible with MFC?</a></li>
	38	<li><a href="#newerrors">Why my code fails to compile with strange errors about new operator?</a></li>
	39	<li><a href="#mfcport">How do I port MFC applications to wxWindows?</a></li>
	40	<li><a href="#crash">Why do I sometimes get bizarre crash problems using VC++ 5/6?</a></li>
	41	<li><a href="#makefiles">How are the wxWindows makefiles edited under Windows?</a></li>
	42	<li><a href="#vcdebug">How do you use VC++'s memory leak checking instead of that in wxWindows?</a></li>
	43	<li><a href="#shortcutproblem">Why are menu hotkeys or shortcuts not working in my application?</a></li>
	44	<li><a href="#regconfig">Why can I not write to the HKLM part of the registry with wxRegConfig?</a></li>
	45	</ul>
	46	<hr>
	47
	48	<h3><a name="platforms">Which Windows platforms are supported?</a></h3>
	49
	50	wxWindows 2 can be used to develop and deliver applications on Windows 3.1, Win32s,
	51	Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Windows XP. A Windows CE
	52	version is being looked into (see below).<P>
	53
	54	wxWindows 2 is designed to make use of WIN32 features and controls. However, unlike Microsoft,
	55	we have not forgotten users of 16-bit Windows. Most features
	56	work under Windows 3.1, including wxTreeCtrl and wxListCtrl using the generic implementation.
	57	However, don't expect very Windows-95-specific classes to work, such as wxTaskBarIcon. The wxRegConfig
	58	class doesn't work either because the Windows 3.1 registry is very simplistic. Check out the 16-bit
	59	makefiles to see what other files have been left out.
	60	<P>
	61	16-bit compilation is supported under Visual C++ 1.5, and Borland BC++ 4 to 5.
	62	<P>
	63
	64	wxWindows 2 for Windows will also compile on Unix with gcc using TWIN32 from <a href="http://www.willows.com" target=_top>Willows</a>,
	65	although TWIN32 is still in a preliminary state. The resulting executables are
	66	Unix binaries that work with the TWIN32 Windows API emulator.<P>
	67
	68	You can also compile wxWindows 2 for Windows on Unix with Cygwin or Mingw32, resulting
	69	in executables that will run on Windows. So in theory you could write your applications
	70	using wxGTK or wxMotif, then check/debug your wxWindows for Windows
	71	programs with TWIN32, and finally produce an ix86 Windows executable using Cygwin/Mingw32,
	72	without ever needing a copy of Microsoft Windows. See the Technical Note on the Web site detailing cross-compilation.<P>
	73
	74	<h3><a name="wince">What about Windows CE?</a></h3>
	75
	76	This is under consideration, though we need to get wxWindows Unicode-aware first.
	77	There are other interesting issues, such as how to combine the menubar and toolbar APIs
	78	as Windows CE requires. But there's no doubt that it will be possible, albeit
	79	by mostly cutting down wxWindows 2 API functionality, and adding a few classes here
	80	and there. Since wxWindows for 2 produces small binaries (less than 300K for
	81	the statically-linked 'minimal' sample), shoehorning wxWindows 2 into a Windows CE device's limited
	82	storage should not be a problem.<P>
	83
	84	<h3><a name="winxp">What do I need to do for Windows XP?</a></h3>
	85
	86	In the same directory as you have your executable (e.g. foo.exe) you
	87	put a file called foo.exe.manifest in which you have something like
	88	the following:
	89
	90	<pre>
	91	<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
	92	<assembly
	93	xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1"
	94	manifestVersion="1.0">
	95	<assemblyIdentity
	96	processorArchitecture="x86"
	97	version="5.1.0.0"
	98	type="win32"
	99	name="foo.exe"/>
	100	<description>Foo program</description>
	101	<dependency>
	102	<dependentAssembly>
	103	<assemblyIdentity
	104	type="win32"
	105	name="Microsoft.Windows.Common-Controls"
	106	version="6.0.0.0"
	107	publicKeyToken="6595b64144ccf1df"
	108	language="*"
	109	processorArchitecture="x86"/>
	110	</dependentAssembly>
	111	</dependency>
	112	</assembly>
	113	</pre>
	114
	115	<h3><a name="compilers">What compilers are supported?</a></h3>
	116
	117	Please see the wxWindows 2 for Windows install.txt file for up-to-date information, but
	118	currently the following are known to work:<P>
	119
	120	<ul>
	121	<li>Visual C++ 1.5, 4.0, 5.0, 6.0
	122	<li>Borland C++ 4.5, 5.0
	123	<li>Borland C++Builder 1.0, 3.0
	124	<li>Watcom C++ 10.6 (WIN32)
	125	<li>Cygwin b20
	126	<li>Mingw32
	127	<li>MetroWerks CodeWarrior 4
	128	</ul>
	129	<P>
	130
	131	There is a linking problem with Symantec C++ which I hope someone can help solve.
	132	<P>
	133
	134	<h3><a name="bestcompiler">Which is the best compiler to use with wxWindows 2?</a></h3>
	135
	136	It's partly a matter of taste, but I (JACS) prefer Visual C++ since the debugger is very
	137	good, it's very stable, the documentation is extensive, and it generates small executables.
	138	Since project files are plain text, it's easy for me to generate appropriate project files
	139	for wxWindows samples.<P>
	140
	141	Borland C++ is fine - and very fast - but it's hard (impossible?) to use the debugger without using project files, and
	142	the debugger is nowhere near up to VC++'s quality. The IDE isn't great.<P>
	143
	144	C++Builder's power isn't really used with wxWindows since it needs integration with its
	145	own class library (VCL). For wxWindows, I've only used it with makefiles, in which case
	146	it's almost identical to BC++ 5.0 (the same makefiles can be used).<P>
	147
	148	You can't beat Cygwin's price (free), and you can debug adequately using gdb. However, it's
	149	quite slow to compile since it does not use precompiled headers.<P>
	150
	151	CodeWarrior is cross-platform - you can debug and generate Windows executables from a Mac, but not
	152	the other way around I think - but the IDE is, to my mind, a bit primitive.<P>
	153
	154	Watcom C++ is a little slow and the debugger is not really up to today's standards.<P>
	155
	156	Among the free compilers the best choice seem to be Borland C++ command line
	157	tools and mingw32 (port of gcc to Win32). Both of them are supported by
	158	wxWindows.
	159
	160	<h3><a name="unicode">Is Unicode supported?</a></h3>
	161
	162	Yes, Unicode is fully supported under Windows NT/2000 (Windows 9x don't
	163	have Unicode support anyhow).
	164
	165	<h3><a name="doublebyte">Does wxWindows support double byte fonts (Chinese/Japanese/Korean etc.)?</a></h3>
	166
	167	An answer from <a href="mailto:goedde@logosoft.de">Klaus Goedde</a>:<p>
	168
	169	"For Japanese under Win2000, it seems that wxWindows has no problems to work with double byte char sets
	170	(I mean DBCS, that's not Unicode). First you have to install Japanese support on your Win2K system
	171	and choose for ANSI translation
	172	HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Nls\CodePage=932 (default is 1252 for Western).
	173	Then you can see all the funny Japanese letters under wxWindows too.<P>
	174
	175	In a wxTextCtrl control you have to set the window style "wxTE_RICH", otherwise this control shows the wrong
	176	letters.
	177
	178	I don't now whether it works on non W2K systems, because I'm just starting using wxWindows."
	179	<P>
	180
	181	<h3><a name="dll">Can you compile wxWindows 2 as a DLL?</a></h3>
	182
	183	Yes (using the Visual C++ or Borland C++ makefile), but be aware that distributing DLLs is a thorny issue
	184	and you may be better off compiling statically-linked applications, unless you're
	185	delivering a suite of separate programs, or you're compiling a lot of wxWindows applications
	186	and have limited hard disk space.<P>
	187
	188	With a DLL approach, and with different versions and configurations of wxWindows
	189	needing to be catered for, the end user may end up with a host of large DLLs in his or her Windows system directory,
	190	negating the point of using DLLs. Of course, this is not a problem just associated with
	191	wxWindows!
	192	<P>
	193
	194	<h3><a name="exesize">How can I reduce executable size?</a></h3>
	195
	196	You can compile wxWindows as a DLL (see above, VC++/BC++ only at present). You should also
	197	compile your programs for release using non-debugging and space-optimisation options, but
	198	take with VC++ 5/6 space optimisation: it can sometimes cause problems.<P>
	199
	200	Statically-linked wxWindows 2 programs are smaller than wxWindows 1.xx programs, because of the way
	201	wxWindows 2 has been designed to reduce dependencies between classes, and other
	202	techniques. The linker will not include code from the library that is not (directly or
	203	indirectly) referenced
	204	by your application. So for example, the 'minimal' sample is less than 300KB using VC++ 6.<P>
	205
	206	If you want to distribute really small executables, you can
	207	use <a href="http://www.un4seen.com/petite/" target=_top>Petite</a>
	208	by Ian Luck. This nifty utility compresses Windows executables by around 50%, so your 500KB executable
	209	will shrink to a mere 250KB. With this sort of size, there is reduced incentive to
	210	use DLLs. Another good compression tool is <a href="http://upx.sourceforge.net/" target=_top>UPX</a>.
	211	<P>
	212
	213	<H3><a name="mfc">Is wxWindows compatible with MFC?</a></H3>
	214
	215	There is a sample which demonstrates MFC and wxWindows code co-existing in the same
	216	application. However, don't expect to be able to enable wxWindows windows with OLE-2
	217	functionality using MFC.<P>
	218
	219	<H3><a name="newerrors">Why my code fails to compile with strange errors about new operator?</a></H3>
	220
	221	The most common cause of this problem is the memory debugging settings in
	222	<tt>wx/msw/setup.h</tt>. You have several choices:
	223
	224	<ul>
	225	<li> Either disable overloading the global operator new completely by
	226	setting <tt>wxUSE_GLOBAL_MEMORY_OPERATORS</tt> and
	227	<tt>wxUSE_DEBUG_NEW_ALWAYS</tt> to 0 in this file
	228	<li> Or leave them on but do <tt>#undef new</tt> after including any
	229	wxWindows headers, like this the memory debugging will be still on
	230	for wxWindows sources but off for your own code
	231	</ul>
	232
	233	Notice that IMHO the first solution is preferable for VC++ users who can use
	234	the <a href="#vcdebug">VC++ CRT memory debugging features</a> instead.
	235
	236	<H3><a name="mfcport">How do I port MFC applications to wxWindows?</a></H3>
	237
	238	Set up your interface from scratch using wxWindows (especially wxDesigner --
	239	it'll save you a <i>lot</i> of time) and when you have a shell prepared, you can start
	240	'pouring in' code from the MFC app, with appropriate
	241	modifications. This is the approach I have used, and I found
	242	it very satisfactory. A two-step process then - reproduce the bare
	243	interface first, then wire it up afterwards. That way you deal
	244	with each area of complexity separately. Don't try to think MFC
	245	and wxWindows simultaneously from the beginning - it is easier to
	246	reproduce the initial UI by looking at the behaviour of the MFC
	247	app, not its code.
	248
	249	<H3><a name="crash">Why do I sometimes get bizarre crash problems using VC++ 5/6?</a></H3>
	250
	251	Some crash problems can be due to inconsistent compiler
	252	options (and of course this isn't limited to wxWindows).
	253	If strange/weird/impossible things start to happen please
	254	check (dumping IDE project file as makefile and doing text comparison
	255	if necessary) that the project settings, especially the list of defined
	256	symbols, struct packing, etc. are exactly the same for all items in
	257	the project. After this, delete everything (including PCH) and recompile.<P>
	258
	259	VC++ 5's optimization code seems to be broken and can
	260	cause problems: this can be seen when deleting an object Dialog
	261	Editor, in Release mode with optimizations on. If in doubt,
	262	switch off optimisations, although this will result in much
	263	larger executables. It seems possible that the library can be created with
	264	strong optimization, so long as the application is not strongly
	265	optimized. For example, in wxWindows project, set to 'Minimum
	266	Size'. In Dialog Editor project, set to 'Customize: Favor Small
	267	Code' (and no others). This will then work.<P>
	268
	269	<H3><a name="makefiles">How are the wxWindows makefiles edited under Windows?</a></H3>
	270
	271	As of wxWindows 2.1, there is a new system written by Vadim Zeitlin, that
	272	generates the makefiles from templates using tmake.<P>
	273
	274	Here are Vadim's notes:<P>
	275
	276	<blockquote>
	277	To use these new makefiles, you don't need anything (but see below).
	278	However, you should NOT modify them because these files will be
	279	rewritten when I regenerate them using tmake the next time. So, if
	280	you find a problem with any of these makefiles (say, makefile.b32)
	281	you'll need to modify the corresponding template (b32.t in this
	282	example) and regenerate the makefile using tmake.<P>
	283
	284	tmake can be found at
	285	<a href="http://www.troll.no/freebies/tmake.html" target=_new>www.troll.no/freebies/tmake.html</a>.
	286	It's a Perl5 program and so it needs Perl (doh). There is a binary for
	287	Windows (available from the same page), but I haven't used it, so
	288	I don't know if it works as flawlessly as "perl tmake" does (note
	289	for people knowing Perl: don't try to run tmake with -w, it won't
	290	do you any good). Using it extremely simple: to regenerate makefile.b32
	291	just go to distrib/msw/tmake and type<P>
	292
	293	<pre>tmake -t b32 wxwin.pro -o ../../src/msw/makefile.b32</pre><P>
	294
	295	The makefiles are untested - I don't have any of Borland, Watcom or
	296	Symantec and I don't have enough diskspace to recompile even with
	297	VC6 using makefiles. The new makefiles are as close as possible to the
	298	old ones, but not closer: in fact, there has been many strange things
	299	(should I say bugs?) in some of makefiles, some files were not compiled
	300	without any reason etc. Please test them and notify me about any problems.
	301	Better yet, modify the template files to generate the correct makefiles
	302	and check them in.<P>
	303
	304	The templates are described in tmake ref manual (1-2 pages of text)
	305	and are quite simple. They do contain some Perl code, but my Perl is
	306	primitive (very C like) so it should be possible for anybody to make
	307	trivial modifications to it (I hope that only trivial modifications
	308	will be needed). I've tagged the ol makefiles as MAKEFILES_WITHOUT_TMAKE
	309	in the cvs, so you can always retrieve them and compare the new ones,
	310	this will make it easier to solve the problems you might have.<P>
	311
	312	Another important file is filelist.txt: it contains the list of all
	313	files to be compiled. Some of them are only compiled in 16/32 bit mode.
	314	Some other are only compiled with some compilers (others can't compile
	315	them) - all this info is contained in this file.<P>
	316
	317	So now adding a new file to wxWindows is as easy as modifying filelist.txt
	318	(and Makefile.ams for Unix ports) and regenerating the makefiles - no
	319	need to modify all files manually any more.<P>
	320
	321	Finally, there is also a file vc6.t which I use myself: this one
	322	generates a project file for VC++ 6.0 (I didn't create vc5.t because
	323	I don't need it and can't test it, but it should be trivial to create
	324	one from vc6.t - probably the only things to change would be the
	325	version number in the very beginning and the /Z option - VC5 doesn't
	326	support edit-and=continue). This is not an officially supported way
	327	of building wxWindows (that is, nobody guarantees that it will work),
	328	but it has been very useful to me and I hope it will be also for
	329	others. To generate wxWindows.dsp run<P>
	330
	331	<pre>tmake -t vc6 wxwin.pro -o ../../wxWindows.dsp</pre><P>
	332
	333	Then just include this project in any workspace or open it from VC IDE
	334	and it will create a new workspace for you.<P>
	335
	336	If all goes well, I'm planning to create a template file for Makefile.ams
	337	under src/gtk and src/motif and also replace all makefiles in the samples
	338	subdirectories with the project files from which all the others will be
	339	generated. At least it will divide the number of files in samples
	340	directory by 10 (and the number of files to be maintained too).
	341	</blockquote>
	342
	343	<P>
	344
	345	<H3><a name="vcdebug">How do you use VC++'s memory leak checking instead of that in wxWindows?</a></H3>
	346
	347	Vadim Zeitlin:
	348
	349	<pre>
	350	On the VC++ level, it's just the matter of calling _CrtSetDbgFlag() in the very
	351	beginning of the program. In wxWindows, this is done automatically when
	352	compiling with VC++ in debug mode unless wxUSE_GLOBAL_MEMORY_OPERATORS or
	353	__NO_VC_CRTDBG__ are defined - this check is done in wx/msw/msvcrt.h which
	354	is included from app.cpp which then calls wxCrtSetDbgFlag() without any
	355	ifdefs.
	356
	357	This works quite well: at the end of the program, all leaked blocks with their
	358	malloc count are shown. This number (malloc count) can be used to determine
	359	where exactly the object was allocated: for this it's enough to set the variable
	360	_crtBreakAlloc (look in VC98\crt\srs\dbgheap.c line 326) to this number and
	361	a breakpoint will be triggered when the block with this number is allocated.
	362
	363	For simple situations it works like a charm. For something more complicated
	364	like reading uninitialized memory a specialized tool is probably better...
	365
	366	Regards,
	367	VZ
	368	</pre>
	369
	370	<P>
	371
	372	<H3><a name="shortcutproblem">Why are menu hotkeys or shortcuts not working in my application?</a></H3>
	373
	374	This can happen if you have a child window intercepting EVT_CHAR events and swallowing
	375	all keyboard input. You should ensure that event.Skip() is called for all input that
	376	isn'used by the event handler.
	377
	378	<H3><a name="#regconfig">Why can I not write to the HKLM part of the registry with wxRegConfig?</a></H3>
	379
	380	Currently this is not possible because the wxConfig family of classes is
	381	supposed to deal with per-user application configuration data, and HKLM is
	382	only supposed to be writeable by a user with Administrator privileges. In theory,
	383	only installers should write to HKLM. This is still a point debated by the
	384	wxWindows developers. There are at least two ways to work around it if you really
	385	need to write to HKLM.<P>
	386
	387	First, you can use wxRegKey directly, for example:
	388
	389	<pre>
	390	wxRegKey regKey;
	391
	392	wxString idName(wxT("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\My Company\\My Product\\Stuff\\"));
	393	idName += packid;
	394
	395	regKey.SetName(idName);
	396
	397	{
	398	wxLogNull dummy;
	399	if (!regKey.Create())
	400	{
	401	idName = wxT("HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\SOFTWARE\\My Company\\My Product\\Stuff\\");
	402	idName += packid;
	403	regKey.SetName(idName);
	404	if (!regKey.Create())
	405	return FALSE;
	406	}
	407	}
	408
	409	if (!regKey.SetValue(wxT("THING"), (long) thing)) err += 1;
	410
	411	regKey.Close();
	412
	413	</pre>
	414
	415	Or, you can employ this trick suggested by Istvan Kovacs:
	416
	417	<pre>
	418	class myGlobalConfig : public wxConfig
	419	{
	420	myGlobalConfig() :
	421	wxConfig ("myApp", "myCompany", "", "", wxCONFIG_USE_GLOBAL_FILE)
	422	{};
	423	bool Write(const wxString& key, const wxString& value);
	424	}
	425
	426	bool myGlobalConfig::Write (const wxString& key, const wxString& value)
	427	{
	428	wxString path = wxString ("SOFTWARE\\myCompany\\myApp\\") + wxPathOnly(key);
	429	wxString new_path = path.Replace ("/", "\\", true);
	430	wxString new_key = wxFileNameFromPath (key);
	431	LocalKey().SetName (wxRegKey::HKLM, path);
	432	return wxConfig::Write (new_key, value);
	433	}
	434	</pre>
	435
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	437
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