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	5	<TITLE>wxWindows 2 FAQ: General</TITLE>
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	16	<b>wxWindows 2 FAQ: General</b>
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	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="#help">How can I help the project?</a></li>
	44	</ul>
	45	<hr>
	46
	47	<H3><a name="whatis">What is wxWindows?</a></H3>
	48
	49	wxWindows is a class library that allows you to compile graphical C++ programs on a range of
	50	different platforms. wxWindows defines a common API across platforms, but uses the native graphical user interface (GUI) on each platform,
	51	so your program will take on the native 'look and feel' that users are familiar with.<P>
	52
	53	Although GUI applications are mostly built programmatically, there is a dialog editor to help
	54	build attractive dialogs and panels. Robert Roebling's <a href="http://www.roebling.com">wxDesigner</a>
	55	makes light work of resizable, portable dialogs.<P>
	56
	57	You don't have to use C++ to use wxWindows: there is a <a href="http://wxpython.org">Python interface</a> for wxWindows 2,
	58	and also a <a href="http://wxperl.sourceforge.net" target=_top>Perl interface</a>.
	59	<P>
	60
	61	<h3><a name="licence">Can I use wxWindows 2 for both proprietary (commercial) projects, and GPL'ed projects?</a></h3>
	62
	63	Yes. Please see the <a href="newlicen.htm">licence</a> for details, but basically
	64	you can distribute proprietary binaries without distributing any source code, and neither will wxWindows
	65	conflict with GPL code you may be using or developing with it.
	66	<P>
	67	The conditions for using wxWindows 2 are the same whether you are a personal, academic
	68	or commercial developer.
	69	<P>
	70
	71	<h3><a name="support">Is there support?</a></h3>
	72
	73	No official support, but the mailing list is very helpful and some people say that
	74	wxWindows support is better than for much commercial software. The developers are
	75	keen to fix bugs as soon as possible, though obviously there are no guarantees.
	76	<P>
	77
	78	<H3><a name="users">Who uses wxWindows?</a></H3>
	79
	80	Many organisations - commercial, government, and academic - across the
	81	world. It's impossible to estimate the true number of users, since
	82	wxWindows is obtained by many different means, and we cannot monitor
	83	distribution. The mailing list contains around 300-400 entries which is
	84	quite large for a list of this type.<P>
	85
	86	See <a href="users.htm">Users</a> for a list of some users and their applications, and
	87	also <A href="feedback.htm">Feedback</a> for comments.<P>
	88	Our highest-profile user yet is industry veteran and Lotus Corp. founder Mitch Kapor
	89	and his <a href="http://www.osafoundation.org" target=_new>Open Source Applications Foundation</a>.
	90	<P>
	91
	92	<H3><a name="platforms">What platforms are supported by wxWindows 2?</a></H3>
	93
	94	<ul>
	95	<li>Windows 3.1, Windows 95/98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows ME.
	96	<li>Linux and other Unix platforms with GTK+.
	97	<li>Unix with Motif or the free Motif clone Lesstif.
	98	<li>Mac OS.
	99	<li>Embedded platforms are being investigated. See the <a href="wxuniv.htm">wxUniversal</a> project.
	100	<li>An OS/2 port is in progress, and you can also compile wxWindows for GTK+ or Motif
	101	on OS/2.
	102	</ul>
	103	<P>
	104
	105	<H3><a name="specific">How does wxWindows 2 support platform-specific
	106	features?</a></H3>
	107
	108	This is a hotly-debated topic amongst the developers. My own philosophy
	109	is to make wxWindows as platform-independent as possible, but allow in a
	110	few classes (functions, window styles) that are platform-specific.
	111	For example, Windows metafiles and Windows 95 taskbar icons have
	112	their own classes on Windows, but nowhere else. Because these classes
	113	are provided and are wxWindows-compatible, it doesn't take much
	114	coding effort for an application programmer to add support for
	115	some functionality that the user on a particular platform might otherwise
	116	miss. Also, some classes that started off as platform-specific, such
	117	as the MDI classes, have been emulated on other platforms. I can imagine
	118	that even wxTaskBarIcon may be implemented for Unix desktops one day.
	119	<P>
	120
	121	In other words, wxWindows is not a 'lowest common denominator' approach,
	122	but it will still be possible to write portable programs using the
	123	core API. Forbidding some platform-specific classes would be a stupid
	124	approach that would alienate many potential users, and encourage
	125	the perception that toolkits such as wxWindows are not up to the demands
	126	of today's sophisticated applications.<P>
	127
	128	Currently resources such as bitmaps and icons are handled in a platform-specific
	129	way, but it is hoped to reduce this dependence in due course.<P>
	130
	131	Another reason why wxWindows 2 is not a 'lowest common denominator' toolkit is that
	132	some functionality missing on some platform has been provided using generic,
	133	platform-independent code, such as the wxTreeCtrl and wxListCtrl classes.<P>
	134
	135	<H3><a name="stl">Does wxWindows use STL? or the standard string class?</a></H3>
	136
	137	No. This is a much-discussed topic that has (many times) ended with the conclusion that it is in
	138	wxWindows' best interests to avoid use of templates. Not all compilers can handle
	139	templates adequately so it would dramatically reduce the number of compilers
	140	and platforms that could be supported. It would also be undersirable to make
	141	wxWindows dependent on another large library that may have to be downloaded and installed.
	142	In addition, use of templates can lead to executable bloat, which is something
	143	wxWindows 2 is strenously trying to avoid.<P>
	144
	145	The standard C++ string class is not used, again because it is not available to all compilers,
	146	and it is not necessarily a very efficient implementation. Also, we retain more flexibility
	147	by being able to modify our own string class. Some compatibility with the string class
	148	has been built into wxString.<P>
	149
	150	There is nothing to stop an application using templates or the string class for its own
	151	purposes. With wxWindows debugging options on, you may find you get errors when including
	152	STL headers. You can work around it either by switching off memory checking,
	153	or by adding this to a header before you include any STL files:<P>
	154
	155	<PRE>
	156	#ifdef new
	157	#undef new
	158	#endif
	159	</PRE>
	160
	161	<P>
	162
	163
	164	<H3><a name="richedit">Is there a rich edit/markup widget for wxWindows 2?</a></H3>
	165
	166	These are the possibilities so far:<P>
	167
	168	<ul>
	169	<li>See <a href="http://www.scintilla.org" target=_top>www.scintilla.org</a> for
	170	a very nice syntax-highlighting editor widget. Robin Dunn has written a wxWindows wrapper
	171	for this widget, available in the wxWindows distribution under contrib/src/stc.
	172	<li>If you only need to display marked-up information, rather than edit it,
	173	then wxHTML will suit your needs. wxHTML is built into wxWindows - please see the reference
	174	manual for details, and samples/html.
	175	<li>There are rich edit widgets in both WIN32 and GTK+, but there is currently
	176	no wxWindows wrapper for these (but text attribute functions are being added in the wxWindows 2.3.x series).
	177	</ul>
	178
	179	<P>
	180
	181	<h3><a name="exceptions">How to use C++ exceptions with wxWindows?</a></h3>
	182
	183	wxWindows library itself is unfortunately <i>not</i> exception-safe (as its
	184	initial version predates, by far, the addition of the exceptions to the C++
	185	language). However you can still use the exceptions in your own code and use
	186	the other libraries using the exceptions for the error reporting together with
	187	wxWindows.
	188
	189	<p>
	190	There are a few issues to keep in mind, though:
	191	<ul>
	192	<li>You shouldn't let the exceptions propagate through wxWindows code,
	193	in particular you should always catch the exceptions thrown by the
	194	functions called from an event handler in the handler itself and not
	195	let them propagate upwards to wxWindows.
	196
	197	<li>You may need to ensure that the compiler support for the exceptions is
	198	enabled as, considering that wxWindows itself doesn't use the
	199	exceptions and turning their support on results in the library size
	200	augmentation of 10% to 20%, it is turned off by default for a few
	201	compilers. Moreover, for gcc (or at least its mingw version) you must
	202	also turn on the RTTI support to be able to use the exceptions, so you
	203	should use <tt>--disable-no_rtti --disable-no_exceptions</tt> options
	204	when configuring the library (attention to the double negation).
	205	</ul>
	206
	207	<p>
	208
	209	<H3><a name="dev">How is wxWindows being developed?</a></H3>
	210
	211	We are using the <a href="cvs.htm">CVS</a> system to develop and maintain wxWindows. This allows
	212	us to make alterations and upload them instantly to the server, from
	213	which others can update their source.<P>
	214
	215	To build source from CVS, see the file BuildCVS.txt in the top-level wxWindows distribution
	216	directory.<P>
	217
	218	<H3><a name="distrib">How is wxWindows distributed?</a></H3>
	219
	220	By ftp, and via the <a href="cdrom2.htm">wxWindows CD-ROM</a>.
	221	<P>
	222	If you are feeling adventurous, you may also check out the sources directly
	223	from <a href="cvs.htm">cvs</a>.
	224	<p>
	225
	226	<H3><a name="future">What are the plans for the future?</a></H3>
	227
	228	Currently we're working too hard on getting wxWindows finished (are GUI toolkits ever
	229	finished?) to think very far ahead. However, we know we want to make wxWindows as robust
	230	and well-publicised as possible. We also want to aim for better platform-independence of
	231	resources such as icons and bitmaps, standardising on PNG and XPM for all platforms.<P>
	232
	233	Other possibilities include: DCOM/CORBA compatibility; a wxWindows book;
	234	<a href="http://wxworkshop.sourceforge.net/">wxWorkshop</a>, an IDE;
	235	other platforms, especially embedded systems; other interface abilities such as speech output.<P>
	236
	237	We will investigate the possibility of compiler or operating system vendors bundling wxWindows with
	238	their product.<P>
	239
	240	The high-level goal of wxWindows is to be thought of as the number one C++ framework,
	241	for virtually any platform. Move over, MFC!<P>
	242
	243	<h3><a name="base">What is wxBase?</a></h3>
	244
	245	wxBase is a subset of wxWindows comprised by the non-GUI classes. It includes
	246	wxWindows container and primitive data type classes (including wxString,
	247	wxDateTime and so on) and also useful wrappers for the operating system objects
	248	such as files, processes, threads, sockets and so on. With very minor
	249	exceptions wxBase may be used in exactly the same way as wxWindows but it
	250	doesn't require a GUI to run and so is ideal for creating console mode
	251	utilities or server programs. It is also possible to create a program which can
	252	be compiled either as a console application (using wxBase) or a GUI one (using
	253	a full featured wxWindows port).
	254
	255	<H3><a name="univ">What is wxUniversal?</a></H3>
	256
	257	The main difference between wxUniversal-based ports (such as wxX11, wxMGL) and other ports (such as wxMSW, wxGTK+, wxMac)
	258	is that wxUniversal implements all controls (or widgets) in
	259	wxWindows itself thus allowing to have much more flexibility (for example, support for
	260	themes even under MS Windows). It also means that it is now much easier to
	261	port wxWindows to a new platform as only the low-level classes must be ported
	262	which make for a small part of the library.
	263	<p>
	264	You may find more about wxUniversal <a href=wxuniv.htm>here</a>.
	265
	266	<H3><a name="jave">What about Java?</a></H3>
	267
	268	The Java honeymoon period is over :-) and people are realising that it cannot
	269	meet all their cross-platform development needs. We don't anticipate a major threat
	270	from Java, and the level of interest in wxWindows is as high as ever.<P>
	271
	272	<H3><a name="help">How can I help the project?</a></H3>
	273
	274	Please check out the <a href="http://www.wxwindows.org/develop2.htm">Community</a> pages,
	275	in particular the <a href="projects.htm">suggested projects</a>, and
	276	mail the developers' mailing list with your own suggestions.<P>
	277
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