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   1 \chapter{Introducing wxWindows}\label{chapintro}
   2 \pagenumbering{arabic}%
   3 \setheader{{\it CHAPTER \thechapter: INTRODUCING wxWINDOWS}}{}{}{}{}{{\it CHAPTER \thechapter: INTRODUCING wxWINDOWS}}%
   4 \setfooter{\thepage}{}{}{}{}{\thepage}%
   5
   6 \section{The need for portability}
   7
   8 Not so long ago, it seemed as though Microsoft was on course to
   9 take over the desktop for good with the Windows range of
  10 operating systems. Unix was retreating to server territory and
  11 had all but given up the fight against NT. Apple was sickening
  12 and it seemed almost common sense that the quirky Mac had had
  13 its day.
  14
  15 At the start of the new century, the picture has changed quite
  16 dramatically. Linux is advancing from its position of strength
  17 in the server market and is poised to make inroads on the
  18 desktop, where the high price of Windows gives it an advantage.
  19 Apple has made an impressive comeback and is revamping its own
  20 operating system. The embedded market continues to explode and
  21 has given rise to new niches for specialist operating systems.
  22 The keyword bow is diversity, when the best guess of a few years
  23 was that Microsoft would conquer all. More than ever,
  24 application developers need to keep their options open and
  25 targeting one platform only can be a recipe for commercial (or
  26 open source) disaster.
  27
  28 In the light of this change in the computing landscape,
  29 cross-platform development (or multiplatform development as we
  30 call it in this book) has become quite a hot and sometimes
  31 bitterly controversial topic. There are a number of ways to
  32 achieve the goal of portability, and many tools and languages to choose from.
  33 However, it is still generally agreed wisdom that C++ is the
  34 language of choice for desktop applications that depend on
  35 speed, ease of delivery and compatibility with billions of lines
  36 of existing code. Plus, there are many hundreds of thousands of
  37 developers now experienced in C++ programming.
  38
  39 The purpose of this book is to give you (the developer or
  40 interested manager) a solid grounding in one increasingly
  41 popular multiplatform solution: wxWindows. wxWindows is an open
  42 source GUI toolkit that has been on the scene since 1993 and has
  43 reached a high degree of stability and functionality. It is
  44 available for Linux (and most other Unix variants), all desktop
  45 versions of Microsoft Windows, and Mac. Other ports are in
  46 progress.
  47
  48 \section{Why wxWindows?}
  49
  50 While wxWindows is labelled a GUI development toolkit, it is in
  51 fact much more than that and has many features that are useful
  52 for many aspects of application development. This has to
  53 be the case, since the whole of a wxWindows application needs to
  54 be portable to different platforms, and not just the GUI
  55 component. So wxWindows provides classes for working with files
  56 and streams, multithreading, management of application settings,
  57 interprocess communication, and much else.
  58
  59 wxWindows is open source, with a vibrant developer and user
  60 community, and may be used in any proprietary or non-proprietary
  61 project. wxWindows encompasses the whole spectrum of users from
  62 one-man software outfits to big-name companies such as Xerox,
  63 Lockheed-Martin, Pratt and Whitney, and Motorola; from computer
  64 science departments to medical research groups; from ecological
  65 research, to the telecommunications industry, and in a myriad of
  66 open source projects.
  67
  68 When you use wxWindows you tap into an astonishing talent pool,
  69 with contributors from a wide range of backgrounds. Many aspects
  70 of application development that you might otherwise have to
  71 laboriously code yourself have been encapsulated by these
  72 developers in easy-to-use classes that you can plug into your
  73 code. Since there are a lot of people subscribed to the mailing
  74 lists, you'll enjoy discussions not only about wxWindows but
  75 often other matters close to the hearts of both experienced and
  76 inexperienced developers. And hopefully, one day you'll join in the
  77 success of wxWindows and become a contributor yourself!
  78
  79 \section{The history of wxWindows}
  80
  81 wxWindows was started in 1992 at the Artificial Intelligence
  82 Applications Institute, University of Edinburgh, by Julian
  83 Smart. Julian was designing a kind of meta-CASE tool called
  84 Hardy which needed to run on Windows as well as X-based Unix
  85 workstations. The existing commercial cross-platform tools were
  86 deemed too expensive for an in-house experimental project, so
  87 the only alternative was to build one. wxWindows (w for Microsoft
  88 Windows, x for the X Windowing System) started off with support for XView and MFC 1.0, and
  89 AIAI allowed it to be released to the Internet. As it became
  90 clear that XView was doomed, a Motif port was written. Borland
  91 C++ users began to request a version that was not dependent on
  92 MFC, so the Windows port was rewritten to use the native Windows
  93 API. Over time, a small but enthusiastic community of wxWindows
  94 users was established and a mailing list set up. Contributions
  95 and fixes were sent in, the largest contributions being the Mac
  96 and Xt ports. wxWindows gradually picked up more and more users
  97 from all over the world: commercial, government, and - most
  98 gratifying of all - company users who found that wxWindows
  99 offered a better product, and better support, than the
 100 commercial products they had looked at or used.
 101
 102 During 1995, Markus Holzem released his port of wxWindows to Xt,
 103 the X toolkit. This meant that software could be written that
 104 would work on X systems without the need for installing Motif,
 105 which is a commercial product.
 106
 107 In 1996, Julian left AIAI to pursue freelance consultancy, and
 108 there were few new releases. The seemingly unstoppable advance
 109 of Java was throwing some doubt on the future of C++ libraries.
 110 After many contributions, the wxWindows code was looking rather
 111 tired and in need of a serious rethink. At the start of 1997 it
 112 was make or break time - call it a day and move onto other
 113 things, or commit to re-engineering wxWindows with an API that
 114 was flexible enough for current and future user interface
 115 trends, with more 'widgets', and better use of C++. After an
 116 exchange between Julian Smart and Markus Holzem (the author of
 117 the Xt port), it was decided that it was worthwhile. Julian
 118 would do the Windows port, Markus the combined Motif/Xt port,
 119 with both contributing to the generic parts. wxWindows 2 API
 120 ideas and code started to take shape.
 121
 122 During 1997 an effort to produce a standard Linux desktop
 123 environment was underway - GNOME. Its widget set was GTK+, built
 124 on top of X11 and it looked as though GTK+-based apps were to
 125 become the standard in the Linux universe. Its one major problem
 126 - GTK+ was C-based, and only a thin (and unportable) C++ wrapper
 127 existed for it. In August 1997, Wolfram Gloger made a suggestion
 128 that wxWindows 2 should be ported to GTK+ - Robert Roebling had
 129 initial reservations, but in general supported the idea. He
 130 became the prime mover for wxGTK and alphas were made available
 131 at the beginning of 1998. In May 1998 the Windows and GTK+ ports
 132 were merged and put into a CVS repository made available to all
 133 contributors to wxWindows.
 134
 135 Markus Holzem had to drop out of the wxWindows 2 effort in early
 136 1998, but Julian Smart started a new wxMotif port. The idea of
 137 an Xt port was dropped, since there remain two possibilities for
 138 free Unix programming with wxWindows: wxGTK, and wxMotif with
 139 the Motif clone Lesstif.
 140
 141 In September 1998, Stefan Csomor started a new version of the
 142 wxMac 2 port based in part on Greg Whitehead's initial work.
 143 Several releases have been made and the code will be integrated
 144 into the main CVS stream in Summer 2000.
 145
 146 David Webster and Stefan Neis are working on an OS/2 port, and
 147 interest has been expressed in ports to other systems, such as
 148 BeOS.
 149
 150 wxWindows 2.1.11 saw the bundling of Vaclav Slavik's impressive
 151 wxHTML classes, with subsequent enhancements including
 152 print/preview ability, and a helpview application and help
 153 controller class for cross-platform HTML help. wxHTML gives
 154 applications easy access to enviable formatted text viewing and
 155 reporting capabilities.
 156
 157 During 2000 wxWindows will adopt Vaclav's XML resource system
 158 as a replacement for the WXR system; this will allow much
 159 greater flexibility and portability with support for
 160 sizers and many more controls than WXR.
 161
 162 \section{How to use this book}
 163
 164 The chapters in this book are meant to be fairly independent, but
 165 as usual, the ordering reflects a progression from basic concepts
 166 to more advanced ones, so the first few chapters at least
 167 should be read consecutively for best effect.
 168