docs/doxygen/introduction.h

   1 /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
   2 // Name:        introduction.h
   3 // Purpose:     Introduction page of the Doxygen manual
   4 // Author:      wxWidgets team
   5 // RCS-ID:      $Id$
   6 // Licence:     wxWindows license
   7 /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
   8
   9
  10 /*!
  11
  12  @page introduction_page Introduction
  13
  14  @li @ref whatis
  15  @li @ref why
  16  @li @ref requirements
  17  @li @ref where
  18  @li @ref acknowledgements
  19
  20
  21  <hr>
  22
  23
  24  @section whatis What is wxWidgets?
  25
  26  wxWidgets is a C++ framework providing GUI (Graphical User
  27  Interface) and other facilities on more than one platform.  Version 2 and higher
  28  currently support all desktop versions of MS Windows, Unix with GTK+ 1.x or 2.x,
  29  Unix with Motif, Unix with just X11, Unix with DirectFB, Mac OS X, OS/2.
  30
  31  wxWidgets was originally developed at the Artificial Intelligence
  32  Applications Institute, University of Edinburgh, for internal use,
  33  and was first made publicly available in 1992.
  34  Version 2 is a vastly improved version written and maintained by
  35  Julian Smart, Robert Roebling, Vadim Zeitlin, Vaclav Slavik and many others.
  36
  37  This manual contains a class reference and topic overviews.
  38  For a selection of wxWidgets tutorials, please see the documentation page on the \urlref{wxWidgets web site}{http://www.wxwidgets.org}.
  39
  40  Please note that in the following, ``MS Windows" often refers to all
  41  platforms related to Microsoft Windows, including 32-bit and 64-bit
  42  variants, unless otherwise stated. All trademarks are acknowledged.
  43
  44  @section why Why another cross-platform development tool?
  45
  46  wxWidgets was developed to provide a cheap and flexible way to maximize
  47  investment in GUI application development.  While a number of commercial
  48  class libraries already existed for cross-platform development,
  49  none met all of the following criteria:
  50
  51  \begin{enumerate}\itemsep=0pt
  52  \item low price;
  53  \item source availability;
  54  \item simplicity of programming;
  55  \item support for a wide range of compilers.
  56  \end{enumerate}
  57
  58  Since wxWidgets was started, several other free or almost-free
  59  GUI frameworks have emerged. However, none has the range of
  60  features, flexibility, documentation and the well-established
  61  development team that wxWidgets has.
  62
  63  As open source software, wxWidgets has benefited from comments,
  64  ideas, bug fixes, enhancements and the sheer enthusiasm of
  65  users. This gives wxWidgets a certain advantage over its
  66  commercial competitors (and over free libraries without an
  67  independent development team), plus a robustness against the
  68  transience of one individual or company. This openness and
  69  availability of source code is especially important when the
  70  future of thousands of lines of application code may depend upon
  71  the longevity of the underlying class library.
  72
  73  Version 2 goes much further than previous versions in terms of
  74  generality and features, allowing applications to be produced
  75  that are often indistinguishable from those produced using
  76  single-platform toolkits such as Motif, GTK+ and MFC.
  77
  78  The importance of using a platform-independent class library
  79  cannot be overstated, since GUI application development is very
  80  time-consuming, and sustained popularity of particular GUIs
  81  cannot be guaranteed. Code can very quickly become obsolete if
  82  it addresses the wrong platform or audience.  wxWidgets helps to
  83  insulate the programmer from these winds of change. Although
  84  wxWidgets may not be suitable for every application (such as an
  85  OLE-intensive program), it provides access to most of the
  86  functionality a GUI program normally requires, plus many extras
  87  such as network programming, PostScript output, and HTML
  88  rendering; and it can of course be extended as needs dictate.
  89  As a bonus, it provides a far cleaner and easier programming
  90  interface than the native APIs. Programmers may find it
  91  worthwhile to use wxWidgets even if they are developing on only
  92  one platform.
  93
  94  It is impossible to sum up the functionality of wxWidgets in a few paragraphs, but
  95  here are some of the benefits:
  96
  97  \begin{itemize}\itemsep=0pt
  98  \item Low cost (free, in fact!)
  99  \item You get the source.
 100  \item Available on a variety of popular platforms.
 101  \item Works with almost all popular C++ compilers and Python.
 102  \item Over 70 example programs.
 103  \item Over 1000 pages of printable and on-line documentation.
 104  \item Simple-to-use, object-oriented API.
 105  \item Flexible event system.
 106  \item Graphics calls include lines, rounded rectangles, splines, polylines, etc.
 107  \item Constraint-based and sizer-based layouts.
 108  \item Print/preview and document/view architectures.
 109  \item Toolbar, notebook, tree control, advanced list control classes.
 110  \item PostScript generation under Unix, normal MS Windows printing on the PC.
 111  \item MDI (Multiple Document Interface) support.
 112  \item Can be used to create DLLs under Windows, dynamic libraries on Unix.
 113  \item Common dialogs for file browsing, printing, colour selection, etc.
 114  \item Under MS Windows, support for creating metafiles and copying
 115  them to the clipboard.
 116  \item An API for invoking help from applications.
 117  \item Ready-to-use HTML window (supporting a subset of HTML).
 118  \item Network support via a family of socket and protocol classes.
 119  \item Support for platform independent image processing.
 120  \item Built-in support for many file formats (BMP, PNG, JPEG, GIF, XPM, PNM, PCX).
 121  \item Includes Tex2RTF, to allow you to produce your own documentation
 122  in Windows Help, HTML and Word RTF formats.
 123  \end{itemize}
 124
 125  @section requirements wxWidgets requirements
 126
 127  To make use of wxWidgets, you currently need one of the following setups.
 128
 129  (a) MS-Windows:
 130
 131  \begin{enumerate}\itemsep=0pt
 132  \item A 32-bit or 64-bit PC running MS Windows.
 133  \item A Windows compiler: MS Visual C++ (embedded Visual C++ for wxWinCE
 134  port), Borland C++, Watcom C++, Cygwin, MinGW, Metrowerks CodeWarrior,
 135  Digital Mars C++. See {\tt install.txt} for details about compiler
 136  version supported.
 137  \end{enumerate}
 138
 139  (b) Unix:
 140
 141  \begin{enumerate}\itemsep=0pt
 142  \item Almost any C++ compiler, including GNU C++ and many Unix vendors
 143  compilers such as Sun CC, HP-UX aCC or SGI mipsPro.
 144  \item Almost any Unix workstation, and one of: GTK+ 2.4 or higher (GTK+ 1.2.10
 145  may still be supported but wxGTK1 port is not maintained any longer and lacks
 146  many features of wxGTK2), Motif 1.2 or higher or Lesstif. If using the wxX11
 147  port, no such widget set is required.
 148  \end{enumerate}
 149
 150  (c) Mac OS/Mac OS X:
 151
 152  \begin{enumerate}\itemsep=0pt
 153  \item A PowerPC or Intel Mac running Mac OS X 10.3 or higher
 154  \item The Apple Developer Tools (eg. GNU C++) or MetroWerks CodeWarrior (not
 155  actively supported)
 156  \end{enumerate}
 157
 158  Under all platforms it's recommended to have large amounts of free hard disk
 159  space. The exact amount needed depends on the port, compiler and build
 160  configurations but to give an example, a debug build of the library may take up
 161  to 500MB.
 162
 163  @section where Availability and location of wxWidgets
 164
 165  \winhelponly{wxWidgets is available by anonymous FTP and World Wide Web
 166  from ftp://biolpc22.york.ac.uk/pub and/or http://www.wxwidgets.org.}
 167  \winhelpignore{wxWidgets is available by anonymous FTP and World Wide Web
 168  from \urlref{ftp://biolpc22.york.ac.uk/pub}{ftp://biolpc22.york.ac.uk/pub}
 169  and/or \urlref{http://www.wxwidgets.org}{http://www.wxwidgets.org}.}
 170
 171  You can also buy a CD-ROM using the form on the Web site.
 172
 173  @section acknowledgements Acknowledgements
 174
 175  The following is the list of the core, active developers of wxWidgets which keep
 176  it running and have provided an invaluable, extensive and high-quality amount of
 177  changes over the many of years of wxWidgets' life:
 178
 179  \begin{description}\itemsep=0pt
 180  \item Julian Smart
 181  \item Vadim Zeitlin
 182  \item Robert Roebling
 183  \item Robin Dunn
 184  \item Stefan Csomor
 185  \item Vaclav Slavik
 186  \item Paul Cornett
 187  \item Wlodzimierz `ABX' Skiba
 188  \item Chris Elliott
 189  \item David Elliott
 190  \item Kevin Hock
 191  \item Stefan Neis
 192  \item Michael Wetherell
 193  \end{description}
 194
 195  We would particularly like to thank the following peoples for their contributions
 196  to wxWidgets, and the many others who have been involved in the project over the years.
 197  Apologies for any unintentional omissions from this alphabetic list:
 198
 199  Yiorgos Adamopoulos, Jamshid Afshar, Alejandro Aguilar-Sierra, AIAI,
 200  Patrick Albert, Karsten Ballueder, Mattia Barbon, Michael Bedward,
 201  Kai Bendorf, Yura Bidus, Keith Gary Boyce, Chris Breeze, Pete Britton,
 202  Ian Brown, C. Buckley, Marco Cavallini, Dmitri Chubraev, Robin Corbet, Cecil Coupe,
 203  Andrew Davison, Gilles Depeyrot, Neil Dudman, Hermann Dunkel, Jos van Eijndhoven,
 204  Tom Felici, Thomas Fettig, Matthew Flatt, Pasquale Foggia, Josep Fortiana, Todd Fries,
 205  Dominic Gallagher, Guillermo Rodriguez Garcia, Wolfram Gloger, Norbert Grotz,
 206  Stefan Gunter, Bill Hale, Patrick Halke, Stefan Hammes, Guillaume Helle,
 207  Harco de Hilster, Cord Hockemeyer, Markus Holzem, Olaf Klein, Leif Jensen,
 208  Bart Jourquin, Guilhem Lavaux, Ron Lee, Jan Lessner, Nicholas Liebmann,
 209  Torsten Liermann, Per Lindqvist, Francesco Montorsi, Thomas Runge, Tatu M\"{a}nnist\"{o},
 210  Scott Maxwell, Thomas Myers, Oliver Niedung, Ryan Norton, Hernan Otero,
 211  Ian Perrigo, Timothy Peters, Giordano Pezzoli, Harri Pasanen, Thomaso Paoletti,
 212  Garrett Potts, Marcel Rasche, Dino Scaringella, Jobst Schmalenbach, Arthur Seaton,
 213  Paul Shirley, Stein Somers, Petr Smilauer, Neil Smith, Kari Syst\"{a}, George Tasker,
 214  Arthur Tetzlaff-Deas, Jonathan Tonberg, Jyrki Tuomi, Janos Vegh, Andrea Venturoli,
 215  David Webster, Otto Wyss, Xiaokun Zhu, Edward Zimmermann.
 216
 217  Many thanks also to AIAI for being willing to release the original version of
 218  wxWidgets into the public domain, and to our patient partners.
 219
 220  `Graphplace', the basis for the wxGraphLayout library, is copyright Dr. Jos
 221  T.J. van Eijndhoven of Eindhoven University of Technology. The code has
 222  been used in wxGraphLayout (not in wxWidgets anymore) with his permission.
 223
 224  We also acknowledge the author of XFIG, the excellent Unix drawing tool,
 225  from the source of which we have borrowed some spline drawing code.
 226  His copyright is included below.
 227
 228  {\it XFig2.1 is copyright (c) 1985 by Supoj Sutanthavibul. Permission to
 229  use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this software and its
 230  documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided
 231  that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that
 232  copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting
 233  documentation, and that the name of M.I.T. not be used in advertising or
 234  publicity pertaining to distribution of the software without specific,
 235  written prior permission.  M.I.T. makes no representations about the
 236  suitability of this software for any purpose.  It is provided ``as is''
 237  without express or implied warranty.}
 238
 239 */