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