docs/readme.txt

   1 wxWidgets 2.9.x
   2 ---------------------------------------------------------
   3
   4 Welcome to wxWidgets, a cross-platform C++ framework for
   5 writing advanced GUI applications using native controls
   6 where possible.
   7
   8 In addition to common and advanced GUI facilities such as
   9 frames, scrolling windows, toolbars, tree controls, icons,
  10 device contexts, printing, splitter windows and so on, there
  11 are wrappers for common file operations, and facilities for
  12 writing TCP/IP applications, thread handling, and more.
  13
  14 Where certain features are not available on a platform, such
  15 as MDI under Unix and OS X, they are emulated.
  16
  17 A detailed reference manual including in-depth overviews for
  18 various topics is supplied in various formats and can be
  19 accessed online.
  20
  21 Changes in this release
  22 -----------------------
  23
  24 Please see changes.txt and "Changes since 2.8" in the manual
  25 for details.
  26
  27 Platforms supported
  28 -------------------
  29
  30 wxWidgets currently supports the following platforms:
  31
  32 - Windows 95/98/ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista, Pocket PC/Mobile, Smartphone
  33 - Most Unix variants using the  GTK+ 2 toolkit (version 2.4 or newer)
  34 - MacOS OS X (10.4 or newer) using Carbon and some Cocao mix-in
  35
  36 There is some support for the followig platforms:
  37
  38 - Most Unix variants with X11
  39 - Most Unix variants with Motif/Lesstif
  40 - Most Unix variants with GTK+ 1.2
  41 - MacOS 10.x using the Cocoa API
  42 - OS/2
  43 - PalmOS
  44
  45 Most popular C++ compilers are supported; see the install.txt
  46 file for each platform (available via docs/html/index.htm) for details.
  47 See also http://www.wxwidgets.org/platform.htm.
  48
  49 Files
  50 -----
  51
  52 The distribution is available in archive formats appropriate to the
  53 target system. See the download pages for details.
  54
  55 Installation
  56 ------------
  57
  58 wxWidgets needs to be compiled before you can test out the samples
  59 or write your own applications. For installation information, please
  60 see the install.txt file in the individual directories:
  61
  62   docs/msw
  63   docs/gtk
  64   docs/motif
  65   docs/osx
  66   docs/cocoa
  67   docs/x11
  68   docs/mgl
  69   docs/os2
  70   docs/palmos
  71
  72 Licence information
  73 -------------------
  74
  75 For licensing information, please see the files:
  76
  77   docs/preamble.txt
  78   docs/licence.txt
  79   docs/licendoc.txt
  80   docs/gpl.txt
  81   docs/lgpl.txt
  82
  83 Although this may seem complex, it is there to allow authors of
  84 proprietary/commercial applications to use wxWidgets in addition
  85 to those writing GPL'ed applications. In summary, the licence is
  86 LGPL plus a clause allowing unrestricted distribution of
  87 application binaries. To answer a FAQ, you don't have to
  88 distribute any source if you wish to write commercial
  89 applications using wxWidgets.
  90
  91 However, if you distribute wxGTK or wxMotif (with Lesstif)
  92 version of your application, don't forget that it is linked
  93 against GTK+ (or Lesstif) which is covered by LGPL *without*
  94 exception notice. Under Linux systems your app is probably linked
  95 against LGPL glibc as well. Please read carefully LGPL, section
  96 6. which describes conditions for distribution of closed source
  97 applications linked against LGPL library. Basically you should
  98 link dynamically and include source code of LGPL libraries with
  99 your product (unless it is already present in user's system -
 100 like glibc usually is).
 101
 102 If you use TIFF image handler, please see src/tiff/COPYRIGHT
 103 for libtiff licence details.
 104
 105 If you use JPEG image handler, documentation for your program
 106 should contain following sentence: "This software is based in
 107 part on the work of the Independent JPEG Group". See
 108 src/jpeg/README for details.
 109
 110 If you use wxRegEx class on a system without native regular
 111 expressions support (i.e. MS Windows), see src/regex/COPYRIGHT
 112 file for Henry Spencer's regular expression library copyright.
 113
 114 If you use wxXML classes or XRC, see src/expat/COPYING for licence details.
 115
 116 Documentation
 117 -------------
 118
 119 See docs/html/index.htm for an HTML index of the major documents.
 120
 121 See docs/changes.txt for a summary of changes to wxWidgets.
 122
 123 See docs/tech for an archive of technical notes.
 124
 125 The wxWidgets bug tracker can be browsed at:
 126
 127     http://trac.wxwidgets.org/report
 128
 129 Please use the search function of our Trac installation to find
 130 any possibly relevant bugs before reporting new ones. Also please
 131 notice that often trying to correct the bug yourself is the
 132 quickest way to fix it. Even if you fail to do it, you may
 133 discover valuable information allowing us to fix it while doing
 134 it. We also give much higher priority to bug reports with patches
 135 fixing the problems so this ensures that your report will be
 136 addressed sooner.
 137
 138 The Windows HTML Help files are located in docs/htmlhelp.
 139 The Windows Help files are located in docs/winhelp.
 140 The PDF help files are located in docs/pdf.
 141 The HTB (wxWidgets HTML Help) files are located in docs/htb.
 142
 143 Further information
 144 -------------------
 145
 146 The wxWidgets Web site is located at:
 147
 148   http://www.wxwidgets.org
 149
 150 The main wxWidgets ftp site is at:
 151
 152   ftp://biolpc22.york.ac.uk/pub
 153
 154 A wxWidgets CD-ROM with the latest distribution plus an HTML
 155 front-end and hundreds of MB of compilers, utilities and other
 156 material may be ordered from the CD-ROM page: see the wxWidgets
 157 web site.
 158
 159 Have fun!
 160
 161 The wxWidgets Team, January 2007
 162