docs/readme.txt

   1                wxWidgets 2.9.4 Release Notes
   2                =============================
   3
   4 Welcome to the latest release of wxWidgets, a free cross-platform C++
   5 framework for writing advanced GUI applications using native controls.
   6
   7
   8 In addition to common and advanced GUI facilities such as frames,
   9 scrolling windows, toolbars, tree controls, icons, device contexts,
  10 printing, splitter windows and so on, there are wrappers for common
  11 file operations, facilities for writing network applications,
  12 thread handling, and so on. You can learn more about wxWidgets at
  13
  14         http://www.wxwidgets.org/
  15
  16
  17 wxWidgets sources are available for download from
  18
  19         https://sourceforge.net/projects/wxwindows/files/2.9.4/
  20
  21 or
  22
  23         ftp://ftp.wxwidgets.org/pub/2.9.4/
  24
  25 Please see the "Files" section below for the description of various
  26 files available at these locations.
  27
  28
  29 A detailed reference manual including in-depth overviews for various
  30 topics is supplied in various formats and can be accessed online at
  31
  32         http://docs.wxwidgets.org/2.9.4/
  33
  34
  35 Note about naming: while 2.9.4 is called a "development" release,
  36 this only means that API is not guaranteed to remain unchanged in the
  37 subsequent 2.9.x releases (although it is still likely that it will),
  38 unlike in the stable 2.8.x branch. We believe the current version is
  39 stable and suitable for use in production environment.
  40
  41
  42
  43 Changes in this release
  44 -----------------------
  45
  46 This release contains several years worth of improvements compared
  47 to 2.8 version. Notably, Unicode support has been completely
  48 overhauled and made much easier to use. Debugging support, including
  49 when using a release build of the library, was much improved making
  50 it less likely that you use the library incorrectly. Many new GUI
  51 and base classes have been added or improved.
  52
  53 Please see the file docs/changes.txt for more details and make sure
  54 to read the section "Incompatible changes since 2.8" if you upgrade
  55 from a previous wxWidgets release.
  56
  57 This release introduces many important changes and we are looking
  58 forward to your feedback about them. In particular please let us
  59 know about any regressions compared to the previous versions (see
  60 the section "Bug reporting" below) so that we could fix them before
  61 3.0 release.
  62
  63
  64 Platforms supported
  65 -------------------
  66
  67 wxWidgets currently supports the following primary platforms:
  68
  69 - Windows 95/98/ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista, 7
  70 - Most Unix variants using the GTK+ toolkit (version 2.6 or newer)
  71 - Mac OS X (10.4 or newer) using either Carbon or Cocoa
  72
  73 There is some support for the following platforms:
  74
  75 - Most Unix variants with X11
  76 - Most Unix variants with Motif/Lesstif
  77 - Most Unix variants with GTK+ 1.2
  78 - Most Unix variants with GTK+ 3 (still in development)
  79 - OS/2
  80 - Windows CE (Pocket PC)
  81
  82 Most popular C++ compilers are supported; see the install.txt
  83 file for each platform (available via docs/html/index.htm) and
  84 http://wiki.wxwidgets.org/Supported_Platforms for the most up to
  85 date status.
  86
  87
  88 Files
  89 -----
  90
  91 wxWidgets is distributed in source form in several archive formats.
  92 ZIP and 7z archives are for Microsoft Windows users and contain the
  93 files with DOS/Windows line endings while the compressed tar archives
  94 for Unix systems users (including OS X) and contain the files with
  95 Unix line endings. Please notice that some Windows tools still don't
  96 accept files with Unix line endings and that compiling sources with
  97 DOS line endings under Unix will fail, so please choose the correct
  98 file for your system.
  99
 100 In addition to the sources, documentation in HTML, CHM and HTB
 101 (wxWidgets help viewer) formats is provided as well as an installer
 102 for Microsoft Windows. Notice that you will still need to compile
 103 wxWidgets even when using the installer.
 104
 105
 106 Installation
 107 ------------
 108
 109 wxWidgets needs to be compiled before you can test out the samples
 110 or write your own applications. For installation information, please
 111 see the install.txt file in the docs subdirectory appropriate for
 112 the platform you use.
 113
 114
 115 Licence information
 116 -------------------
 117
 118 For licensing information, please see the files:
 119
 120   docs/preamble.txt
 121   docs/licence.txt
 122   docs/licendoc.txt
 123   docs/gpl.txt
 124   docs/lgpl.txt
 125
 126 Although this may seem complex, it is there to allow authors of
 127 proprietary/commercial applications to use wxWidgets in addition
 128 to those writing GPL'ed applications. In summary, the licence is
 129 LGPL plus a clause allowing unrestricted distribution of
 130 application binaries. To answer a FAQ, you don't have to
 131 distribute any source if you wish to write commercial
 132 applications using wxWidgets.
 133
 134 However, if you distribute wxGTK or wxMotif (with Lesstif)
 135 version of your application, don't forget that it is linked
 136 against GTK+ (or Lesstif) which is covered by LGPL *without*
 137 exception notice. Under Linux systems your app is probably linked
 138 against LGPL glibc as well. Please read carefully LGPL, section
 139 6. which describes conditions for distribution of closed source
 140 applications linked against LGPL library. Basically you should
 141 link dynamically and include source code of LGPL libraries with
 142 your product (unless it is already present in user's system -
 143 like glibc usually is).
 144
 145 If you use TIFF image handler, please see src/tiff/COPYRIGHT
 146 for libtiff licence details.
 147
 148 If you use JPEG image handler, documentation for your program
 149 should contain following sentence: "This software is based in
 150 part on the work of the Independent JPEG Group". See
 151 src/jpeg/README for details.
 152
 153 If you use wxRegEx class on a system without native regular
 154 expressions support (i.e. MS Windows), see src/regex/COPYRIGHT
 155 file for Henry Spencer's regular expression library copyright.
 156
 157 If you use wxXML classes or XRC, see src/expat/COPYING for licence details.
 158
 159
 160 Documentation
 161 -------------
 162
 163 wxWidgets documentation is available online at
 164 http://docs.wxwidgets.org/2.9.4/ and can also be downloaded in HTML
 165 format. To generate documentation in other formats (PDF, CHM, ...)
 166 please use the scripts in docs/doxygen directory.
 167
 168
 169 Bug reporting
 170 -------------
 171
 172 The wxWidgets bug tracker can be browsed at:
 173
 174     http://trac.wxwidgets.org/report
 175
 176 Please use the search function of our Trac installation to find
 177 any possibly relevant bugs before reporting new ones. Also please
 178 notice that often trying to correct the bug yourself is the
 179 quickest way to fix it. Even if you fail to do it, you may
 180 discover valuable information allowing us to fix it while doing
 181 it. We also give much higher priority to bug reports with patches
 182 fixing the problems so this ensures that your report will be
 183 addressed sooner.
 184
 185
 186 Further information
 187 -------------------
 188
 189 The wxWidgets Web site is located at:
 190
 191   http://www.wxwidgets.org/
 192
 193 The main wxWidgets ftp site is at:
 194
 195   ftp://ftp.wxwidgets.org/pub/
 196
 197 A wxWidgets CD-ROM with the latest distribution plus an HTML
 198 front-end and hundreds of MB of compilers, utilities and other
 199 material may be ordered from the CD-ROM page: see the wxWidgets
 200 web site.
 201
 202 Have fun!
 203
 204 The wxWidgets Team, July 2012