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2 for Windows FAQ
</TITLE>
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16 <b>wxWindows
2 for Windows FAQ
</b>
24 See also
<a href=
"faq.htm">top-level FAQ page
</a>.
26 <h3>List of questions in this category
</h3>
28 <li><a href=
"#platforms">Which Windows platforms are supported?
</a></li>
29 <li><a href=
"#wince">What about Windows CE?
</a></li>
30 <li><a href=
"#winxp">What do I need to do for Windows XP?
</a></li>
31 <li><a href=
"#compilers">What compilers are supported?
</a></li>
32 <li><a href=
"#bestcompiler">Which is the best compiler to use with wxWindows
2?
</a></li>
33 <li><a href=
"#unicode">Is Unicode supported?
</a></li>
34 <li><a href=
"#doublebyte">Does wxWindows support double byte fonts (Chinese/Japanese/Korean etc.)?
</a></li>
35 <li><a href=
"#dll">Can you compile wxWindows
2 as a DLL?
</a></li>
36 <li><a href=
"#exesize">How can I reduce executable size?
</a></li>
37 <li><a href=
"#mfc">Is wxWindows compatible with MFC?
</a></li>
38 <li><a href=
"#asuffix">Why do I get errors about FooBarA when I only use FooBar in my program?
</a></li>
39 <li><a href=
"#newerrors">Why my code fails to compile with strange errors about new operator?
</a></li>
40 <li><a href=
"#mfcport">How do I port MFC applications to wxWindows?
</a></li>
41 <li><a href=
"#crash">Why do I sometimes get bizarre crash problems using VC++
5/
6?
</a></li>
42 <li><a href=
"#makefiles">How are the wxWindows makefiles edited under Windows?
</a></li>
43 <li><a href=
"#vcdebug">How do you use VC++
's memory leak checking instead of that in wxWindows?
</a></li>
44 <li><a href=
"#shortcutproblem">Why are menu hotkeys or shortcuts not working in my application?
</a></li>
45 <li><a href=
"#regconfig">Why can I not write to the HKLM part of the registry with wxRegConfig?
</a></li>
46 <li><a href=
"#access">Is MS Active Accessibility supported?
</a></li>
50 <h3><a name=
"platforms">Which Windows platforms are supported?
</a></h3>
52 wxWindows
2 can be used to develop and deliver applications on Windows
3.1, Win32s,
53 Windows
95, Windows
98, Windows NT, Windows
2000, and Windows XP. A Windows CE
54 version is being looked into (see below).
<P>
56 wxWindows
2 is designed to make use of WIN32 features and controls. However, unlike Microsoft,
57 we have not forgotten users of
16-bit Windows. Most features
58 work under Windows
3.1, including wxTreeCtrl and wxListCtrl using the generic implementation.
59 However, don
't expect very Windows-
95-specific classes to work, such as wxTaskBarIcon. The wxRegConfig
60 class doesn
't work either because the Windows
3.1 registry is very simplistic. Check out the
16-bit
61 makefiles to see what other files have been left out.
63 16-bit compilation is supported under Visual C++
1.5, and Borland BC++
4 to
5.
66 wxWindows
2 for Windows will also compile on Unix with gcc using Wine from
<a href=
"http://www.winehq.org" target=_top
>WineHQ
</a>.
67 The resulting executables are Unix binaries that work with the Wine Windows API emulator.
<P>
69 You can also compile wxWindows
2 for Windows on Unix with Cygwin or Mingw32, resulting
70 in executables that will run on Windows. So in theory you could write your applications
71 using wxGTK or wxMotif, then check/debug your wxWindows for Windows
72 programs with Wine, and finally produce an ix86 Windows executable using Cygwin/Mingw32,
73 without ever needing a copy of Microsoft Windows. See the Technical Note on the Web site detailing cross-compilation.
<P>
75 <h3><a name=
"wince">What about Windows CE?
</a></h3>
77 This is under consideration, though we need to get wxWindows Unicode-aware first.
78 There are other interesting issues, such as how to combine the menubar and toolbar APIs
79 as Windows CE requires. But there
's no doubt that it will be possible, albeit
80 by mostly cutting down wxWindows
2 API functionality, and adding a few classes here
81 and there. Since wxWindows for
2 produces small binaries (less than
300K for
82 the statically-linked
'minimal
' sample), shoehorning wxWindows
2 into a Windows CE device
's limited
83 storage should not be a problem.
<P>
85 <h3><a name=
"winxp">What do I need to do for Windows XP?
</a></h3>
87 In the same directory as you have your executable (e.g. foo.exe) you
88 put a file called foo.exe.manifest in which you have something like
92 <?xml
version="
1.0"
encoding="UTF-
8"
standalone="yes"?
>
94 xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1"
95 manifestVersion="
1.0"
>
97 processorArchitecture="x86"
101 <description
>Foo program
</description
>
103 <dependentAssembly
>
106 name="Microsoft.Windows.Common-Controls"
108 publicKeyToken="
6595b64144ccf1df"
110 processorArchitecture="x86"/
>
111 </dependentAssembly
>
116 If you want to add it to your application permanently,
117 you can also include it in your .rc file using this
121 1 24 "winxp.manifest"
124 In wxWindows
2.5, this will be in the wx/msw/wx.rc and
125 so will happen automatically so long as you include wx.rc
126 in your own .rc file.
<P>
128 For an explanation of this syntax, please see
129 <a href=
"http://delphi.about.com/library/bluc/text/uc111601a.htm" target=_new
>this
133 <h3><a name=
"compilers">What compilers are supported?
</a></h3>
135 Please see the wxWindows
2 for Windows install.txt file for up-to-date information, but
136 currently the following are known to work:
<P>
139 <li>Visual C++
1.5,
4.0,
5.0,
6.0
140 <li>Borland C++
4.5,
5.0
141 <li>Borland C++Builder
1.0,
3.0
142 <li>Watcom C++
10.6 (WIN32)
145 <li>MetroWerks CodeWarrior
4
149 There is a linking problem with Symantec C++ which I hope someone can help solve.
152 <h3><a name=
"bestcompiler">Which is the best compiler to use with wxWindows
2?
</a></h3>
154 It
's partly a matter of taste, but I (JACS) prefer Visual C++ since the debugger is very
155 good, it
's very stable, the documentation is extensive, and it generates small executables.
156 Since project files are plain text, it
's easy for me to generate appropriate project files
157 for wxWindows samples.
<P>
159 Borland C++ is fine - and very fast - but it
's hard (impossible?) to use the debugger without using project files, and
160 the debugger is nowhere near up to VC++
's quality. The IDE isn
't great.
<P>
162 C++Builder
's power isn
't really used with wxWindows since it needs integration with its
163 own class library (VCL). For wxWindows, I
've only used it with makefiles, in which case
164 it
's almost identical to BC++
5.0 (the same makefiles can be used).
<P>
166 You can
't beat Cygwin
's price (free), and you can debug adequately using gdb. However, it
's
167 quite slow to compile since it does not use precompiled headers.
<P>
169 CodeWarrior is cross-platform - you can debug and generate Windows executables from a Mac, but not
170 the other way around I think - but the IDE is, to my mind, a bit primitive.
<P>
172 Watcom C++ is a little slow and the debugger is not really up to today
's standards.
<P>
174 Among the free compilers the best choice seem to be Borland C++ command line
175 tools and mingw32 (port of gcc to Win32). Both of them are supported by
178 <h3><a name=
"unicode">Is Unicode supported?
</a></h3>
180 Yes, Unicode is fully supported under Windows NT/
2000 (Windows
9x don
't
181 have Unicode support anyhow).
183 <h3><a name=
"doublebyte">Does wxWindows support double byte fonts (Chinese/Japanese/Korean etc.)?
</a></h3>
185 An answer from
<a href=
"mailto:goedde@logosoft.de">Klaus Goedde
</a>:
<p>
187 "For Japanese under Win2000, it seems that wxWindows has no problems to work with double byte char sets
188 (I mean DBCS, that
's not Unicode). First you have to install Japanese support on your Win2K system
189 and choose for ANSI translation
190 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Nls\CodePage=
932 (default is
1252 for Western).
191 Then you can see all the funny Japanese letters under wxWindows too.
<P>
193 In a wxTextCtrl control you have to set the window style "wxTE_RICH", otherwise this control shows the wrong
196 I don
't now whether it works on non W2K systems, because I
'm just starting using wxWindows."
199 <h3><a name=
"dll">Can you compile wxWindows
2 as a DLL?
</a></h3>
201 Yes (using the Visual C++ or Borland C++ makefile), but be aware that distributing DLLs is a thorny issue
202 and you may be better off compiling statically-linked applications, unless you
're
203 delivering a suite of separate programs, or you
're compiling a lot of wxWindows applications
204 and have limited hard disk space.
<P>
206 With a DLL approach, and with different versions and configurations of wxWindows
207 needing to be catered for, the end user may end up with a host of large DLLs in his or her Windows system directory,
208 negating the point of using DLLs. Of course, this is not a problem just associated with
212 <h3><a name=
"exesize">How can I reduce executable size?
</a></h3>
214 You can compile wxWindows as a DLL (see above, VC++/BC++ only at present). You should also
215 compile your programs for release using non-debugging and space-optimisation options, but
216 take with VC++
5/
6 space optimisation: it can sometimes cause problems.
<P>
218 If you want to distribute really small executables, you can
219 use
<a href=
"http://www.un4seen.com/petite/" target=_top
>Petite
</a>
220 by Ian Luck. This nifty utility compresses Windows executables by around
50%, so your
500KB executable
221 will shrink to a mere
250KB. With this sort of size, there is reduced incentive to
222 use DLLs. Another good compression tool (probably better than Petite) is
<a href=
"http://upx.sourceforge.net/" target=_top
>UPX
</a>.
225 Please do not be surprised if MinGW produces a statically-linked minimal executable of
1 MB. Firstly, gcc
226 produces larger executables than some compilers. Secondly, this figure will
227 include most of the overhead of wxWindows, so as your application becomes more
228 complex, the overhead becomes proportionally less significant. And thirdly, trading executable compactness
229 for the enormous increase in productivity you get with wxWindows is almost always well worth it.
<P>
231 If you have a really large executable compiled with MinGW (for example
20MB) then
232 you need to configure wxWindows to compile without debugging information: see
233 docs/msw/install.txt for details. You may find that using configure instead
234 of makefile.g95 is easier, particularly since you can maintain debug and
235 release versions of the library simultaneously, in different directories.
236 Also, run 'strip' after linking to remove all traces of debug info.
239 <H3><a name=
"mfc">Is wxWindows compatible with MFC?
</a></H3>
241 There is a sample which demonstrates MFC and wxWindows code co-existing in the same
242 application. However, don
't expect to be able to enable wxWindows windows with OLE-
2
243 functionality using MFC.
<P>
245 <H3><a name=
"asuffix">Why do I get errors about FooBarA when I only use FooBar in my program?
</H3>
247 If you get errors like
250 <tt>no matching function for call to
'wxDC::DrawTextA(const char[
5], int,
254 or similar ones for the other functions, i.e. the compiler error messages
255 mention the function with the
<tt>'A
'</tt> suffix while you didn
't
256 use it in your code, the explanation is that you had included
257 <tt><windows.h
></tt> header which redefines many symbols to have such
258 suffix (or
<tt>'W
'</tt> in the Unicode builds).
261 The fix is to either not include
<tt><windows.h
></tt> at all or include
262 <tt>"wx/msw/winundef.h"</tt> immediately after it.
264 <H3><a name=
"newerrors">Why my code fails to compile with strange errors about new operator?
</a></H3>
266 The most common cause of this problem is the memory debugging settings in
267 <tt>wx/msw/setup.h
</tt>. You have several choices:
270 <li> Either disable overloading the global operator new completely by
271 setting
<tt>wxUSE_GLOBAL_MEMORY_OPERATORS
</tt> and
272 <tt>wxUSE_DEBUG_NEW_ALWAYS
</tt> to
0 in this file
273 <li> Or leave them on but do
<tt>#undef new
</tt> after including any
274 wxWindows headers, like this the memory debugging will be still on
275 for wxWindows sources but off for your own code
278 Notice that IMHO the first solution is preferable for VC++ users who can use
279 the
<a href=
"#vcdebug">VC++ CRT memory debugging features
</a> instead.
281 <H3><a name=
"mfcport">How do I port MFC applications to wxWindows?
</a></H3>
283 Set up your interface from scratch using wxWindows (especially wxDesigner --
284 it
'll save you a
<i>lot
</i> of time) and when you have a shell prepared, you can start
285 'pouring in
' code from the MFC app, with appropriate
286 modifications. This is the approach I have used, and I found
287 it very satisfactory. A two-step process then - reproduce the bare
288 interface first, then wire it up afterwards. That way you deal
289 with each area of complexity separately. Don
't try to think MFC
290 and wxWindows simultaneously from the beginning - it is easier to
291 reproduce the initial UI by looking at the behaviour of the MFC
294 <H3><a name=
"crash">Why do I sometimes get bizarre crash problems using VC++
5/
6?
</a></H3>
296 Some crash problems can be due to inconsistent compiler
297 options (and of course this isn
't limited to wxWindows).
298 If strange/weird/impossible things start to happen please
299 check (dumping IDE project file as makefile and doing text comparison
300 if necessary) that the project settings, especially the list of defined
301 symbols, struct packing, etc. are exactly the same for all items in
302 the project. After this, delete everything (including PCH) and recompile.
<P>
304 VC++
5's optimization code seems to be broken and can
305 cause problems: this can be seen when deleting an object Dialog
306 Editor, in Release mode with optimizations on. If in doubt,
307 switch off optimisations, although this will result in much
308 larger executables. It seems possible that the library can be created with
309 strong optimization, so long as the application is not strongly
310 optimized. For example, in wxWindows project, set to
'Minimum
311 Size
'. In Dialog Editor project, set to
'Customize: Favor Small
312 Code
' (and no others). This will then work.
<P>
314 <H3><a name=
"makefiles">How are the wxWindows makefiles edited under Windows?
</a></H3>
316 As of wxWindows
2.1, there is a new system written by Vadim Zeitlin, that
317 generates the makefiles from templates using tmake.
<P>
319 Here are Vadim
's notes:
<P>
322 To use these new makefiles, you don
't need anything (but see below).
323 However, you should NOT modify them because these files will be
324 rewritten when I regenerate them using tmake the next time. So, if
325 you find a problem with any of these makefiles (say, makefile.b32)
326 you
'll need to modify the corresponding template (b32.t in this
327 example) and regenerate the makefile using tmake.
<P>
329 tmake can be found at
330 <a href=
"http://www.troll.no/freebies/tmake.html" target=_new
>www.troll.no/freebies/tmake.html
</a>.
331 It
's a Perl5 program and so it needs Perl (doh). There is a binary for
332 Windows (available from the same page), but I haven
't used it, so
333 I don
't know if it works as flawlessly as "perl tmake" does (note
334 for people knowing Perl: don
't try to run tmake with -w, it won
't
335 do you any good). Using it extremely simple: to regenerate makefile.b32
336 just go to distrib/msw/tmake and type
<P>
338 <pre>tmake -t b32 wxwin.pro -o ../../src/msw/makefile.b32
</pre><P>
340 The makefiles are untested - I don
't have any of Borland, Watcom or
341 Symantec and I don
't have enough diskspace to recompile even with
342 VC6 using makefiles. The new makefiles are as close as possible to the
343 old ones, but not closer: in fact, there has been many strange things
344 (should I say bugs?) in some of makefiles, some files were not compiled
345 without any reason etc. Please test them and notify me about any problems.
346 Better yet, modify the template files to generate the correct makefiles
347 and check them in.
<P>
349 The templates are described in tmake ref manual (
1-
2 pages of text)
350 and are quite simple. They do contain some Perl code, but my Perl is
351 primitive (very C like) so it should be possible for anybody to make
352 trivial modifications to it (I hope that only trivial modifications
353 will be needed). I
've tagged the ol makefiles as MAKEFILES_WITHOUT_TMAKE
354 in the cvs, so you can always retrieve them and compare the new ones,
355 this will make it easier to solve the problems you might have.
<P>
357 Another important file is filelist.txt: it contains the list of all
358 files to be compiled. Some of them are only compiled in
16/
32 bit mode.
359 Some other are only compiled with some compilers (others can
't compile
360 them) - all this info is contained in this file.
<P>
362 So now adding a new file to wxWindows is as easy as modifying filelist.txt
363 (and Makefile.ams for Unix ports) and regenerating the makefiles - no
364 need to modify all files manually any more.
<P>
366 Finally, there is also a file vc6.t which I use myself: this one
367 generates a project file for VC++
6.0 (I didn
't create vc5.t because
368 I don
't need it and can
't test it, but it should be trivial to create
369 one from vc6.t - probably the only things to change would be the
370 version number in the very beginning and the /Z option - VC5 doesn
't
371 support edit-and=continue). This is not an officially supported way
372 of building wxWindows (that is, nobody guarantees that it will work),
373 but it has been very useful to me and I hope it will be also for
374 others. To generate wxWindows.dsp run
<P>
376 <pre>tmake -t vc6 wxwin.pro -o ../../wxWindows.dsp
</pre><P>
378 Then just include this project in any workspace or open it from VC IDE
379 and it will create a new workspace for you.
<P>
381 If all goes well, I
'm planning to create a template file for Makefile.ams
382 under src/gtk and src/motif and also replace all makefiles in the samples
383 subdirectories with the project files from which all the others will be
384 generated. At least it will divide the number of files in samples
385 directory by
10 (and the number of files to be maintained too).
390 <H3><a name=
"vcdebug">How do you use VC++
's memory leak checking instead of that in wxWindows?
</a></H3>
395 On the VC++ level, it
's just the matter of calling _CrtSetDbgFlag() in the very
396 beginning of the program. In wxWindows, this is done automatically when
397 compiling with VC++ in debug mode unless wxUSE_GLOBAL_MEMORY_OPERATORS or
398 __NO_VC_CRTDBG__ are defined - this check is done in wx/msw/msvcrt.h which
399 is included from app.cpp which then calls wxCrtSetDbgFlag() without any
402 This works quite well: at the end of the program, all leaked blocks with their
403 malloc count are shown. This number (malloc count) can be used to determine
404 where exactly the object was allocated: for this it
's enough to set the variable
405 _crtBreakAlloc (look in VC98\crt\srs\dbgheap.c line
326) to this number and
406 a breakpoint will be triggered when the block with this number is allocated.
408 For simple situations it works like a charm. For something more complicated
409 like reading uninitialized memory a specialized tool is probably better...
417 <H3><a name=
"shortcutproblem">Why are menu hotkeys or shortcuts not working in my application?
</a></H3>
419 This can happen if you have a child window intercepting EVT_CHAR events and swallowing
420 all keyboard input. You should ensure that event.Skip() is called for all input that
421 isn
'used by the event handler.
<P>
423 It can also happen if you append the submenu to the parent
424 menu {\it before} you have added your menu items. Do the append {\it after} adding
425 your items, or accelerators may not be registered properly.
<P>
427 <H3><a name=
"#regconfig">Why can I not write to the HKLM part of the registry with wxRegConfig?
</a></H3>
429 Currently this is not possible because the wxConfig family of classes is
430 supposed to deal with per-user application configuration data, and HKLM is
431 only supposed to be writeable by a user with Administrator privileges. In theory,
432 only installers should write to HKLM. This is still a point debated by the
433 wxWindows developers. There are at least two ways to work around it if you really
434 need to write to HKLM.
<P>
436 First, you can use wxRegKey directly, for example:
441 wxString idName(wxT("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\My Company\\My Product\\Stuff\\"));
444 regKey.SetName(idName);
448 if (!regKey.Create())
450 idName = wxT("HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\SOFTWARE\\My Company\\My Product\\Stuff\\");
452 regKey.SetName(idName);
453 if (!regKey.Create())
458 if (!regKey.SetValue(wxT("THING"), (long) thing)) err +=
1;
464 Or, you can employ this trick suggested by Istvan Kovacs:
467 class myGlobalConfig : public wxConfig
470 wxConfig ("myApp", "myCompany", "", "", wxCONFIG_USE_GLOBAL_FILE)
472 bool Write(const wxString& key, const wxString& value);
475 bool myGlobalConfig::Write (const wxString& key, const wxString& value)
477 wxString path = wxString ("SOFTWARE\\myCompany\\myApp\\") + wxPathOnly(key);
478 wxString new_path = path.Replace ("/", "\\", true);
479 wxString new_key = wxFileNameFromPath (key);
480 LocalKey().SetName (wxRegKey::HKLM, path);
481 return wxConfig::Write (new_key, value);
485 <H3><a name=
"#access">Is MS Active Accessibility supported?
</a></H3>
487 This is being worked on. Please see
<a href=
"http://www.wxwindows.org/access.htm">this page
</a>
488 for the current status.