docs/msw/winxp.txt

   1 Microsoft Windows XP Support from wxWidgets
   2 -------------------------------------------
   3
   4 Windows XP introduces the themes (called "visual styles" in the Microsoft
   5 documentation) in Windows world. As wxWidgets uses the standard Windows
   6 controls for most of its classes, it can take advantage of it without
   7 (almost) any effort from your part. The only thing you need to do if you
   8 want your program to honour the visual style setting of Windows XP is to
   9 add the manifest file to your program (this is not at all specific to
  10 wxWidgets programs but is required for all Windows applications).
  11
  12 wxWidgets now includes manifest resources in wx.rc, so it should be enough to
  13 include "wx/msw/wx.rc" in your application's resource file and you get
  14 XP look automatically. If it doesn't work, follow the instructions below:
  15
  16 For your convenience, below is an example manifest. It should be put in a
  17 file called "yourapp.exe.manifest" and put in the same directory where
  18 "yourapp.exe" resides. Alternatively, you can include the manifest in your
  19 applications resource section. Please see the MSDN documentation at
  20
  21 http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnwxp/html/xptheming.asp
  22
  23 for more details.
  24
  25 Here is the example manifest which you can put into controls.exe.manifest
  26 file to test theme support using the controls sample:
  27
  28 --- cut here ---
  29 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
  30 <assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" manifestVersion="1.0">
  31 <assemblyIdentity
  32     version="0.64.1.0"
  33     processorArchitecture="x86"
  34     name="Controls"
  35     type="win32"
  36 />
  37 <description>Controls: wxWidgets sample application</description>
  38 <dependency>
  39     <dependentAssembly>
  40         <assemblyIdentity
  41             type="win32"
  42             name="Microsoft.Windows.Common-Controls"
  43             version="6.0.0.0"
  44             processorArchitecture="X86"
  45             publicKeyToken="6595b64144ccf1df"
  46             language="*"
  47         />
  48     </dependentAssembly>
  49 </dependency>
  50 </assembly>
  51 --- cut here ---
  52
  53
  54 There are a few minor problems with theme support in wxWidgets currently
  55 which will be fixed in the next releases:
  56
  57 - the buttons with non-default colours are owner-drawn and thus don't
  58   follow the visual style look but always have the default 3D look of
  59   the previous Windows versions - don't change the buttons colours if
  60   you want them to look nicely under Windows XP
  61
  62 - wxCheckListBox control doesn't have the same appearance as the native
  63   checkboxes in Windows XP
  64