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   5 <TITLE>wxWindows 2 FAQ: General</TITLE>
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  16 wxWindows 2 FAQ: General
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  22 <P>
  23
  24 See also <a href="faq.htm">top-level FAQ page</a>.
  25 <hr>
  26 <h3>List of questions in this category</h3>
  27 <ul>
  28 <li><a href="#whatis">What is wxWindows?</a></li>
  29 <li><a href="#users">Who uses wxWindows?</a></li>
  30 <li><a href="#platforms">What platforms are supported by wxWindows 2?</a></li>
  31 <li><a href="#specific">How does wxWindows 2 support platform-specific features?</a></li>
  32 <li><a href="#stl">Does wxWindows use STL? or the standard string class?</a></li>
  33 <li><a href="#richedit">Is there a rich edit/markup widget for wxWindows 2?</a></ li>
  34 <li><a href="#dev">How is wxWindows 2 being developed?</a></li>
  35 <li><a href="#distrib">How is wxWindows 2 distributed?</a></li>
  36 <li><a href="#future">What are the plans for the future?</a></li>
  37 <li><a href="#univ">What is wxUniversal?</a></li>
  38 <li><a href="#jave">What about Java?</a></li>
  39 <li><a href="#help">How can I help the project?</a></li>
  40 </ul>
  41 <hr>
  42
  43 <H3><a name="whatis">What is wxWindows?</a></H3>
  44
  45 wxWindows is a class library that allows you to compile graphical C++ programs on a range of
  46 different platforms. wxWindows defines a common API across platforms, but uses the native graphical user interface (GUI) on each platform,
  47 so your program will take on the native &#39;look and feel&#39; that users are familiar with.<P>
  48
  49 Although GUI applications are mostly built programmatically, there is a dialog editor to help
  50 build attractive dialogs and panels. Robert Roebling&#39;s <a href="http://www.roebling.com">wxDesigner</a>
  51 makes light work of resizable, portable dialogs.<P>
  52
  53 You don&#39;t have to use C++ to use wxWindows: there is a <a href="http://wxpython.org">Python interface</a> for wxWindows 2,
  54 and also a <a href="http://wxperl.sourceforge.net" target=_top>Perl interface</a>.
  55 <P>
  56
  57 <h3>Can I use wxWindows 2 for both proprietary (commercial) projects, and GPL&#39;ed projects?</h3>
  58
  59 Yes. Please see the <a href="newlicen.htm">licence</a> for details, but basically
  60 you can distribute proprietary binaries without distributing any source code, and neither will wxWindows
  61 conflict with GPL code you may be using or developing with it.
  62 <P>
  63 The conditions for using wxWindows 2 are the same whether you are a personal, academic
  64 or commercial developer.
  65 <P>
  66
  67 <h3>Is there support?</h3>
  68
  69 No official support, but the mailing list is very helpful and some people say that
  70 wxWindows support is better than for much commercial software. The developers are
  71 keen to fix bugs as soon as possible, though obviously there are no guarantees.
  72 <P>
  73
  74 <H3><a name="users">Who uses wxWindows?</a></H3>
  75
  76 Many organisations - commercial, government, and academic - across the
  77 world. It&#39;s impossible to estimate the true number of users, since
  78 wxWindows is obtained by many different means, and we cannot monitor
  79 distribution. The mailing list contains around 300-400 entries which is
  80 quite large for a list of this type.<P>
  81
  82 See <a href="users.htm">Users</a> for a list of some users and their applications, and
  83 also <A href="feedback.htm">Feedback</a> for comments.<P>
  84
  85 <H3><a name="platforms">What platforms are supported by wxWindows 2?</a></H3>
  86
  87 <ul>
  88 <li>Windows 3.1, Windows 95/98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows ME.
  89 <li>Linux and other Unix platforms with GTK+.
  90 <li>Unix with Motif or the free Motif clone Lesstif.
  91 <li>Mac OS.
  92 <li>Embedded platforms are being investigated. See the <a href="wxuniv.htm">wxUniversal</a> project.
  93 <li>An OS/2 port is in progress, and you can also compile wxWindows for GTK+ or Motif
  94 on OS/2.
  95 </ul>
  96 <P>
  97
  98 <H3><a name="specific">How does wxWindows 2 support platform-specific
  99 features?</a></H3>
 100
 101 This is a hotly-debated topic amongst the developers. My own philosophy
 102 is to make wxWindows as platform-independent as possible, but allow in a
 103 few classes (functions, window styles) that are platform-specific.
 104 For example, Windows metafiles and Windows 95 taskbar icons have
 105 their own classes on Windows, but nowhere else. Because these classes
 106 are provided and are wxWindows-compatible, it doesn&#39;t take much
 107 coding effort for an application programmer to add support for
 108 some functionality that the user on a particular platform might otherwise
 109 miss. Also, some classes that started off as platform-specific, such
 110 as the MDI classes, have been emulated on other platforms. I can imagine
 111 that even wxTaskBarIcon may be implemented for Unix desktops one day.
 112 <P>
 113
 114 In other words, wxWindows is not a &#39;lowest common denominator&#39; approach,
 115 but it will still be possible to write portable programs using the
 116 core API. Forbidding some platform-specific classes would be a stupid
 117 approach that would alienate many potential users, and encourage
 118 the perception that toolkits such as wxWindows are not up to the demands
 119 of today&#39;s sophisticated applications.<P>
 120
 121 Currently resources such as bitmaps and icons are handled in a platform-specific
 122 way, but it is hoped to reduce this dependence in due course.<P>
 123
 124 Another reason why wxWindows 2 is not a &#39;lowest common denominator&#39; toolkit is that
 125 some functionality missing on some platform has been provided using generic,
 126 platform-independent code, such as the wxTreeCtrl and wxListCtrl classes.<P>
 127
 128 <H3><a name="stl">Does wxWindows use STL? or the standard string class?</a></H3>
 129
 130 No. This is a much-discussed topic that has (many times) ended with the conclusion that it is in
 131 wxWindows&#39; best interests to avoid use of templates. Not all compilers can handle
 132 templates adequately so it would dramatically reduce the number of compilers
 133 and platforms that could be supported. It would also be undersirable to make
 134 wxWindows dependent on another large library that may have to be downloaded and installed.
 135 In addition, use of templates can lead to executable bloat, which is something
 136 wxWindows 2 is strenously trying to avoid.<P>
 137
 138 The standard C++ string class is not used, again because it is not available to all compilers,
 139 and it is not necessarily a very efficient implementation. Also, we retain more flexibility
 140 by being able to modify our own string class. Some compatibility with the string class
 141 has been built into wxString.<P>
 142
 143 There is nothing to stop an application using templates or the string class for its own
 144 purposes. With wxWindows debugging options on, you may find you get errors when including
 145 STL headers. You can work around it either by switching off memory checking,
 146 or by adding this to a header before you include any STL files:<P>
 147
 148 <PRE>
 149 &#35;ifdef new
 150 &#35;undef new
 151 &#35;endif
 152 </PRE>
 153
 154 <P>
 155
 156
 157 <H3><a name="richedit">Is there a rich edit/markup widget for wxWindows 2?</a></H3>
 158
 159 These are the possibilities so far:<P>
 160
 161 <ul>
 162 <li>The richedit sample has a text editor that does markup.
 163 <li>See <a href="http://www.scintilla.org" target=_top>www.scintilla.org</a> for
 164 a very nice syntax-highlighting editor widget. Robin Dunn is writing a wxWindows wrapper
 165 for this widget.
 166 <li>If you only need to display marked-up information, rather than edit it,
 167 then wxHTML will suit your needs. wxHTML is built into wxWindows - please see the reference
 168 manual for details, and samples/html.
 169 <li>There are rich edit widgets in both WIN32 and GTK+, but there is currently
 170 no wxWindows wrapper for these (but text attribute functions are being added in the wxWindows 2.3.x series).
 171 </ul>
 172
 173 <P>
 174
 175 <H3><a name="dev">How is wxWindows 2 being developed?</a></H3>
 176
 177 We are using the <a href="cvs.htm">CVS</a> system to develop and maintain wxWindows. This allows
 178 us to make alterations and upload them instantly to the SourceForge server, from
 179 which others can update their source.<P>
 180
 181 To build source from CVS, see the file BuildCVS.txt in the top-level wxWindows distribution
 182 directory.<P>
 183
 184 <H3><a name="distrib">How is wxWindows 2 distributed?</a></H3>
 185
 186 By ftp, and via the <a href="cdrom2.htm">wxWindows CD-ROM</a>.
 187 <P>
 188 If you are feeling adventurous, you may also check out the sources directly
 189 from the <a href="cvs.htm">cvs</a>
 190 <p>
 191
 192 <H3><a name="future">What are the plans for the future?</a></H3>
 193
 194 Currently we&#39;re working too hard on getting wxWindows 2 finished (are GUI toolkits ever
 195 finished?) to think very far ahead. However, we know we want to make wxWindows as robust
 196 and well-publicised as possible. We also want to aim for better platform-independence of
 197 resources such as icons and bitmaps, standardising on the PNG for all platforms.<P>
 198
 199 Other possibilities include: DCOM/CORBA compatibility; a wxWindows book;
 200 <a href="http://wxworkshop.sourceforge.net/">wxWorkshop</a>, an IDE;
 201 other platforms, especially embedded systems; other interface abilities such as speech output.<P>
 202
 203 We will investigate the possibility of compiler or operating system vendors bundling wxWindows with
 204 their product.<P>
 205
 206 The high-level goal of wxWindows is to be thought of as the number one C++ framework,
 207 for virtually any platform. Move over, MFC!<P>
 208
 209 <H3><a name="univ">What is wxUniversal?</a></H3>
 210
 211 wxUniversal is a new port of wxWindows being currently actively developed. The
 212 main difference is that wxUniversal implements all controls (or widgets) in
 213 wxWindows itself thus allowing to have much more flexibility (i.e. support for
 214 themes even under MS Windows!). It also means that it is now much easier to
 215 port wxWindows to a new platform as only the low-level classes must be ported
 216 which make for a small part of the library.
 217 <p>
 218 You may find more about wxUniversal <a href=wxuniv.htm>here</a>.
 219
 220 <H3><a name="jave">What about Java?</a></H3>
 221
 222 The Java honeymoon period is over :-) and people are realising that it cannot
 223 meet all their cross-platform development needs. We don&#39;t anticipate a major threat
 224 from Java, and the level of interest in wxWindows is as high as ever.<P>
 225
 226 <H3><a name="help">How can I help the project?</a></H3>
 227
 228 Please check out the <a href="http://www.wxwindows.org/develop2.htm">Community</a> pages,
 229 in particular the <a href="projects.htm">suggested projects</a>, and
 230 mail <a href="mailto:julian.smart@btopenworld.com">Julian Smart</a> or the developers&#39; mailing list with your own suggestions.<P>
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