]> git.saurik.com Git - wxWidgets.git/blob - docs/html/faqmsw.htm
Added a backport item and items to the todo list
[wxWidgets.git] / docs / html / faqmsw.htm
1
2 <HTML>
3
4 <HEAD>
5 <TITLE>wxWindows 2 for Windows FAQ</TITLE>
6 </HEAD>
7
8 <BODY BGCOLOR=#FFFFFF TEXT=#000000 VLINK="#00376A" LINK="#00529C" ALINK="#313063">
9
10 <font face="Arial, Lucida Sans, Helvetica">
11
12 <table width=100% border=0 cellpadding=3 cellspacing=0>
13 <tr>
14 <td bgcolor="#004080" align=left height=24 background="images/bluetitlegradient.gif">
15 <font size=+1 face="Arial, Lucida Sans, Helvetica" color="#FFFFFF">
16 <b>wxWindows 2 for Windows FAQ</b>
17 </font>
18 </td>
19 </tr>
20 </table>
21
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="#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++&#39;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>
47 </ul>
48 <hr>
49
50 <h3><a name="platforms">Which Windows platforms are supported?</a></h3>
51
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>
55
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&#39;t expect very Windows-95-specific classes to work, such as wxTaskBarIcon. The wxRegConfig
60 class doesn&#39;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.
62 <P>
63 16-bit compilation is supported under Visual C++ 1.5, and Borland BC++ 4 to 5.
64 <P>
65
66 wxWindows 2 for Windows will also compile on Unix with gcc using TWIN32 from <a href="http://www.willows.com" target=_top>Willows</a>,
67 although TWIN32 is still in a preliminary state. The resulting executables are
68 Unix binaries that work with the TWIN32 Windows API emulator.<P>
69
70 You can also compile wxWindows 2 for Windows on Unix with Cygwin or Mingw32, resulting
71 in executables that will run on Windows. So in theory you could write your applications
72 using wxGTK or wxMotif, then check/debug your wxWindows for Windows
73 programs with TWIN32, and finally produce an ix86 Windows executable using Cygwin/Mingw32,
74 without ever needing a copy of Microsoft Windows. See the Technical Note on the Web site detailing cross-compilation.<P>
75
76 <h3><a name="wince">What about Windows CE?</a></h3>
77
78 This is under consideration, though we need to get wxWindows Unicode-aware first.
79 There are other interesting issues, such as how to combine the menubar and toolbar APIs
80 as Windows CE requires. But there&#39;s no doubt that it will be possible, albeit
81 by mostly cutting down wxWindows 2 API functionality, and adding a few classes here
82 and there. Since wxWindows for 2 produces small binaries (less than 300K for
83 the statically-linked &#39;minimal&#39; sample), shoehorning wxWindows 2 into a Windows CE device&#39;s limited
84 storage should not be a problem.<P>
85
86 <h3><a name="winxp">What do I need to do for Windows XP?</a></h3>
87
88 In the same directory as you have your executable (e.g. foo.exe) you
89 put a file called foo.exe.manifest in which you have something like
90 the following:
91
92 <pre>
93 &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?&gt;
94 &lt;assembly
95 xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1"
96 manifestVersion="1.0"&gt;
97 &lt;assemblyIdentity
98 processorArchitecture="x86"
99 version="5.1.0.0"
100 type="win32"
101 name="foo.exe"/&gt;
102 &lt;description&gt;Foo program&lt;/description&gt;
103 &lt;dependency&gt;
104 &lt;dependentAssembly&gt;
105 &lt;assemblyIdentity
106 type="win32"
107 name="Microsoft.Windows.Common-Controls"
108 version="6.0.0.0"
109 publicKeyToken="6595b64144ccf1df"
110 language="*"
111 processorArchitecture="x86"/&gt;
112 &lt;/dependentAssembly&gt;
113 &lt;/dependency&gt;
114 &lt;/assembly&gt;
115 </pre>
116
117 If you want to add it to your application permanently,
118 you can also include it in your .rc file using this
119 line:<P>
120
121 <PRE>
122 1 24 "winxp.manifest"
123 </PRE>
124
125 In wxWindows 2.5, this will be in the wx/msw/wx.rc and
126 so will happen automatically so long as you include wx.rc
127 in your own .rc file.<P>
128
129 For an explanation of this syntax, please see
130 <a href="http://delphi.about.com/library/bluc/text/uc111601a.htm" target=_new>this
131 article</a>.
132 <P>
133
134 <h3><a name="compilers">What compilers are supported?</a></h3>
135
136 Please see the wxWindows 2 for Windows install.txt file for up-to-date information, but
137 currently the following are known to work:<P>
138
139 <ul>
140 <li>Visual C++ 1.5, 4.0, 5.0, 6.0
141 <li>Borland C++ 4.5, 5.0
142 <li>Borland C++Builder 1.0, 3.0
143 <li>Watcom C++ 10.6 (WIN32)
144 <li>Cygwin b20
145 <li>Mingw32
146 <li>MetroWerks CodeWarrior 4
147 </ul>
148 <P>
149
150 There is a linking problem with Symantec C++ which I hope someone can help solve.
151 <P>
152
153 <h3><a name="bestcompiler">Which is the best compiler to use with wxWindows 2?</a></h3>
154
155 It&#39;s partly a matter of taste, but I (JACS) prefer Visual C++ since the debugger is very
156 good, it&#39;s very stable, the documentation is extensive, and it generates small executables.
157 Since project files are plain text, it&#39;s easy for me to generate appropriate project files
158 for wxWindows samples.<P>
159
160 Borland C++ is fine - and very fast - but it&#39;s hard (impossible?) to use the debugger without using project files, and
161 the debugger is nowhere near up to VC++&#39;s quality. The IDE isn&#39;t great.<P>
162
163 C++Builder&#39;s power isn&#39;t really used with wxWindows since it needs integration with its
164 own class library (VCL). For wxWindows, I&#39;ve only used it with makefiles, in which case
165 it&#39;s almost identical to BC++ 5.0 (the same makefiles can be used).<P>
166
167 You can&#39;t beat Cygwin&#39;s price (free), and you can debug adequately using gdb. However, it&#39;s
168 quite slow to compile since it does not use precompiled headers.<P>
169
170 CodeWarrior is cross-platform - you can debug and generate Windows executables from a Mac, but not
171 the other way around I think - but the IDE is, to my mind, a bit primitive.<P>
172
173 Watcom C++ is a little slow and the debugger is not really up to today&#39;s standards.<P>
174
175 Among the free compilers the best choice seem to be Borland C++ command line
176 tools and mingw32 (port of gcc to Win32). Both of them are supported by
177 wxWindows.
178
179 <h3><a name="unicode">Is Unicode supported?</a></h3>
180
181 Yes, Unicode is fully supported under Windows NT/2000 (Windows 9x don&#39;t
182 have Unicode support anyhow).
183
184 <h3><a name="doublebyte">Does wxWindows support double byte fonts (Chinese/Japanese/Korean etc.)?</a></h3>
185
186 An answer from <a href="mailto:goedde@logosoft.de">Klaus Goedde</a>:<p>
187
188 "For Japanese under Win2000, it seems that wxWindows has no problems to work with double byte char sets
189 (I mean DBCS, that&#39;s not Unicode). First you have to install Japanese support on your Win2K system
190 and choose for ANSI translation
191 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Nls\CodePage=932 (default is 1252 for Western).
192 Then you can see all the funny Japanese letters under wxWindows too.<P>
193
194 In a wxTextCtrl control you have to set the window style "wxTE_RICH", otherwise this control shows the wrong
195 letters.
196
197 I don&#39;t now whether it works on non W2K systems, because I&#39;m just starting using wxWindows."
198 <P>
199
200 <h3><a name="dll">Can you compile wxWindows 2 as a DLL?</a></h3>
201
202 Yes (using the Visual C++ or Borland C++ makefile), but be aware that distributing DLLs is a thorny issue
203 and you may be better off compiling statically-linked applications, unless you&#39;re
204 delivering a suite of separate programs, or you&#39;re compiling a lot of wxWindows applications
205 and have limited hard disk space.<P>
206
207 With a DLL approach, and with different versions and configurations of wxWindows
208 needing to be catered for, the end user may end up with a host of large DLLs in his or her Windows system directory,
209 negating the point of using DLLs. Of course, this is not a problem just associated with
210 wxWindows!
211 <P>
212
213 <h3><a name="exesize">How can I reduce executable size?</a></h3>
214
215 You can compile wxWindows as a DLL (see above, VC++/BC++ only at present). You should also
216 compile your programs for release using non-debugging and space-optimisation options, but
217 take with VC++ 5/6 space optimisation: it can sometimes cause problems.<P>
218
219 If you want to distribute really small executables, you can
220 use <a href="http://www.un4seen.com/petite/" target=_top>Petite</a>
221 by Ian Luck. This nifty utility compresses Windows executables by around 50%, so your 500KB executable
222 will shrink to a mere 250KB. With this sort of size, there is reduced incentive to
223 use DLLs. Another good compression tool (probably better than Petite) is <a href="http://upx.sourceforge.net/" target=_top>UPX</a>.
224 <P>
225
226 Please do not be surprised if MinGW produces a statically-linked minimal executable of 1 MB. Firstly, gcc
227 produces larger executables than some compilers. Secondly, this figure will
228 include most of the overhead of wxWindows, so as your application becomes more
229 complex, the overhead becomes proportionally less significant. And thirdly, trading executable compactness
230 for the enormous increase in productivity you get with wxWindows is almost always well worth it.<P>
231
232 If you have a really large executable compiled with MinGW (for example 20MB) then
233 you need to configure wxWindows to compile without debugging information: see
234 docs/msw/install.txt for details. You may find that using configure instead
235 of makefile.g95 is easier, particularly since you can maintain debug and
236 release versions of the library simultaneously, in different directories.
237 Also, run 'strip' after linking to remove all traces of debug info.
238 <P>
239
240 <H3><a name="mfc">Is wxWindows compatible with MFC?</a></H3>
241
242 There is a sample which demonstrates MFC and wxWindows code co-existing in the same
243 application. However, don&#39;t expect to be able to enable wxWindows windows with OLE-2
244 functionality using MFC.<P>
245
246 <H3><a name="asuffix">Why do I get errors about FooBarA when I only use FooBar in my program?</H3>
247
248 If you get errors like
249 <p>
250 <center>
251 <tt>no matching function for call to &#39;wxDC::DrawTextA(const char[5], int,
252 int)&#39;</tt>
253 </center>
254 <p>
255 or similar ones for the other functions, i.e. the compiler error messages
256 mention the function with the <tt>&#39;A&#39;</tt> suffix while you didn&#39;t
257 use it in your code, the explanation is that you had included
258 <tt>&#60;windows.h&#062;</tt> header which redefines many symbols to have such
259 suffix (or <tt>&#39;W&#39;</tt> in the Unicode builds).
260
261 <p>
262 The fix is to either not include <tt>&#60;windows.h&#62;</tt> at all or include
263 <tt>"wx/msw/winundef.h"</tt> immediately after it.
264
265 <H3><a name="newerrors">Why my code fails to compile with strange errors about new operator?</a></H3>
266
267 The most common cause of this problem is the memory debugging settings in
268 <tt>wx/msw/setup.h</tt>. You have several choices:
269
270 <ul>
271 <li> Either disable overloading the global operator new completely by
272 setting <tt>wxUSE_GLOBAL_MEMORY_OPERATORS</tt> and
273 <tt>wxUSE_DEBUG_NEW_ALWAYS</tt> to 0 in this file
274 <li> Or leave them on but do <tt>#undef new</tt> after including any
275 wxWindows headers, like this the memory debugging will be still on
276 for wxWindows sources but off for your own code
277 </ul>
278
279 Notice that IMHO the first solution is preferable for VC++ users who can use
280 the <a href="#vcdebug">VC++ CRT memory debugging features</a> instead.
281
282 <H3><a name="mfcport">How do I port MFC applications to wxWindows?</a></H3>
283
284 Set up your interface from scratch using wxWindows (especially wxDesigner --
285 it&#39;ll save you a <i>lot</i> of time) and when you have a shell prepared, you can start
286 &#39;pouring in&#39; code from the MFC app, with appropriate
287 modifications. This is the approach I have used, and I found
288 it very satisfactory. A two-step process then - reproduce the bare
289 interface first, then wire it up afterwards. That way you deal
290 with each area of complexity separately. Don&#39;t try to think MFC
291 and wxWindows simultaneously from the beginning - it is easier to
292 reproduce the initial UI by looking at the behaviour of the MFC
293 app, not its code.
294
295 <H3><a name="crash">Why do I sometimes get bizarre crash problems using VC++ 5/6?</a></H3>
296
297 Some crash problems can be due to inconsistent compiler
298 options (and of course this isn&#39;t limited to wxWindows).
299 If strange/weird/impossible things start to happen please
300 check (dumping IDE project file as makefile and doing text comparison
301 if necessary) that the project settings, especially the list of defined
302 symbols, struct packing, etc. are exactly the same for all items in
303 the project. After this, delete everything (including PCH) and recompile.<P>
304
305 VC++ 5&#39;s optimization code seems to be broken and can
306 cause problems: this can be seen when deleting an object Dialog
307 Editor, in Release mode with optimizations on. If in doubt,
308 switch off optimisations, although this will result in much
309 larger executables. It seems possible that the library can be created with
310 strong optimization, so long as the application is not strongly
311 optimized. For example, in wxWindows project, set to &#39;Minimum
312 Size&#39;. In Dialog Editor project, set to &#39;Customize: Favor Small
313 Code&#39; (and no others). This will then work.<P>
314
315 <H3><a name="makefiles">How are the wxWindows makefiles edited under Windows?</a></H3>
316
317 As of wxWindows 2.1, there is a new system written by Vadim Zeitlin, that
318 generates the makefiles from templates using tmake.<P>
319
320 Here are Vadim&#39;s notes:<P>
321
322 <blockquote>
323 To use these new makefiles, you don&#39;t need anything (but see below).
324 However, you should NOT modify them because these files will be
325 rewritten when I regenerate them using tmake the next time. So, if
326 you find a problem with any of these makefiles (say, makefile.b32)
327 you&#39;ll need to modify the corresponding template (b32.t in this
328 example) and regenerate the makefile using tmake.<P>
329
330 tmake can be found at
331 <a href="http://www.troll.no/freebies/tmake.html" target=_new>www.troll.no/freebies/tmake.html</a>.
332 It&#39;s a Perl5 program and so it needs Perl (doh). There is a binary for
333 Windows (available from the same page), but I haven&#39;t used it, so
334 I don&#39;t know if it works as flawlessly as "perl tmake" does (note
335 for people knowing Perl: don&#39;t try to run tmake with -w, it won&#39;t
336 do you any good). Using it extremely simple: to regenerate makefile.b32
337 just go to distrib/msw/tmake and type<P>
338
339 <pre>tmake -t b32 wxwin.pro -o ../../src/msw/makefile.b32</pre><P>
340
341 The makefiles are untested - I don&#39;t have any of Borland, Watcom or
342 Symantec and I don&#39;t have enough diskspace to recompile even with
343 VC6 using makefiles. The new makefiles are as close as possible to the
344 old ones, but not closer: in fact, there has been many strange things
345 (should I say bugs?) in some of makefiles, some files were not compiled
346 without any reason etc. Please test them and notify me about any problems.
347 Better yet, modify the template files to generate the correct makefiles
348 and check them in.<P>
349
350 The templates are described in tmake ref manual (1-2 pages of text)
351 and are quite simple. They do contain some Perl code, but my Perl is
352 primitive (very C like) so it should be possible for anybody to make
353 trivial modifications to it (I hope that only trivial modifications
354 will be needed). I&#39;ve tagged the ol makefiles as MAKEFILES_WITHOUT_TMAKE
355 in the cvs, so you can always retrieve them and compare the new ones,
356 this will make it easier to solve the problems you might have.<P>
357
358 Another important file is filelist.txt: it contains the list of all
359 files to be compiled. Some of them are only compiled in 16/32 bit mode.
360 Some other are only compiled with some compilers (others can&#39;t compile
361 them) - all this info is contained in this file.<P>
362
363 So now adding a new file to wxWindows is as easy as modifying filelist.txt
364 (and Makefile.ams for Unix ports) and regenerating the makefiles - no
365 need to modify all files manually any more.<P>
366
367 Finally, there is also a file vc6.t which I use myself: this one
368 generates a project file for VC++ 6.0 (I didn&#39;t create vc5.t because
369 I don&#39;t need it and can&#39;t test it, but it should be trivial to create
370 one from vc6.t - probably the only things to change would be the
371 version number in the very beginning and the /Z option - VC5 doesn&#39;t
372 support edit-and=continue). This is not an officially supported way
373 of building wxWindows (that is, nobody guarantees that it will work),
374 but it has been very useful to me and I hope it will be also for
375 others. To generate wxWindows.dsp run<P>
376
377 <pre>tmake -t vc6 wxwin.pro -o ../../wxWindows.dsp</pre><P>
378
379 Then just include this project in any workspace or open it from VC IDE
380 and it will create a new workspace for you.<P>
381
382 If all goes well, I&#39;m planning to create a template file for Makefile.ams
383 under src/gtk and src/motif and also replace all makefiles in the samples
384 subdirectories with the project files from which all the others will be
385 generated. At least it will divide the number of files in samples
386 directory by 10 (and the number of files to be maintained too).
387 </blockquote>
388
389 <P>
390
391 <H3><a name="vcdebug">How do you use VC++&#39;s memory leak checking instead of that in wxWindows?</a></H3>
392
393 Vadim Zeitlin:
394
395 <pre>
396 On the VC++ level, it&#39;s just the matter of calling _CrtSetDbgFlag() in the very
397 beginning of the program. In wxWindows, this is done automatically when
398 compiling with VC++ in debug mode unless wxUSE_GLOBAL_MEMORY_OPERATORS or
399 __NO_VC_CRTDBG__ are defined - this check is done in wx/msw/msvcrt.h which
400 is included from app.cpp which then calls wxCrtSetDbgFlag() without any
401 ifdefs.
402
403 This works quite well: at the end of the program, all leaked blocks with their
404 malloc count are shown. This number (malloc count) can be used to determine
405 where exactly the object was allocated: for this it&#39;s enough to set the variable
406 _crtBreakAlloc (look in VC98\crt\srs\dbgheap.c line 326) to this number and
407 a breakpoint will be triggered when the block with this number is allocated.
408
409 For simple situations it works like a charm. For something more complicated
410 like reading uninitialized memory a specialized tool is probably better...
411
412 Regards,
413 VZ
414 </pre>
415
416 <P>
417
418 <H3><a name="shortcutproblem">Why are menu hotkeys or shortcuts not working in my application?</a></H3>
419
420 This can happen if you have a child window intercepting EVT_CHAR events and swallowing
421 all keyboard input. You should ensure that event.Skip() is called for all input that
422 isn&#39;used by the event handler.<P>
423
424 It can also happen if you append the submenu to the parent
425 menu {\it before} you have added your menu items. Do the append {\it after} adding
426 your items, or accelerators may not be registered properly.<P>
427
428 <H3><a name="#regconfig">Why can I not write to the HKLM part of the registry with wxRegConfig?</a></H3>
429
430 Currently this is not possible because the wxConfig family of classes is
431 supposed to deal with per-user application configuration data, and HKLM is
432 only supposed to be writeable by a user with Administrator privileges. In theory,
433 only installers should write to HKLM. This is still a point debated by the
434 wxWindows developers. There are at least two ways to work around it if you really
435 need to write to HKLM.<P>
436
437 First, you can use wxRegKey directly, for example:
438
439 <pre>
440 wxRegKey regKey;
441
442 wxString idName(wxT("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\My Company\\My Product\\Stuff\\"));
443 idName += packid;
444
445 regKey.SetName(idName);
446
447 {
448 wxLogNull dummy;
449 if (!regKey.Create())
450 {
451 idName = wxT("HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\SOFTWARE\\My Company\\My Product\\Stuff\\");
452 idName += packid;
453 regKey.SetName(idName);
454 if (!regKey.Create())
455 return FALSE;
456 }
457 }
458
459 if (!regKey.SetValue(wxT("THING"), (long) thing)) err += 1;
460
461 regKey.Close();
462
463 </pre>
464
465 Or, you can employ this trick suggested by Istvan Kovacs:
466
467 <pre>
468 class myGlobalConfig : public wxConfig
469 {
470 myGlobalConfig() :
471 wxConfig ("myApp", "myCompany", "", "", wxCONFIG_USE_GLOBAL_FILE)
472 {};
473 bool Write(const wxString& key, const wxString& value);
474 }
475
476 bool myGlobalConfig::Write (const wxString& key, const wxString& value)
477 {
478 wxString path = wxString ("SOFTWARE\\myCompany\\myApp\\") + wxPathOnly(key);
479 wxString new_path = path.Replace ("/", "\\", true);
480 wxString new_key = wxFileNameFromPath (key);
481 LocalKey().SetName (wxRegKey::HKLM, path);
482 return wxConfig::Write (new_key, value);
483 }
484 </pre>
485
486 <H3><a name="#access">Is MS Active Accessibility supported?</a></H3>
487
488 This is being worked on. Please see <a href="http://www.wxwindows.org/access.htm">this page</a>
489 for the current status.
490
491 <P>
492
493 </font>
494
495 </BODY>
496
497 </HTML>