5 <TITLE>wxWindows
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 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>
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>
76 <h3><a name=
"wince">What about Windows CE?
</a></h3>
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
'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
'minimal
' sample), shoehorning wxWindows
2 into a Windows CE device
's limited
84 storage should not be a problem.
<P>
86 <h3><a name=
"winxp">What do I need to do for Windows XP?
</a></h3>
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
93 <?xml
version="
1.0"
encoding="UTF-
8"
standalone="yes"?
>
95 xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1"
96 manifestVersion="
1.0"
>
98 processorArchitecture="x86"
102 <description
>Foo program
</description
>
104 <dependentAssembly
>
107 name="Microsoft.Windows.Common-Controls"
109 publicKeyToken="
6595b64144ccf1df"
111 processorArchitecture="x86"/
>
112 </dependentAssembly
>
117 If you want to add it to your application permanently,
118 you can also include it in your .rc file using this
122 1 24 "winxp.manifest"
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>
129 For an explanation of this syntax, please see
130 <a href=
"http://delphi.about.com/library/bluc/text/uc111601a.htm" target=_new
>this
134 <h3><a name=
"compilers">What compilers are supported?
</a></h3>
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>
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)
146 <li>MetroWerks CodeWarrior
4
150 There is a linking problem with Symantec C++ which I hope someone can help solve.
153 <h3><a name=
"bestcompiler">Which is the best compiler to use with wxWindows
2?
</a></h3>
155 It
's partly a matter of taste, but I (JACS) prefer Visual C++ since the debugger is very
156 good, it
's very stable, the documentation is extensive, and it generates small executables.
157 Since project files are plain text, it
's easy for me to generate appropriate project files
158 for wxWindows samples.
<P>
160 Borland C++ is fine - and very fast - but it
's hard (impossible?) to use the debugger without using project files, and
161 the debugger is nowhere near up to VC++
's quality. The IDE isn
't great.
<P>
163 C++Builder
's power isn
't really used with wxWindows since it needs integration with its
164 own class library (VCL). For wxWindows, I
've only used it with makefiles, in which case
165 it
's almost identical to BC++
5.0 (the same makefiles can be used).
<P>
167 You can
't beat Cygwin
's price (free), and you can debug adequately using gdb. However, it
's
168 quite slow to compile since it does not use precompiled headers.
<P>
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>
173 Watcom C++ is a little slow and the debugger is not really up to today
's standards.
<P>
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
179 <h3><a name=
"unicode">Is Unicode supported?
</a></h3>
181 Yes, Unicode is fully supported under Windows NT/
2000 (Windows
9x don
't
182 have Unicode support anyhow).
184 <h3><a name=
"doublebyte">Does wxWindows support double byte fonts (Chinese/Japanese/Korean etc.)?
</a></h3>
186 An answer from
<a href=
"mailto:goedde@logosoft.de">Klaus Goedde
</a>:
<p>
188 "For Japanese under Win2000, it seems that wxWindows has no problems to work with double byte char sets
189 (I mean DBCS, that
'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>
194 In a wxTextCtrl control you have to set the window style "wxTE_RICH", otherwise this control shows the wrong
197 I don
't now whether it works on non W2K systems, because I
'm just starting using wxWindows."
200 <h3><a name=
"dll">Can you compile wxWindows
2 as a DLL?
</a></h3>
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
're
204 delivering a suite of separate programs, or you
're compiling a lot of wxWindows applications
205 and have limited hard disk space.
<P>
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
213 <h3><a name=
"exesize">How can I reduce executable size?
</a></h3>
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>
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>.
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>
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.
240 <H3><a name=
"mfc">Is wxWindows compatible with MFC?
</a></H3>
242 There is a sample which demonstrates MFC and wxWindows code co-existing in the same
243 application. However, don
't expect to be able to enable wxWindows windows with OLE-
2
244 functionality using MFC.
<P>
246 <H3><a name=
"asuffix">Why do I get errors about FooBarA when I only use FooBar in my program?
</H3>
248 If you get errors like
251 <tt>no matching function for call to
'wxDC::DrawTextA(const char[
5], int,
255 or similar ones for the other functions, i.e. the compiler error messages
256 mention the function with the
<tt>'A
'</tt> suffix while you didn
't
257 use it in your code, the explanation is that you had included
258 <tt><windows.h
></tt> header which redefines many symbols to have such
259 suffix (or
<tt>'W
'</tt> in the Unicode builds).
262 The fix is to either not include
<tt><windows.h
></tt> at all or include
263 <tt>"wx/msw/winundef.h"</tt> immediately after it.
265 <H3><a name=
"newerrors">Why my code fails to compile with strange errors about new operator?
</a></H3>
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:
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
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.
282 <H3><a name=
"mfcport">How do I port MFC applications to wxWindows?
</a></H3>
284 Set up your interface from scratch using wxWindows (especially wxDesigner --
285 it
'll save you a
<i>lot
</i> of time) and when you have a shell prepared, you can start
286 'pouring in
' 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
'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
295 <H3><a name=
"crash">Why do I sometimes get bizarre crash problems using VC++
5/
6?
</a></H3>
297 Some crash problems can be due to inconsistent compiler
298 options (and of course this isn
'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>
305 VC++
5'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
'Minimum
312 Size
'. In Dialog Editor project, set to
'Customize: Favor Small
313 Code
' (and no others). This will then work.
<P>
315 <H3><a name=
"makefiles">How are the wxWindows makefiles edited under Windows?
</a></H3>
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>
320 Here are Vadim
's notes:
<P>
323 To use these new makefiles, you don
'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
'll need to modify the corresponding template (b32.t in this
328 example) and regenerate the makefile using tmake.
<P>
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
'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
't used it, so
334 I don
't know if it works as flawlessly as "perl tmake" does (note
335 for people knowing Perl: don
't try to run tmake with -w, it won
't
336 do you any good). Using it extremely simple: to regenerate makefile.b32
337 just go to distrib/msw/tmake and type
<P>
339 <pre>tmake -t b32 wxwin.pro -o ../../src/msw/makefile.b32
</pre><P>
341 The makefiles are untested - I don
't have any of Borland, Watcom or
342 Symantec and I don
'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>
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
'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>
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
't compile
361 them) - all this info is contained in this file.
<P>
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>
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
't create vc5.t because
369 I don
't need it and can
'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
'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>
377 <pre>tmake -t vc6 wxwin.pro -o ../../wxWindows.dsp
</pre><P>
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>
382 If all goes well, I
'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).
391 <H3><a name=
"vcdebug">How do you use VC++
's memory leak checking instead of that in wxWindows?
</a></H3>
396 On the VC++ level, it
'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
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
'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.
409 For simple situations it works like a charm. For something more complicated
410 like reading uninitialized memory a specialized tool is probably better...
418 <H3><a name=
"shortcutproblem">Why are menu hotkeys or shortcuts not working in my application?
</a></H3>
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
'used by the event handler.
<P>
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>
428 <H3><a name=
"#regconfig">Why can I not write to the HKLM part of the registry with wxRegConfig?
</a></H3>
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>
437 First, you can use wxRegKey directly, for example:
442 wxString idName(wxT("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\My Company\\My Product\\Stuff\\"));
445 regKey.SetName(idName);
449 if (!regKey.Create())
451 idName = wxT("HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\SOFTWARE\\My Company\\My Product\\Stuff\\");
453 regKey.SetName(idName);
454 if (!regKey.Create())
459 if (!regKey.SetValue(wxT("THING"), (long) thing)) err +=
1;
465 Or, you can employ this trick suggested by Istvan Kovacs:
468 class myGlobalConfig : public wxConfig
471 wxConfig ("myApp", "myCompany", "", "", wxCONFIG_USE_GLOBAL_FILE)
473 bool Write(const wxString& key, const wxString& value);
476 bool myGlobalConfig::Write (const wxString& key, const wxString& value)
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);
486 <H3><a name=
"#access">Is MS Active Accessibility supported?
</a></H3>
488 This is being worked on. Please see
<a href=
"http://www.wxwindows.org/access.htm">this page
</a>
489 for the current status.