docs/readme.txt

   1                wxWidgets 2.9.1 Release Notes
   2                =============================
   3
   4 Welcome to the latest release of wxWidgets, a cross-platform C++
   5 framework for writing advanced GUI applications using native
   6 controls where possible.
   7
   8 In addition to common and advanced GUI facilities such as frames,
   9 scrolling windows, toolbars, tree controls, icons, device contexts,
  10 printing, splitter windows and so on, there are wrappers for common
  11 file operations, and facilities for writing TCP/IP applications,
  12 thread handling, and more.
  13
  14 A detailed reference manual including in-depth overviews for various
  15 topics is supplied in various formats and can be accessed online at
  16 http://docs.wxwidgets.org/
  17
  18
  19 Note about naming: while 2.9.1 is called a "development" release,
  20 this only means that API is not guaranteed to remain unchanged in
  21 the subsequent 2.9.x releases, unlike in the stable 2.8.x branch. We
  22 believe the current version is stable and suitable for use in
  23 production environment.
  24
  25
  26
  27 Changes in this release
  28 -----------------------
  29
  30 This release contains several years worth of improvements compared
  31 to 2.8 version. Notably, Unicode support has been completely
  32 overhauled and made much easier to use. Debugging support, including
  33 when using a release build of the library, was much improved making
  34 it less likely that you use the library incorrectly. Many new GUI
  35 and base classes have been added or improved.
  36
  37 Please see the file docs/changes.txt for more details and make sure
  38 to read the section "Incompatible changes since 2.8" if you upgrade
  39 from a previous wxWidgets release.
  40
  41 This release introduces many important changes and we are looking
  42 forward to your feedback about them. In particular please let us
  43 know about any regressions compared to the previous versions (see
  44 the section "Bug reporting" below) so that we could fix them before
  45 3.0 release.
  46
  47
  48 Platforms supported
  49 -------------------
  50
  51 wxWidgets currently supports the following primary platforms:
  52
  53 - Windows 95/98/ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista, 7
  54 - Most Unix variants using the GTK+ toolkit (version 2.4 or newer)
  55 - Mac OS X (10.4 or newer) using either Carbon or Cocoa
  56
  57 There is some support for the following platforms:
  58
  59 - Most Unix variants with X11
  60 - Most Unix variants with Motif/Lesstif
  61 - Most Unix variants with GTK+ 1.2
  62 - OS/2
  63 - Windows CE (Pocket PC)
  64
  65 Most popular C++ compilers are supported; see the install.txt
  66 file for each platform (available via docs/html/index.htm) and
  67 http://wiki.wxwidgets.org/Supported_Platforms for the most up to
  68 date status.
  69
  70
  71 Files
  72 -----
  73
  74 The distribution is available in archive formats appropriate to the
  75 target system. See the download pages for details.
  76
  77
  78 Installation
  79 ------------
  80
  81 wxWidgets needs to be compiled before you can test out the samples
  82 or write your own applications. For installation information, please
  83 see the install.txt file in the docs subdirectory appropriate for
  84 the platform you use.
  85
  86
  87 Licence information
  88 -------------------
  89
  90 For licensing information, please see the files:
  91
  92   docs/preamble.txt
  93   docs/licence.txt
  94   docs/licendoc.txt
  95   docs/gpl.txt
  96   docs/lgpl.txt
  97
  98 Although this may seem complex, it is there to allow authors of
  99 proprietary/commercial applications to use wxWidgets in addition
 100 to those writing GPL'ed applications. In summary, the licence is
 101 LGPL plus a clause allowing unrestricted distribution of
 102 application binaries. To answer a FAQ, you don't have to
 103 distribute any source if you wish to write commercial
 104 applications using wxWidgets.
 105
 106 However, if you distribute wxGTK or wxMotif (with Lesstif)
 107 version of your application, don't forget that it is linked
 108 against GTK+ (or Lesstif) which is covered by LGPL *without*
 109 exception notice. Under Linux systems your app is probably linked
 110 against LGPL glibc as well. Please read carefully LGPL, section
 111 6. which describes conditions for distribution of closed source
 112 applications linked against LGPL library. Basically you should
 113 link dynamically and include source code of LGPL libraries with
 114 your product (unless it is already present in user's system -
 115 like glibc usually is).
 116
 117 If you use TIFF image handler, please see src/tiff/COPYRIGHT
 118 for libtiff licence details.
 119
 120 If you use JPEG image handler, documentation for your program
 121 should contain following sentence: "This software is based in
 122 part on the work of the Independent JPEG Group". See
 123 src/jpeg/README for details.
 124
 125 If you use wxRegEx class on a system without native regular
 126 expressions support (i.e. MS Windows), see src/regex/COPYRIGHT
 127 file for Henry Spencer's regular expression library copyright.
 128
 129 If you use wxXML classes or XRC, see src/expat/COPYING for licence details.
 130
 131
 132 Documentation
 133 -------------
 134
 135 wxWidgets documentation is available online at
 136 http://docs.wxwidgets.org/2.9.1/ and can also be downloaded in HTML
 137 format. To generate documentation in other formats (PDF, CHM, ...)
 138 please use the scripts in docs/doxygen directory.
 139
 140
 141 Bug reporting
 142 -------------
 143
 144 The wxWidgets bug tracker can be browsed at:
 145
 146     http://trac.wxwidgets.org/report
 147
 148 Please use the search function of our Trac installation to find
 149 any possibly relevant bugs before reporting new ones. Also please
 150 notice that often trying to correct the bug yourself is the
 151 quickest way to fix it. Even if you fail to do it, you may
 152 discover valuable information allowing us to fix it while doing
 153 it. We also give much higher priority to bug reports with patches
 154 fixing the problems so this ensures that your report will be
 155 addressed sooner.
 156
 157
 158 Further information
 159 -------------------
 160
 161 The wxWidgets Web site is located at:
 162
 163   http://www.wxwidgets.org
 164
 165 The main wxWidgets ftp site is at:
 166
 167   ftp://biolpc22.york.ac.uk/pub
 168
 169 A wxWidgets CD-ROM with the latest distribution plus an HTML
 170 front-end and hundreds of MB of compilers, utilities and other
 171 material may be ordered from the CD-ROM page: see the wxWidgets
 172 web site.
 173
 174 Have fun!
 175
 176 The wxWidgets Team, July 2010
 177