docs/doxygen/introduction.h

   1 /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
   2 // Name:        introduction.h
   3 // Purpose:     Introduction page of the Doxygen manual
   4 // Author:      wxWidgets team
   5 // RCS-ID:      $Id$
   6 // Licence:     wxWindows license
   7 /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
   8
   9
  10 /*!
  11
  12  @page introduction_page Introduction
  13
  14  @li @ref whatis
  15  @li @ref why
  16  @li @ref requirements
  17  @li @ref where
  18  @li @ref acknowledgements
  19
  20
  21  <hr>
  22
  23
  24  @section whatis What is wxWidgets?
  25
  26  wxWidgets is a C++ framework providing GUI (Graphical User
  27  Interface) and other facilities on more than one platform.  Version 2 and higher
  28  currently support all desktop versions of MS Windows, Unix with GTK+ 1.x or 2.x,
  29  Unix with Motif, Unix with just X11, Unix with DirectFB, Mac OS X, OS/2.
  30
  31  wxWidgets was originally developed at the Artificial Intelligence
  32  Applications Institute, University of Edinburgh, for internal use,
  33  and was first made publicly available in 1992.
  34  Version 2 is a vastly improved version written and maintained by
  35  Julian Smart, Robert Roebling, Vadim Zeitlin, Vaclav Slavik and many others.
  36
  37  This manual contains a class reference and topic overviews.
  38  For a selection of wxWidgets tutorials, please see the documentation page
  39  on the wxWidgets web site: http://www.wxwidgets.org.
  40
  41  Please note that in the following, ``MS Windows" often refers to all
  42  platforms related to Microsoft Windows, including 32-bit and 64-bit
  43  variants, unless otherwise stated. All trademarks are acknowledged.
  44
  45  @section why Why another cross-platform development tool?
  46
  47  wxWidgets was developed to provide a cheap and flexible way to maximize
  48  investment in GUI application development.  While a number of commercial
  49  class libraries already existed for cross-platform development,
  50  none met all of the following criteria:
  51
  52  @li low price;
  53  @li source availability;
  54  @li simplicity of programming;
  55  @li support for a wide range of compilers.
  56
  57  Since wxWidgets was started, several other free or almost-free
  58  GUI frameworks have emerged. However, none has the range of
  59  features, flexibility, documentation and the well-established
  60  development team that wxWidgets has.
  61
  62  As open source software, wxWidgets has benefited from comments,
  63  ideas, bug fixes, enhancements and the sheer enthusiasm of
  64  users. This gives wxWidgets a certain advantage over its
  65  commercial competitors (and over free libraries without an
  66  independent development team), plus a robustness against the
  67  transience of one individual or company. This openness and
  68  availability of source code is especially important when the
  69  future of thousands of lines of application code may depend upon
  70  the longevity of the underlying class library.
  71
  72  Version 2 goes much further than previous versions in terms of
  73  generality and features, allowing applications to be produced
  74  that are often indistinguishable from those produced using
  75  single-platform toolkits such as Motif, GTK+ and MFC.
  76
  77  The importance of using a platform-independent class library
  78  cannot be overstated, since GUI application development is very
  79  time-consuming, and sustained popularity of particular GUIs
  80  cannot be guaranteed. Code can very quickly become obsolete if
  81  it addresses the wrong platform or audience.  wxWidgets helps to
  82  insulate the programmer from these winds of change. Although
  83  wxWidgets may not be suitable for every application (such as an
  84  OLE-intensive program), it provides access to most of the
  85  functionality a GUI program normally requires, plus many extras
  86  such as network programming, PostScript output, and HTML
  87  rendering; and it can of course be extended as needs dictate.
  88  As a bonus, it provides a far cleaner and easier programming
  89  interface than the native APIs. Programmers may find it
  90  worthwhile to use wxWidgets even if they are developing on only
  91  one platform.
  92
  93  It is impossible to sum up the functionality of wxWidgets in a few paragraphs, but
  94  here are some of the benefits:
  95
  96  @li Low cost (free, in fact!)
  97  @li You get the source.
  98  @li Available on a variety of popular platforms.
  99  @li Works with almost all popular C++ compilers and Python.
 100  @li Over 70 example programs.
 101  @li Over 1000 pages of printable and on-line documentation.
 102  @li Simple-to-use, object-oriented API.
 103  @li Flexible event system.
 104  @li Graphics calls include lines, rounded rectangles, splines, polylines, etc.
 105  @li Constraint-based and sizer-based layouts.
 106  @li Print/preview and document/view architectures.
 107  @li Toolbar, notebook, tree control, advanced list control classes.
 108  @li PostScript generation under Unix, normal MS Windows printing on the PC.
 109  @li MDI (Multiple Document Interface) support.
 110  @li Can be used to create DLLs under Windows, dynamic libraries on Unix.
 111  @li Common dialogs for file browsing, printing, colour selection, etc.
 112  @li Under MS Windows, support for creating metafiles and copying them to the clipboard.
 113  @li An API for invoking help from applications.
 114  @li Ready-to-use HTML window (supporting a subset of HTML).
 115  @li Network support via a family of socket and protocol classes.
 116  @li Support for platform independent image processing.
 117  @li Built-in support for many file formats (BMP, PNG, JPEG, GIF, XPM, PNM, PCX).
 118  @li Includes Tex2RTF, to allow you to produce your own documentation
 119      in Windows Help, HTML and Word RTF formats.
 120
 121
 122
 123  @section requirements wxWidgets requirements
 124
 125  To make use of wxWidgets, you currently need one of the following setups.
 126
 127  (a) MS-Windows:
 128
 129  @li A 32-bit or 64-bit PC running MS Windows.
 130  @li A Windows compiler: MS Visual C++ (embedded Visual C++ for wxWinCE
 131      port), Borland C++, Watcom C++, Cygwin, MinGW, Metrowerks CodeWarrior,
 132      Digital Mars C++. See @c install.txt for details about compiler
 133      version supported.
 134
 135  (b) Unix:
 136
 137  @li Almost any C++ compiler, including GNU C++ and many Unix vendors
 138      compilers such as Sun CC, HP-UX aCC or SGI mipsPro.
 139  @li Almost any Unix workstation, and one of: GTK+ 2.4 or higher (GTK+ 1.2.10
 140      may still be supported but wxGTK1 port is not maintained any longer and lacks
 141      many features of wxGTK2), Motif 1.2 or higher or Lesstif. If using the wxX11
 142      port, no such widget set is required.
 143
 144  (c) Mac OS/Mac OS X:
 145
 146  @li A PowerPC or Intel Mac running Mac OS X 10.3 or higher
 147  @li The Apple Developer Tools (eg. GNU C++) or MetroWerks CodeWarrior (not
 148      actively supported)
 149
 150  Under all platforms it's recommended to have large amounts of free hard disk
 151  space. The exact amount needed depends on the port, compiler and build
 152  configurations but to give an example, a debug build of the library may take up
 153  to 500MB.
 154
 155
 156
 157  @section where Availability and location of wxWidgets
 158
 159  wxWidgets is available by anonymous FTP and World Wide Web
 160  from ftp://biolpc22.york.ac.uk/pub and/or http://www.wxwidgets.org.
 161
 162  You can also buy a CD-ROM using the form on the Web site.
 163
 164
 165
 166  @section acknowledgements Acknowledgements
 167
 168  The following is the list of the core, active developers of wxWidgets which keep
 169  it running and have provided an invaluable, extensive and high-quality amount of
 170  changes over the many of years of wxWidgets' life:
 171
 172  @li Julian Smart
 173  @li Vadim Zeitlin
 174  @li Robert Roebling
 175  @li Robin Dunn
 176  @li Stefan Csomor
 177  @li Vaclav Slavik
 178  @li Paul Cornett
 179  @li Wlodzimierz `ABX' Skiba
 180  @li Chris Elliott
 181  @li David Elliott
 182  @li Kevin Hock
 183  @li Stefan Neis
 184  @li Michael Wetherell
 185
 186  We would particularly like to thank the following peoples for their contributions
 187  to wxWidgets, and the many others who have been involved in the project over the years.
 188  Apologies for any unintentional omissions from this alphabetic list:
 189
 190  Yiorgos Adamopoulos, Jamshid Afshar, Alejandro Aguilar-Sierra, AIAI,
 191  Patrick Albert, Karsten Ballueder, Mattia Barbon, Michael Bedward,
 192  Kai Bendorf, Yura Bidus, Keith Gary Boyce, Chris Breeze, Pete Britton,
 193  Ian Brown, C. Buckley, Marco Cavallini, Dmitri Chubraev, Robin Corbet, Cecil Coupe,
 194  Andrew Davison, Gilles Depeyrot, Neil Dudman, Hermann Dunkel, Jos van Eijndhoven,
 195  Tom Felici, Thomas Fettig, Matthew Flatt, Pasquale Foggia, Josep Fortiana, Todd Fries,
 196  Dominic Gallagher, Guillermo Rodriguez Garcia, Wolfram Gloger, Norbert Grotz,
 197  Stefan Gunter, Bill Hale, Patrick Halke, Stefan Hammes, Guillaume Helle,
 198  Harco de Hilster, Cord Hockemeyer, Markus Holzem, Olaf Klein, Leif Jensen,
 199  Bart Jourquin, Guilhem Lavaux, Ron Lee, Jan Lessner, Nicholas Liebmann,
 200  Torsten Liermann, Per Lindqvist, Francesco Montorsi, Thomas Runge, Tatu M&auml;nnist&ouml;,
 201  Scott Maxwell, Thomas Myers, Oliver Niedung, Ryan Norton, Hernan Otero,
 202  Ian Perrigo, Timothy Peters, Giordano Pezzoli, Harri Pasanen, Thomaso Paoletti,
 203  Garrett Potts, Marcel Rasche, Dino Scaringella, Jobst Schmalenbach, Arthur Seaton,
 204  Paul Shirley, Stein Somers, Petr Smilauer, Neil Smith, Kari Syst&auml;, George Tasker,
 205  Arthur Tetzlaff-Deas, Jonathan Tonberg, Jyrki Tuomi, Janos Vegh, Andrea Venturoli,
 206  David Webster, Otto Wyss, Xiaokun Zhu, Edward Zimmermann.
 207
 208  Many thanks also to AIAI for being willing to release the original version of
 209  wxWidgets into the public domain, and to our patient partners.
 210
 211  `Graphplace', the basis for the wxGraphLayout library, is copyright Dr. Jos
 212  T.J. van Eijndhoven of Eindhoven University of Technology. The code has
 213  been used in wxGraphLayout (not in wxWidgets anymore) with his permission.
 214
 215  We also acknowledge the author of XFIG, the excellent Unix drawing tool,
 216  from the source of which we have borrowed some spline drawing code.
 217  His copyright is included below.
 218
 219  <em>
 220  XFig2.1 is copyright (c) 1985 by Supoj Sutanthavibul. Permission to
 221  use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this software and its
 222  documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided
 223  that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that
 224  copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting
 225  documentation, and that the name of M.I.T. not be used in advertising or
 226  publicity pertaining to distribution of the software without specific,
 227  written prior permission.  M.I.T. makes no representations about the
 228  suitability of this software for any purpose.  It is provided ``as is''
 229  without express or implied warranty.
 230  </em>
 231
 232 */