docs/readme.txt

   1                wxWidgets 2.9.4 Release Notes
   2                =============================
   3
   4 Welcome to the latest release of wxWidgets, a free cross-platform C++
   5 framework for writing advanced GUI applications using native controls.
   6
   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, facilities for writing network applications,
  12 thread handling, and so on. You can learn more about wxWidgets at
  13
  14         http://www.wxwidgets.org/
  15
  16
  17 wxWidgets sources are available for download from
  18
  19         https://sourceforge.net/projects/wxwindows/files/2.9.4/
  20
  21 or
  22
  23         ftp://ftp.wxwidgets.org/pub/2.9.4/
  24
  25 Please see the "Files" section below for the description of various
  26 files available at these locations.
  27
  28
  29 A detailed reference manual including in-depth overviews for various
  30 topics is supplied in various formats and can be accessed online at
  31
  32         http://docs.wxwidgets.org/2.9.4/
  33
  34
  35 Note about naming: while 2.9.4 is called a "development" release,
  36 this only means that API is not guaranteed to remain unchanged in the
  37 subsequent 2.9.x releases (although it is still likely that it will),
  38 unlike in the stable 2.8.x branch. We believe the current version is
  39 stable and suitable for use in production environment.
  40
  41
  42
  43 Changes in this release
  44 -----------------------
  45
  46 This release contains several years worth of improvements compared
  47 to 2.8 version. Notably, Unicode support has been completely
  48 overhauled and made much easier to use. Debugging support, including
  49 when using a release build of the library, was much improved making
  50 it less likely that you use the library incorrectly. Many new GUI
  51 and base classes have been added or improved.
  52
  53 Please see the file docs/changes.txt for more details and make sure
  54 to read the section "Incompatible changes since 2.8" if you upgrade
  55 from a previous wxWidgets release.
  56
  57 This release introduces many important changes and we are looking
  58 forward to your feedback about them. In particular please let us
  59 know about any regressions compared to the previous versions (see
  60 the section "Bug reporting" below) so that we could fix them before
  61 3.0 release.
  62
  63
  64 Platforms supported
  65 -------------------
  66
  67 wxWidgets currently supports the following primary platforms:
  68
  69 - Windows 95/98/ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista, 7
  70 - Most Unix variants using the GTK+ toolkit (version 2.4 or newer)
  71 - Mac OS X (10.4 or newer) using either Carbon or Cocoa
  72
  73 There is some support for the following platforms:
  74
  75 - Most Unix variants with X11
  76 - Most Unix variants with Motif/Lesstif
  77 - Most Unix variants with GTK+ 1.2
  78 - OS/2
  79 - Windows CE (Pocket PC)
  80
  81 Most popular C++ compilers are supported; see the install.txt
  82 file for each platform (available via docs/html/index.htm) and
  83 http://wiki.wxwidgets.org/Supported_Platforms for the most up to
  84 date status.
  85
  86
  87 Files
  88 -----
  89
  90 wxWidgets is distributed in source form in several archive formats.
  91 ZIP and 7z archives are for Microsoft Windows users and contain the
  92 files with DOS/Windows line endings while the compressed tar archives
  93 for Unix systems users (including OS X) and contain the files with
  94 Unix line endings. Please notice that some Windows tools still don't
  95 accept files with Unix line endings and that compiling sources with
  96 DOS line endings under Unix will fail, so please choose the correct
  97 file for your system.
  98
  99 In addition to the sources, documentation in HTML, CHM and HTB
 100 (wxWidgets help viewer) formats is provided as well as an installer
 101 for Microsoft Windows. Notice that you will still need to compile
 102 wxWidgets even when using the installer.
 103
 104
 105 Installation
 106 ------------
 107
 108 wxWidgets needs to be compiled before you can test out the samples
 109 or write your own applications. For installation information, please
 110 see the install.txt file in the docs subdirectory appropriate for
 111 the platform you use.
 112
 113
 114 Licence information
 115 -------------------
 116
 117 For licensing information, please see the files:
 118
 119   docs/preamble.txt
 120   docs/licence.txt
 121   docs/licendoc.txt
 122   docs/gpl.txt
 123   docs/lgpl.txt
 124
 125 Although this may seem complex, it is there to allow authors of
 126 proprietary/commercial applications to use wxWidgets in addition
 127 to those writing GPL'ed applications. In summary, the licence is
 128 LGPL plus a clause allowing unrestricted distribution of
 129 application binaries. To answer a FAQ, you don't have to
 130 distribute any source if you wish to write commercial
 131 applications using wxWidgets.
 132
 133 However, if you distribute wxGTK or wxMotif (with Lesstif)
 134 version of your application, don't forget that it is linked
 135 against GTK+ (or Lesstif) which is covered by LGPL *without*
 136 exception notice. Under Linux systems your app is probably linked
 137 against LGPL glibc as well. Please read carefully LGPL, section
 138 6. which describes conditions for distribution of closed source
 139 applications linked against LGPL library. Basically you should
 140 link dynamically and include source code of LGPL libraries with
 141 your product (unless it is already present in user's system -
 142 like glibc usually is).
 143
 144 If you use TIFF image handler, please see src/tiff/COPYRIGHT
 145 for libtiff licence details.
 146
 147 If you use JPEG image handler, documentation for your program
 148 should contain following sentence: "This software is based in
 149 part on the work of the Independent JPEG Group". See
 150 src/jpeg/README for details.
 151
 152 If you use wxRegEx class on a system without native regular
 153 expressions support (i.e. MS Windows), see src/regex/COPYRIGHT
 154 file for Henry Spencer's regular expression library copyright.
 155
 156 If you use wxXML classes or XRC, see src/expat/COPYING for licence details.
 157
 158
 159 Documentation
 160 -------------
 161
 162 wxWidgets documentation is available online at
 163 http://docs.wxwidgets.org/2.9.4/ and can also be downloaded in HTML
 164 format. To generate documentation in other formats (PDF, CHM, ...)
 165 please use the scripts in docs/doxygen directory.
 166
 167
 168 Bug reporting
 169 -------------
 170
 171 The wxWidgets bug tracker can be browsed at:
 172
 173     http://trac.wxwidgets.org/report
 174
 175 Please use the search function of our Trac installation to find
 176 any possibly relevant bugs before reporting new ones. Also please
 177 notice that often trying to correct the bug yourself is the
 178 quickest way to fix it. Even if you fail to do it, you may
 179 discover valuable information allowing us to fix it while doing
 180 it. We also give much higher priority to bug reports with patches
 181 fixing the problems so this ensures that your report will be
 182 addressed sooner.
 183
 184
 185 Further information
 186 -------------------
 187
 188 The wxWidgets Web site is located at:
 189
 190   http://www.wxwidgets.org/
 191
 192 The main wxWidgets ftp site is at:
 193
 194   ftp://ftp.wxwidgets.org/pub/
 195
 196 A wxWidgets CD-ROM with the latest distribution plus an HTML
 197 front-end and hundreds of MB of compilers, utilities and other
 198 material may be ordered from the CD-ROM page: see the wxWidgets
 199 web site.
 200
 201 Have fun!
 202
 203 The wxWidgets Team, December 2011