docs/doxygen/mainpages/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 licence
   7 /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
   8
   9
  10 /**
  11
  12 @page page_introduction Introduction
  13
  14 @li @ref page_introduction_whatis
  15 @li @ref page_introduction_why
  16 @li @ref page_introduction_requirements
  17 @li @ref page_introduction_where
  18 @li @ref page_introduction_acknowledgements
  19
  20
  21 <hr>
  22
  23
  24 @section page_introduction_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
  46
  47 @section page_introduction_why Why another cross-platform development tool?
  48
  49 wxWidgets was developed to provide a cheap and flexible way to maximize
  50 investment in GUI application development.  While a number of commercial
  51 class libraries already existed for cross-platform development,
  52 none met all of the following criteria:
  53
  54 @li low price;
  55 @li source availability;
  56 @li simplicity of programming;
  57 @li support for a wide range of compilers.
  58
  59 Since wxWidgets was started, several other free or almost-free
  60 GUI frameworks have emerged. However, none has the range of
  61 features, flexibility, documentation and the well-established
  62 development team that wxWidgets has.
  63
  64 As open source software, wxWidgets has benefited from comments,
  65 ideas, bug fixes, enhancements and the sheer enthusiasm of
  66 users. This gives wxWidgets a certain advantage over its
  67 commercial competitors (and over free libraries without an
  68 independent development team), plus a robustness against the
  69 transience of one individual or company. This openness and
  70 availability of source code is especially important when the
  71 future of thousands of lines of application code may depend upon
  72 the longevity of the underlying class library.
  73
  74 Version 2 goes much further than previous versions in terms of
  75 generality and features, allowing applications to be produced
  76 that are often indistinguishable from those produced using
  77 single-platform toolkits such as Motif, GTK+ and MFC.
  78
  79 The importance of using a platform-independent class library
  80 cannot be overstated, since GUI application development is very
  81 time-consuming, and sustained popularity of particular GUIs
  82 cannot be guaranteed. Code can very quickly become obsolete if
  83 it addresses the wrong platform or audience.  wxWidgets helps to
  84 insulate the programmer from these winds of change. Although
  85 wxWidgets may not be suitable for every application (such as an
  86 OLE-intensive program), it provides access to most of the
  87 functionality a GUI program normally requires, plus many extras
  88 such as network programming, PostScript output, and HTML
  89 rendering; and it can of course be extended as needs dictate.
  90 As a bonus, it provides a far cleaner and easier programming
  91 interface than the native APIs. Programmers may find it
  92 worthwhile to use wxWidgets even if they are developing on only
  93 one platform.
  94
  95 It is impossible to sum up the functionality of wxWidgets in a few paragraphs, but
  96 here are some of the benefits:
  97
  98 @li Low cost (free, in fact!)
  99 @li You get the source.
 100 @li Available on a variety of popular platforms.
 101 @li Works with almost all popular C++ compilers and Python.
 102 @li Over 70 example programs.
 103 @li Over 1000 pages of printable and on-line documentation.
 104 @li Simple-to-use, object-oriented API.
 105 @li Flexible event system.
 106 @li Graphics calls include lines, rounded rectangles, splines, polylines, etc.
 107 @li Constraint-based and sizer-based layouts.
 108 @li Print/preview and document/view architectures.
 109 @li Toolbar, notebook, tree control, advanced list control classes.
 110 @li PostScript generation under Unix, normal MS Windows printing on the PC.
 111 @li MDI (Multiple Document Interface) support.
 112 @li Can be used to create DLLs under Windows, dynamic libraries on Unix.
 113 @li Common dialogs for file browsing, printing, colour selection, etc.
 114 @li Under MS Windows, support for creating metafiles and copying them to the clipboard.
 115 @li An API for invoking help from applications.
 116 @li Ready-to-use HTML window (supporting a subset of HTML).
 117 @li Network support via a family of socket and protocol classes.
 118 @li Support for platform independent image processing.
 119 @li Built-in support for many file formats (BMP, PNG, JPEG, GIF, XPM, PNM, PCX).
 120
 121
 122 @section page_introduction_requirements wxWidgets requirements
 123
 124 To make use of wxWidgets, you currently need one of the following setups.
 125
 126 (a) MS-Windows:
 127
 128 @li A 32-bit or 64-bit PC running MS Windows.
 129 @li A Windows compiler: MS Visual C++ (embedded Visual C++ for wxWinCE
 130     port), Borland C++, Watcom C++, Cygwin, MinGW, Metrowerks CodeWarrior,
 131     Digital Mars C++. See @c install.txt for details about compiler
 132     version supported.
 133
 134 (b) Unix:
 135
 136 @li Almost any C++ compiler, including GNU C++ and many Unix vendors
 137     compilers such as Sun CC, HP-UX aCC or SGI mipsPro.
 138 @li Almost any Unix workstation, and one of: GTK+ 2.4 or higher (GTK+ 1.2.10
 139     may still be supported but wxGTK1 port is not maintained any longer and lacks
 140     many features of wxGTK2), Motif 1.2 or higher or Lesstif. If using the wxX11
 141     port, no such widget set is required.
 142
 143 (c) Mac OS/Mac OS X:
 144
 145 @li A PowerPC or Intel Mac running Mac OS X 10.4 or higher
 146 @li The Apple Developer Tools (eg. GNU C++)
 147
 148 Under all platforms it's recommended to have large amounts of free hard disk
 149 space. The exact amount needed depends on the port, compiler and build
 150 configurations but to give an example, a debug build of the library may take up
 151 to 500MB.
 152
 153
 154
 155 @section page_introduction_where Availability and location of wxWidgets
 156
 157 wxWidgets is available by anonymous FTP and World Wide Web
 158 from ftp://biolpc22.york.ac.uk/pub and/or http://www.wxwidgets.org.
 159
 160 You can also buy a CD-ROM using the form on the Web site.
 161
 162
 163
 164 @section page_introduction_acknowledgements Acknowledgements
 165
 166 The following is the list of the core, active developers of wxWidgets which keep
 167 it running and have provided an invaluable, extensive and high-quality amount of
 168 changes over the many of years of wxWidgets' life:
 169
 170 @li Julian Smart
 171 @li Vadim Zeitlin
 172 @li Robert Roebling
 173 @li Robin Dunn
 174 @li Stefan Csomor
 175 @li Vaclav Slavik
 176 @li Paul Cornett
 177 @li Wlodzimierz `ABX' Skiba
 178 @li Chris Elliott
 179 @li David Elliott
 180 @li Kevin Hock
 181 @li Stefan Neis
 182 @li Michael Wetherell
 183
 184 We would particularly like to thank the following peoples for their contributions
 185 to wxWidgets, and the many others who have been involved in the project over the years.
 186 Apologies for any unintentional omissions from this alphabetic list:
 187
 188 Yiorgos Adamopoulos, Jamshid Afshar, Alejandro Aguilar-Sierra, AIAI,
 189 Patrick Albert, Karsten Ballueder, Mattia Barbon, Michael Bedward,
 190 Kai Bendorf, Yura Bidus, Keith Gary Boyce, Chris Breeze, Pete Britton,
 191 Ian Brown, C. Buckley, Marco Cavallini, Dmitri Chubraev, Robin Corbet, Cecil Coupe,
 192 Andrew Davison, Gilles Depeyrot, Neil Dudman, Hermann Dunkel, Jos van Eijndhoven,
 193 Tom Felici, Thomas Fettig, Matthew Flatt, Pasquale Foggia, Josep Fortiana, Todd Fries,
 194 Dominic Gallagher, Guillermo Rodriguez Garcia, Wolfram Gloger, Norbert Grotz,
 195 Stefan Gunter, Bill Hale, Patrick Halke, Stefan Hammes, Guillaume Helle,
 196 Harco de Hilster, Cord Hockemeyer, Markus Holzem, Olaf Klein, Leif Jensen,
 197 Bart Jourquin, Guilhem Lavaux, Ron Lee, Jan Lessner, Nicholas Liebmann,
 198 Torsten Liermann, Per Lindqvist, Francesco Montorsi, Thomas Runge, Tatu M&auml;nnist&ouml;,
 199 Scott Maxwell, Thomas Myers, Oliver Niedung, Ryan Norton, Hernan Otero,
 200 Ian Perrigo, Timothy Peters, Giordano Pezzoli, Harri Pasanen, Thomaso Paoletti,
 201 Garrett Potts, Marcel Rasche, Dino Scaringella, Jobst Schmalenbach, Arthur Seaton,
 202 Paul Shirley, Stein Somers, Petr Smilauer, Neil Smith, Kari Syst&auml;, George Tasker,
 203 Arthur Tetzlaff-Deas, Jonathan Tonberg, Jyrki Tuomi, Janos Vegh, Andrea Venturoli,
 204 David Webster, Otto Wyss, Xiaokun Zhu, Edward Zimmermann.
 205
 206 Many thanks also to AIAI for being willing to release the original version of
 207 wxWidgets into the public domain, and to our patient partners.
 208
 209 `Graphplace', the basis for the wxGraphLayout library, is copyright Dr. Jos
 210 T.J. van Eijndhoven of Eindhoven University of Technology. The code has
 211 been used in wxGraphLayout (not in wxWidgets anymore) with his permission.
 212
 213 We also acknowledge the author of XFIG, the excellent Unix drawing tool,
 214 from the source of which we have borrowed some spline drawing code.
 215 His copyright is included below.
 216
 217 <em>
 218 XFig2.1 is copyright (c) 1985 by Supoj Sutanthavibul. Permission to
 219 use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this software and its
 220 documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided
 221 that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that
 222 copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting
 223 documentation, and that the name of M.I.T. not be used in advertising or
 224 publicity pertaining to distribution of the software without specific,
 225 written prior permission.  M.I.T. makes no representations about the
 226 suitability of this software for any purpose.  It is provided ``as is''
 227 without express or implied warranty.
 228 </em>
 229
 230 */