docs/html/faqgen.htm

   1
   2 <HTML>
   3
   4 <HEAD>
   5 <TITLE>wxWindows 2 FAQ: General</TITLE>
   6 </HEAD>
   7
   8 <BODY BGCOLOR=#FFFFFF TEXT=#000000 VLINK="#00376A" LINK="#00529C" ALINK="#313063">
   9
  10 <font face="Arial, Lucida Sans, Helvetica">
  11
  12 <table width=100% border=0 cellpadding=3 cellspacing=0>
  13 <tr>
  14 <td bgcolor="#004080" align=left height=24 background="images/bluetitlegradient.gif">
  15 <font size=+1 face="Arial, Lucida Sans, Helvetica" color="#FFFFFF">
  16 <b>wxWindows 2 FAQ: General</b>
  17 </font>
  18 </td>
  19 </tr>
  20 </table>
  21
  22 <P>
  23
  24 See also <a href="faq.htm">top-level FAQ page</a>.
  25 <hr>
  26 <h3>List of questions in this category</h3>
  27 <ul>
  28 <li><a href="#whatis">What is wxWindows?</a></li>
  29 <li><a href="#licence">Can I use wxWindows 2 for both proprietary projects, and GPL&#39;ed projects?</a></li>
  30 <li><a href="#support">Is there support?</a></li>
  31 <li><a href="#users">Who uses wxWindows?</a></li>
  32 <li><a href="#platforms">What platforms are supported by wxWindows?</a></li>
  33 <li><a href="#specific">How does wxWindows support platform-specific features?</a></li>
  34 <li><a href="#stl">Does wxWindows use STL? or the standard string class?</a></li>
  35 <li><a href="#richedit">Is there a rich edit/markup widget for wxWindows?</a></ li>
  36 <li><a href="#exceptions">How to use C++ exceptions with wxWindows?</a></ li>
  37 <li><a href="#dev">How is wxWindows being developed?</a></li>
  38 <li><a href="#distrib">How is wxWindows distributed?</a></li>
  39 <li><a href="#future">What are the plans for the future?</a></li>
  40 <li><a href="#base">What is wxBase?</a></li>
  41 <li><a href="#univ">What is wxUniversal?</a></li>
  42 <li><a href="#jave">What about Java?</a></li>
  43 <li><a href="#help">How can I help the project?</a></li>
  44 </ul>
  45 <hr>
  46
  47 <H3><a name="whatis">What is wxWindows?</a></H3>
  48
  49 wxWindows is a class library that allows you to compile graphical C++ programs on a range of
  50 different platforms. wxWindows defines a common API across platforms, but uses the native graphical user interface (GUI) on each platform,
  51 so your program will take on the native &#39;look and feel&#39; that users are familiar with.<P>
  52
  53 Although GUI applications are mostly built programmatically, there is a dialog editor to help
  54 build attractive dialogs and panels. Robert Roebling&#39;s <a href="http://www.roebling.com">wxDesigner</a>
  55 makes light work of resizable, portable dialogs.<P>
  56
  57 You don&#39;t have to use C++ to use wxWindows: there is a <a href="http://wxpython.org">Python interface</a> for wxWindows 2,
  58 and also a <a href="http://wxperl.sourceforge.net" target=_top>Perl interface</a>.
  59 <P>
  60
  61 <h3><a name="licence">Can I use wxWindows 2 for both proprietary (commercial) projects, and GPL&#39;ed projects?</a></h3>
  62
  63 Yes. Please see the <a href="newlicen.htm">licence</a> for details, but basically
  64 you can distribute proprietary binaries without distributing any source code, and neither will wxWindows
  65 conflict with GPL code you may be using or developing with it.
  66 <P>
  67 The conditions for using wxWindows 2 are the same whether you are a personal, academic
  68 or commercial developer.
  69 <P>
  70
  71 <h3><a name="support">Is there support?</a></h3>
  72
  73 No official support, but the mailing list is very helpful and some people say that
  74 wxWindows support is better than for much commercial software. The developers are
  75 keen to fix bugs as soon as possible, though obviously there are no guarantees.
  76 <P>
  77
  78 <H3><a name="users">Who uses wxWindows?</a></H3>
  79
  80 Many organisations - commercial, government, and academic - across the
  81 world. It&#39;s impossible to estimate the true number of users, since
  82 wxWindows is obtained by many different means, and we cannot monitor
  83 distribution. The mailing list contains around 300-400 entries which is
  84 quite large for a list of this type.<P>
  85
  86 See <a href="users.htm">Users</a> for a list of some users and their applications, and
  87 also <A href="feedback.htm">Feedback</a> for comments.<P>
  88 Our highest-profile user yet is industry veteran and Lotus Corp. founder Mitch Kapor
  89 and his <a href="http://www.osafoundation.org" target=_new>Open Source Applications Foundation</a>.
  90 <P>
  91
  92 <H3><a name="platforms">What platforms are supported by wxWindows 2?</a></H3>
  93
  94 <ul>
  95 <li>Windows 3.1, Windows 95/98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows ME.
  96 <li>Linux and other Unix platforms with GTK+.
  97 <li>Unix with Motif or the free Motif clone Lesstif.
  98 <li>Mac OS.
  99 <li>Embedded platforms are being investigated. See the <a href="wxuniv.htm">wxUniversal</a> project.
 100 <li>An OS/2 port is in progress, and you can also compile wxWindows for GTK+ or Motif
 101 on OS/2.
 102 </ul>
 103 <P>
 104
 105 <H3><a name="specific">How does wxWindows 2 support platform-specific
 106 features?</a></H3>
 107
 108 This is a hotly-debated topic amongst the developers. My own philosophy
 109 is to make wxWindows as platform-independent as possible, but allow in a
 110 few classes (functions, window styles) that are platform-specific.
 111 For example, Windows metafiles and Windows 95 taskbar icons have
 112 their own classes on Windows, but nowhere else. Because these classes
 113 are provided and are wxWindows-compatible, it doesn&#39;t take much
 114 coding effort for an application programmer to add support for
 115 some functionality that the user on a particular platform might otherwise
 116 miss. Also, some classes that started off as platform-specific, such
 117 as the MDI classes, have been emulated on other platforms. I can imagine
 118 that even wxTaskBarIcon may be implemented for Unix desktops one day.
 119 <P>
 120
 121 In other words, wxWindows is not a &#39;lowest common denominator&#39; approach,
 122 but it will still be possible to write portable programs using the
 123 core API. Forbidding some platform-specific classes would be a stupid
 124 approach that would alienate many potential users, and encourage
 125 the perception that toolkits such as wxWindows are not up to the demands
 126 of today&#39;s sophisticated applications.<P>
 127
 128 Currently resources such as bitmaps and icons are handled in a platform-specific
 129 way, but it is hoped to reduce this dependence in due course.<P>
 130
 131 Another reason why wxWindows 2 is not a &#39;lowest common denominator&#39; toolkit is that
 132 some functionality missing on some platform has been provided using generic,
 133 platform-independent code, such as the wxTreeCtrl and wxListCtrl classes.<P>
 134
 135 <H3><a name="stl">Does wxWindows use STL? or the standard string class?</a></H3>
 136
 137 No. This is a much-discussed topic that has (many times) ended with the conclusion that it is in
 138 wxWindows&#39; best interests to avoid use of templates. Not all compilers can handle
 139 templates adequately so it would dramatically reduce the number of compilers
 140 and platforms that could be supported. It would also be undersirable to make
 141 wxWindows dependent on another large library that may have to be downloaded and installed.
 142 In addition, use of templates can lead to executable bloat, which is something
 143 wxWindows 2 is strenously trying to avoid.<P>
 144
 145 The standard C++ string class is not used, again because it is not available to all compilers,
 146 and it is not necessarily a very efficient implementation. Also, we retain more flexibility
 147 by being able to modify our own string class. Some compatibility with the string class
 148 has been built into wxString.<P>
 149
 150 There is nothing to stop an application using templates or the string class for its own
 151 purposes. With wxWindows debugging options on, you may find you get errors when including
 152 STL headers. You can work around it either by switching off memory checking,
 153 or by adding this to a header before you include any STL files:<P>
 154
 155 <PRE>
 156 &#35;ifdef new
 157 &#35;undef new
 158 &#35;endif
 159 </PRE>
 160
 161 <P>
 162
 163
 164 <H3><a name="richedit">Is there a rich edit/markup widget for wxWindows 2?</a></H3>
 165
 166 These are the possibilities so far:<P>
 167
 168 <ul>
 169 <li>See <a href="http://www.scintilla.org" target=_top>www.scintilla.org</a> for
 170 a very nice syntax-highlighting editor widget. Robin Dunn has written a wxWindows wrapper
 171 for this widget, available in the wxWindows distribution under contrib/src/stc.
 172 <li>If you only need to display marked-up information, rather than edit it,
 173 then wxHTML will suit your needs. wxHTML is built into wxWindows - please see the reference
 174 manual for details, and samples/html.
 175 <li>There are rich edit widgets in both WIN32 and GTK+, but there is currently
 176 no wxWindows wrapper for these (but text attribute functions are being added in the wxWindows 2.3.x series).
 177 </ul>
 178
 179 <P>
 180
 181 <h3><a name="exceptions">How to use C++ exceptions with wxWindows?</a></h3>
 182
 183 wxWindows library itself is unfortunately <i>not</i> exception-safe (as its
 184 initial version predates, by far, the addition of the exceptions to the C++
 185 language). However you can still use the exceptions in your own code and use
 186 the other libraries using the exceptions for the error reporting together with
 187 wxWindows.
 188
 189 <p>
 190 There are a few issues to keep in mind, though:
 191 <ul>
 192     <li>You shouldn&#39;t let the exceptions propagate through wxWindows code,
 193         in particular you should always catch the exceptions thrown by the
 194         functions called from an event handler in the handler itself and not
 195         let them propagate upwards to wxWindows.
 196
 197     <li>You may need to ensure that the compiler support for the exceptions is
 198         enabled as, considering that wxWindows itself doesn&#39;t use the
 199         exceptions and turning their support on results in the library size
 200         augmentation of 10% to 20%, it is turned off by default for a few
 201         compilers. Moreover, for gcc (or at least its mingw version) you must
 202         also turn on the RTTI support to be able to use the exceptions, so you
 203         should use <tt>--disable-no_rtti --disable-no_exceptions</tt> options
 204         when configuring the library (attention to the double negation).
 205 </ul>
 206
 207 <p>
 208
 209 <H3><a name="dev">How is wxWindows being developed?</a></H3>
 210
 211 We are using the <a href="cvs.htm">CVS</a> system to develop and maintain wxWindows. This allows
 212 us to make alterations and upload them instantly to the server, from
 213 which others can update their source.<P>
 214
 215 To build source from CVS, see the file BuildCVS.txt in the top-level wxWindows distribution
 216 directory.<P>
 217
 218 <H3><a name="distrib">How is wxWindows distributed?</a></H3>
 219
 220 By ftp, and via the <a href="cdrom2.htm">wxWindows CD-ROM</a>.
 221 <P>
 222 If you are feeling adventurous, you may also check out the sources directly
 223 from <a href="cvs.htm">cvs</a>.
 224 <p>
 225
 226 <H3><a name="future">What are the plans for the future?</a></H3>
 227
 228 Currently we&#39;re working too hard on getting wxWindows finished (are GUI toolkits ever
 229 finished?) to think very far ahead. However, we know we want to make wxWindows as robust
 230 and well-publicised as possible. We also want to aim for better platform-independence of
 231 resources such as icons and bitmaps, standardising on PNG and XPM for all platforms.<P>
 232
 233 Other possibilities include: DCOM/CORBA compatibility; a wxWindows book;
 234 <a href="http://wxworkshop.sourceforge.net/">wxWorkshop</a>, an IDE;
 235 other platforms, especially embedded systems; other interface abilities such as speech output.<P>
 236
 237 We will investigate the possibility of compiler or operating system vendors bundling wxWindows with
 238 their product.<P>
 239
 240 The high-level goal of wxWindows is to be thought of as the number one C++ framework,
 241 for virtually any platform. Move over, MFC!<P>
 242
 243 <h3><a name="base">What is wxBase?</a></h3>
 244
 245 wxBase is a subset of wxWindows comprised by the non-GUI classes. It includes
 246 wxWindows container and primitive data type classes (including wxString,
 247 wxDateTime and so on) and also useful wrappers for the operating system objects
 248 such as files, processes, threads, sockets and so on. With very minor
 249 exceptions wxBase may be used in exactly the same way as wxWindows but it
 250 doesn&#39;t require a GUI to run and so is ideal for creating console mode
 251 utilities or server programs. It is also possible to create a program which can
 252 be compiled either as a console application (using wxBase) or a GUI one (using
 253 a full featured wxWindows port).
 254
 255 <H3><a name="univ">What is wxUniversal?</a></H3>
 256
 257 The main difference between wxUniversal-based ports (such as wxX11, wxMGL) and other ports (such as wxMSW, wxGTK+, wxMac)
 258 is that wxUniversal implements all controls (or widgets) in
 259 wxWindows itself thus allowing to have much more flexibility (for example, support for
 260 themes even under MS Windows). It also means that it is now much easier to
 261 port wxWindows to a new platform as only the low-level classes must be ported
 262 which make for a small part of the library.
 263 <p>
 264 You may find more about wxUniversal <a href=wxuniv.htm>here</a>.
 265
 266 <H3><a name="jave">What about Java?</a></H3>
 267
 268 The Java honeymoon period is over :-) and people are realising that it cannot
 269 meet all their cross-platform development needs. We don&#39;t anticipate a major threat
 270 from Java, and the level of interest in wxWindows is as high as ever.<P>
 271
 272 <H3><a name="help">How can I help the project?</a></H3>
 273
 274 Please check out the <a href="http://www.wxwindows.org/develop2.htm">Community</a> pages,
 275 in particular the <a href="projects.htm">suggested projects</a>, and
 276 mail the developers&#39; mailing list with your own suggestions.<P>
 277
 278 </font>
 279
 280 </BODY>
 281
 282 </HTML>