// Purpose: Introduction page of the Doxygen manual
// Author: wxWidgets team
// RCS-ID: $Id$
-// Licence: wxWindows license
+// Licence: wxWindows licence
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
/**
- @page page_introduction Introduction
-
- @li @ref page_introduction_whatis
- @li @ref page_introduction_why
- @li @ref page_introduction_requirements
- @li @ref page_introduction_where
- @li @ref page_introduction_acknowledgements
-
-
- <hr>
-
-
- @section page_introduction_whatis What is wxWidgets?
-
- wxWidgets is a C++ framework providing GUI (Graphical User
- Interface) and other facilities on more than one platform. Version 2 and higher
- currently support all desktop versions of MS Windows, Unix with GTK+ 1.x or 2.x,
- Unix with Motif, Unix with just X11, Unix with DirectFB, Mac OS X, OS/2.
-
- wxWidgets was originally developed at the Artificial Intelligence
- Applications Institute, University of Edinburgh, for internal use,
- and was first made publicly available in 1992.
- Version 2 is a vastly improved version written and maintained by
- Julian Smart, Robert Roebling, Vadim Zeitlin, Vaclav Slavik and many others.
-
- This manual contains a class reference and topic overviews.
- For a selection of wxWidgets tutorials, please see the documentation page
- on the wxWidgets web site: http://www.wxwidgets.org.
-
- Please note that in the following, ``MS Windows" often refers to all
- platforms related to Microsoft Windows, including 32-bit and 64-bit
- variants, unless otherwise stated. All trademarks are acknowledged.
-
-
-
- @section page_introduction_why Why another cross-platform development tool?
-
- wxWidgets was developed to provide a cheap and flexible way to maximize
- investment in GUI application development. While a number of commercial
- class libraries already existed for cross-platform development,
- none met all of the following criteria:
-
- @li low price;
- @li source availability;
- @li simplicity of programming;
- @li support for a wide range of compilers.
-
- Since wxWidgets was started, several other free or almost-free
- GUI frameworks have emerged. However, none has the range of
- features, flexibility, documentation and the well-established
- development team that wxWidgets has.
-
- As open source software, wxWidgets has benefited from comments,
- ideas, bug fixes, enhancements and the sheer enthusiasm of
- users. This gives wxWidgets a certain advantage over its
- commercial competitors (and over free libraries without an
- independent development team), plus a robustness against the
- transience of one individual or company. This openness and
- availability of source code is especially important when the
- future of thousands of lines of application code may depend upon
- the longevity of the underlying class library.
+@page page_introduction Introduction
+
+@li @ref page_introduction_whatis
+@li @ref page_introduction_why
+@li @ref page_introduction_requirements
+@li @ref page_introduction_where
+@li @ref page_introduction_acknowledgements
+
+
+<hr>
+
+
+@section page_introduction_whatis What is wxWidgets?
+
+wxWidgets is a C++ framework providing GUI (Graphical User
+Interface) and other facilities on more than one platform. Version 2 and higher
+currently support all desktop versions of MS Windows, Unix with GTK+ 1.x or 2.x,
+Unix with Motif, Unix with just X11, Unix with DirectFB, Mac OS X, OS/2.
+
+wxWidgets was originally developed at the Artificial Intelligence
+Applications Institute, University of Edinburgh, for internal use,
+and was first made publicly available in 1992.
+Version 2 is a vastly improved version written and maintained by
+Julian Smart, Robert Roebling, Vadim Zeitlin, Vaclav Slavik and many others.
+
+This manual contains a class reference and topic overviews.
+For a selection of wxWidgets tutorials, please see the documentation page
+on the wxWidgets web site: http://www.wxwidgets.org.
+
+Please note that in the following, "MS Windows" often refers to all
+platforms related to Microsoft Windows, including 32-bit and 64-bit
+variants, unless otherwise stated. All trademarks are acknowledged.
+
+
+
+@section page_introduction_why Why another cross-platform development tool?
+
+wxWidgets was developed to provide a cheap and flexible way to maximize
+investment in GUI application development. While a number of commercial
+class libraries already existed for cross-platform development,
+none met all of the following criteria:
+
+@li low price;
+@li source availability;
+@li simplicity of programming;
+@li support for a wide range of compilers.
+
+Since wxWidgets was started, several other free or almost-free
+GUI frameworks have emerged. However, none has the range of
+features, flexibility, documentation and the well-established
+development team that wxWidgets has.
- Version 2 goes much further than previous versions in terms of
- generality and features, allowing applications to be produced
- that are often indistinguishable from those produced using
- single-platform toolkits such as Motif, GTK+ and MFC.
+As open source software, wxWidgets has benefited from comments,
+ideas, bug fixes, enhancements and the sheer enthusiasm of
+users. This gives wxWidgets a certain advantage over its
+commercial competitors (and over free libraries without an
+independent development team), plus a robustness against the
+transience of one individual or company. This openness and
+availability of source code is especially important when the
+future of thousands of lines of application code may depend upon
+the longevity of the underlying class library.
- The importance of using a platform-independent class library
- cannot be overstated, since GUI application development is very
- time-consuming, and sustained popularity of particular GUIs
- cannot be guaranteed. Code can very quickly become obsolete if
- it addresses the wrong platform or audience. wxWidgets helps to
- insulate the programmer from these winds of change. Although
- wxWidgets may not be suitable for every application (such as an
- OLE-intensive program), it provides access to most of the
- functionality a GUI program normally requires, plus many extras
- such as network programming, PostScript output, and HTML
- rendering; and it can of course be extended as needs dictate.
- As a bonus, it provides a far cleaner and easier programming
- interface than the native APIs. Programmers may find it
- worthwhile to use wxWidgets even if they are developing on only
- one platform.
-
- It is impossible to sum up the functionality of wxWidgets in a few paragraphs, but
- here are some of the benefits:
-
- @li Low cost (free, in fact!)
- @li You get the source.
- @li Available on a variety of popular platforms.
- @li Works with almost all popular C++ compilers and Python.
- @li Over 70 example programs.
- @li Over 1000 pages of printable and on-line documentation.
- @li Simple-to-use, object-oriented API.
- @li Flexible event system.
- @li Graphics calls include lines, rounded rectangles, splines, polylines, etc.
- @li Constraint-based and sizer-based layouts.
- @li Print/preview and document/view architectures.
- @li Toolbar, notebook, tree control, advanced list control classes.
- @li PostScript generation under Unix, normal MS Windows printing on the PC.
- @li MDI (Multiple Document Interface) support.
- @li Can be used to create DLLs under Windows, dynamic libraries on Unix.
- @li Common dialogs for file browsing, printing, colour selection, etc.
- @li Under MS Windows, support for creating metafiles and copying them to the clipboard.
- @li An API for invoking help from applications.
- @li Ready-to-use HTML window (supporting a subset of HTML).
- @li Network support via a family of socket and protocol classes.
- @li Support for platform independent image processing.
- @li Built-in support for many file formats (BMP, PNG, JPEG, GIF, XPM, PNM, PCX).
- @li Includes Tex2RTF, to allow you to produce your own documentation
- in Windows Help, HTML and Word RTF formats.
-
-
-
- @section page_introduction_requirements wxWidgets requirements
-
- To make use of wxWidgets, you currently need one of the following setups.
-
- (a) MS-Windows:
-
- @li A 32-bit or 64-bit PC running MS Windows.
- @li A Windows compiler: MS Visual C++ (embedded Visual C++ for wxWinCE
- port), Borland C++, Watcom C++, Cygwin, MinGW, Metrowerks CodeWarrior,
- Digital Mars C++. See @c install.txt for details about compiler
- version supported.
-
- (b) Unix:
-
- @li Almost any C++ compiler, including GNU C++ and many Unix vendors
- compilers such as Sun CC, HP-UX aCC or SGI mipsPro.
- @li Almost any Unix workstation, and one of: GTK+ 2.4 or higher (GTK+ 1.2.10
- may still be supported but wxGTK1 port is not maintained any longer and lacks
- many features of wxGTK2), Motif 1.2 or higher or Lesstif. If using the wxX11
- port, no such widget set is required.
-
- (c) Mac OS/Mac OS X:
-
- @li A PowerPC or Intel Mac running Mac OS X 10.3 or higher
- @li The Apple Developer Tools (eg. GNU C++) or MetroWerks CodeWarrior (not
- actively supported)
-
- Under all platforms it's recommended to have large amounts of free hard disk
- space. The exact amount needed depends on the port, compiler and build
- configurations but to give an example, a debug build of the library may take up
- to 500MB.
-
-
-
- @section page_introduction_where Availability and location of wxWidgets
-
- wxWidgets is available by anonymous FTP and World Wide Web
- from ftp://biolpc22.york.ac.uk/pub and/or http://www.wxwidgets.org.
-
- You can also buy a CD-ROM using the form on the Web site.
-
-
-
- @section page_introduction_acknowledgements Acknowledgements
-
- The following is the list of the core, active developers of wxWidgets which keep
- it running and have provided an invaluable, extensive and high-quality amount of
- changes over the many of years of wxWidgets' life:
-
- @li Julian Smart
- @li Vadim Zeitlin
- @li Robert Roebling
- @li Robin Dunn
- @li Stefan Csomor
- @li Vaclav Slavik
- @li Paul Cornett
- @li Wlodzimierz `ABX' Skiba
- @li Chris Elliott
- @li David Elliott
- @li Kevin Hock
- @li Stefan Neis
- @li Michael Wetherell
-
- We would particularly like to thank the following peoples for their contributions
- to wxWidgets, and the many others who have been involved in the project over the years.
- Apologies for any unintentional omissions from this alphabetic list:
-
- Yiorgos Adamopoulos, Jamshid Afshar, Alejandro Aguilar-Sierra, AIAI,
- Patrick Albert, Karsten Ballueder, Mattia Barbon, Michael Bedward,
- Kai Bendorf, Yura Bidus, Keith Gary Boyce, Chris Breeze, Pete Britton,
- Ian Brown, C. Buckley, Marco Cavallini, Dmitri Chubraev, Robin Corbet, Cecil Coupe,
- Andrew Davison, Gilles Depeyrot, Neil Dudman, Hermann Dunkel, Jos van Eijndhoven,
- Tom Felici, Thomas Fettig, Matthew Flatt, Pasquale Foggia, Josep Fortiana, Todd Fries,
- Dominic Gallagher, Guillermo Rodriguez Garcia, Wolfram Gloger, Norbert Grotz,
- Stefan Gunter, Bill Hale, Patrick Halke, Stefan Hammes, Guillaume Helle,
- Harco de Hilster, Cord Hockemeyer, Markus Holzem, Olaf Klein, Leif Jensen,
- Bart Jourquin, Guilhem Lavaux, Ron Lee, Jan Lessner, Nicholas Liebmann,
- Torsten Liermann, Per Lindqvist, Francesco Montorsi, Thomas Runge, Tatu Männistö,
- Scott Maxwell, Thomas Myers, Oliver Niedung, Ryan Norton, Hernan Otero,
- Ian Perrigo, Timothy Peters, Giordano Pezzoli, Harri Pasanen, Thomaso Paoletti,
- Garrett Potts, Marcel Rasche, Dino Scaringella, Jobst Schmalenbach, Arthur Seaton,
- Paul Shirley, Stein Somers, Petr Smilauer, Neil Smith, Kari Systä, George Tasker,
- Arthur Tetzlaff-Deas, Jonathan Tonberg, Jyrki Tuomi, Janos Vegh, Andrea Venturoli,
- David Webster, Otto Wyss, Xiaokun Zhu, Edward Zimmermann.
-
- Many thanks also to AIAI for being willing to release the original version of
- wxWidgets into the public domain, and to our patient partners.
-
- `Graphplace', the basis for the wxGraphLayout library, is copyright Dr. Jos
- T.J. van Eijndhoven of Eindhoven University of Technology. The code has
- been used in wxGraphLayout (not in wxWidgets anymore) with his permission.
-
- We also acknowledge the author of XFIG, the excellent Unix drawing tool,
- from the source of which we have borrowed some spline drawing code.
- His copyright is included below.
-
- <em>
- XFig2.1 is copyright (c) 1985 by Supoj Sutanthavibul. Permission to
- use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this software and its
- documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided
- that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that
- copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting
- documentation, and that the name of M.I.T. not be used in advertising or
- publicity pertaining to distribution of the software without specific,
- written prior permission. M.I.T. makes no representations about the
- suitability of this software for any purpose. It is provided ``as is''
- without express or implied warranty.
- </em>
+Version 2 goes much further than previous versions in terms of
+generality and features, allowing applications to be produced
+that are often indistinguishable from those produced using
+single-platform toolkits such as Motif, GTK+ and MFC.
+
+The importance of using a platform-independent class library
+cannot be overstated, since GUI application development is very
+time-consuming, and sustained popularity of particular GUIs
+cannot be guaranteed. Code can very quickly become obsolete if
+it addresses the wrong platform or audience. wxWidgets helps to
+insulate the programmer from these winds of change. Although
+wxWidgets may not be suitable for every application (such as an
+OLE-intensive program), it provides access to most of the
+functionality a GUI program normally requires, plus many extras
+such as network programming, PostScript output, and HTML
+rendering; and it can of course be extended as needs dictate.
+As a bonus, it provides a far cleaner and easier programming
+interface than the native APIs. Programmers may find it
+worthwhile to use wxWidgets even if they are developing on only
+one platform.
+
+It is impossible to sum up the functionality of wxWidgets in a few paragraphs, but
+here are some of the benefits:
+
+@li Low cost (free, in fact!)
+@li You get the source.
+@li Available on a variety of popular platforms.
+@li Works with almost all popular C++ compilers and Python.
+@li Over 70 example programs.
+@li Over 1000 pages of printable and on-line documentation.
+@li Simple-to-use, object-oriented API.
+@li Flexible event system.
+@li Graphics calls include lines, rounded rectangles, splines, polylines, etc.
+@li Constraint-based and sizer-based layouts.
+@li Print/preview and document/view architectures.
+@li Toolbar, notebook, tree control, advanced list control classes.
+@li PostScript generation under Unix, normal MS Windows printing on the PC.
+@li MDI (Multiple Document Interface) support.
+@li Can be used to create DLLs under Windows, dynamic libraries on Unix.
+@li Common dialogs for file browsing, printing, colour selection, etc.
+@li Under MS Windows, support for creating metafiles and copying them to the clipboard.
+@li An API for invoking help from applications.
+@li Ready-to-use HTML window (supporting a subset of HTML).
+@li Network support via a family of socket and protocol classes.
+@li Support for platform independent image processing.
+@li Built-in support for many file formats (BMP, PNG, JPEG, GIF, XPM, PNM, PCX).
+
+
+@section page_introduction_requirements wxWidgets requirements
+
+To make use of wxWidgets, you currently need one of the following setups.
+
+(a) MS-Windows:
+
+@li A 32-bit or 64-bit PC running MS Windows.
+@li A Windows compiler: MS Visual C++ (embedded Visual C++ for wxWinCE
+ port), Borland C++, Watcom C++, Cygwin, MinGW, Digital Mars C++.
+ See @c install.txt for details about compiler version supported.
+
+(b) Unix:
+
+@li Almost any C++ compiler, including GNU C++ and many Unix vendors
+ compilers such as Sun CC, HP-UX aCC or SGI mipsPro.
+@li Almost any Unix workstation, and one of: GTK+ 2.6 or higher (GTK+ 1.2.10
+ may still be supported but wxGTK1 port is not maintained any longer and lacks
+ many features of wxGTK2; GTK+ 3 is supported but is still experimental),
+ Motif 1.2 or higher or Lesstif. If using the wxX11 port, no such widget set
+ is required.
+
+(c) Mac OS/Mac OS X:
+
+@li A PowerPC or Intel Mac running Mac OS X 10.4 or higher
+@li The Apple Developer Tools (eg. GNU C++)
+
+Under all platforms it's recommended to have large amounts of free hard disk
+space. The exact amount needed depends on the port, compiler and build
+configurations but to give an example, a debug build of the library may take up
+to 500MB.
+
+
+
+@section page_introduction_where Availability and location of wxWidgets
+
+wxWidgets is available by anonymous FTP and World Wide Web
+from ftp://biolpc22.york.ac.uk/pub and/or http://www.wxwidgets.org.
+
+You can also buy a CD-ROM using the form on the Web site.
+
+
+
+@section page_introduction_acknowledgements Acknowledgements
+
+The following is the list of the core, active developers of wxWidgets which keep
+it running and have provided an invaluable, extensive and high-quality amount of
+changes over the many of years of wxWidgets' life:
+
+@li Julian Smart
+@li Vadim Zeitlin
+@li Robert Roebling
+@li Robin Dunn
+@li Stefan Csomor
+@li Vaclav Slavik
+@li Paul Cornett
+@li Wlodzimierz `ABX' Skiba
+@li Chris Elliott
+@li David Elliott
+@li Kevin Hock
+@li Stefan Neis
+@li Michael Wetherell
+
+We would particularly like to thank the following peoples for their contributions
+to wxWidgets, and the many others who have been involved in the project over the years.
+Apologies for any unintentional omissions from this alphabetic list:
+
+Yiorgos Adamopoulos, Jamshid Afshar, Alejandro Aguilar-Sierra, AIAI,
+Patrick Albert, Karsten Ballueder, Mattia Barbon, Michael Bedward,
+Kai Bendorf, Yura Bidus, Keith Gary Boyce, Chris Breeze, Pete Britton,
+Ian Brown, C. Buckley, Marco Cavallini, Dmitri Chubraev, Robin Corbet, Cecil Coupe,
+Andrew Davison, Gilles Depeyrot, Neil Dudman, Hermann Dunkel, Jos van Eijndhoven,
+Tom Felici, Thomas Fettig, Matthew Flatt, Pasquale Foggia, Josep Fortiana, Todd Fries,
+Dominic Gallagher, Guillermo Rodriguez Garcia, Wolfram Gloger, Norbert Grotz,
+Stefan Gunter, Bill Hale, Patrick Halke, Stefan Hammes, Guillaume Helle,
+Harco de Hilster, Cord Hockemeyer, Markus Holzem, Olaf Klein, Leif Jensen,
+Bart Jourquin, Guilhem Lavaux, Ron Lee, Jan Lessner, Nicholas Liebmann,
+Torsten Liermann, Per Lindqvist, Francesco Montorsi, Thomas Runge, Tatu Männistö,
+Scott Maxwell, Thomas Myers, Oliver Niedung, Ryan Norton, Hernan Otero,
+Ian Perrigo, Timothy Peters, Giordano Pezzoli, Harri Pasanen, Thomaso Paoletti,
+Garrett Potts, Marcel Rasche, Dino Scaringella, Jobst Schmalenbach, Arthur Seaton,
+Paul Shirley, Stein Somers, Petr Smilauer, Neil Smith, Kari Systä, George Tasker,
+Arthur Tetzlaff-Deas, Jonathan Tonberg, Jyrki Tuomi, Janos Vegh, Andrea Venturoli,
+David Webster, Otto Wyss, Xiaokun Zhu, Edward Zimmermann.
+
+Many thanks also to AIAI for being willing to release the original version of
+wxWidgets into the public domain, and to our patient partners.
+
+`Graphplace', the basis for the wxGraphLayout library, is copyright Dr. Jos
+T.J. van Eijndhoven of Eindhoven University of Technology. The code has
+been used in wxGraphLayout (not in wxWidgets anymore) with his permission.
+
+We also acknowledge the author of XFIG, the excellent Unix drawing tool,
+from the source of which we have borrowed some spline drawing code.
+His copyright is included below.
+
+<em>
+XFig2.1 is copyright (c) 1985 by Supoj Sutanthavibul. Permission to
+use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this software and its
+documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided
+that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that
+copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting
+documentation, and that the name of M.I.T. not be used in advertising or
+publicity pertaining to distribution of the software without specific,
+written prior permission. M.I.T. makes no representations about the
+suitability of this software for any purpose. It is provided ``as is''
+without express or implied warranty.
+</em>
*/
projects / wxWidgets.git / blobdiff