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-\section{What is wxWidgets?}
+\section{What is wxWidgets?}\label{whatis}
wxWidgets is a C++ framework providing GUI (Graphical User
Interface) and other facilities on more than one platform. Version 2 currently
platforms related to Microsoft Windows, including 16-bit and 32-bit
variants, unless otherwise stated. All trademarks are acknowledged.
-\section{Why another cross-platform development tool?}
+\section{Why another cross-platform development tool?}\label{why}
wxWidgets was developed to provide a cheap and flexible way to maximize
investment in GUI application development. While a number of commercial
(a) MS-Windows:
\begin{enumerate}\itemsep=0pt
-\item A 486 or higher PC running MS Windows.
-\item A Windows compiler: most are supported, but please see {\tt install.txt} for
-details. Supported compilers include Microsoft Visual C++ 4.0 or higher, Borland C++, Cygwin,
-MinGW, Metrowerks CodeWarrior.
-\item At least 60 MB of disk space.
+\item A 32-bit or 64-bit PC running MS Windows.
+\item A Windows compiler: MS Visual C++ (embedded Visual C++ for wxWinCE
+port), Borland C++, Watcom C++, Cygwin, MinGW, Metrowerks CodeWarrior,
+Digital Mars C++. See {\tt install.txt} for details about compiler
+version supported.
+\item At least 100 MB of disk space for source tree and additional space for
+libraries and application building (depends on compiler and build settings).
\end{enumerate}
(b) Unix:
\item Almost any C++ compiler, including GNU C++ (EGCS 1.1.1 or above).
\item Almost any Unix workstation, and one of: GTK+ 1.2, GTK+ 2.0, Motif 1.2 or higher, Lesstif.
If using the wxX11 port, no such widget set is required.
-\item At least 60 MB of disk space.
+\item At least 100 MB of disk space for source tree and additional space for
+libraries and application building (depends on compiler and build settings).
\end{enumerate}
(c) Mac OS/Mac OS X:
\begin{enumerate}\itemsep=0pt
\item A PowerPC Mac running Mac OS 8.6/9.x (eg. Classic) or Mac OS X 10.x.
\item CodeWarrior 5.3, 6 or 7 for Classic Mac OS.
-\item The Apple Developer Tools (eg. GNU C++) or CodeWarrior 7 for Mac OS X.
-\item At least 60 MB of disk space.
+\item The Apple Developer Tools (eg. GNU C++), CodeWarrior 7 or above for Mac OS X.
+\item At least 100 MB of disk space for source tree and additional space for
+libraries and application building (depends on compiler and build settings).
\end{enumerate}
-\section{Availability and location of wxWidgets}
+\section{Availability and location of wxWidgets}\label{where}
\winhelponly{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{Acknowledgements}
+\section{Acknowledgements}\label{acknowledgements}
Thanks are due to AIAI for being willing to release the original version of
wxWidgets into the public domain, and to our patient partners.
see the file install.txt for up-to-date installation instructions, and
changes.txt for differences between versions.
-\section{Include files}
+\section{Include files}\label{includefiles}
The main include file is {\tt "wx/wx.h"}; this includes the most commonly
used modules of wxWidgets.
The file {\tt "wx/wxprec.h"} includes {\tt "wx/wx.h"}. Although this incantation
may seem quirky, it is in fact the end result of a lot of experimentation,
-and several Windows compilers to use precompilation (those tested are Microsoft Visual C++, Borland C++
-and Watcom C++).
+and several Windows compilers to use precompilation which is largely automatic for
+compilers with necessary support. Currently it is used for Visual C++ (including
+embedded Visual C++), Borland C++, Open Watcom C++ and newer versions of GCC.
-Borland precompilation is largely automatic. Visual C++ requires specification of {\tt "wx/wxprec.h"} as
-the file to use for precompilation. Watcom C++ is automatic apart from the specification of
-the .pch file. Watcom C++ is strange in requiring the precompiled header to be used only for
-object files compiled in the same directory as that in which the precompiled header was created.
-Therefore, the wxWidgets Watcom C++ makefiles go through hoops deleting and recreating
-a single precompiled header file for each module, thus preventing an accumulation of many
-multi-megabyte .pch files.
-
-\section{Libraries}
+\section{Libraries}\label{libraries}
Most ports of wxWidgets can create either a static library or a shared
library. wxWidgets can also be built in multilib and monolithic variants.
See the \helpref{libraries list}{librarieslist} for more
information on these.
-\section{Configuration}
+\section{Configuration}\label{configuration}
When using project files and makefiles directly to build wxWidgets,
options are configurable in the file
for installing wxWidgets on Linux, a correct setup.h is shipped in the package and
this must not be changed.
-\section{Makefiles}
+\section{Makefiles}\label{makefiles}
On Microsoft Windows, wxWidgets has a different set of makefiles for each
compiler, because each compiler's 'make' tool is slightly different.
please see docs/xxx/install.txt in your distribution, where
xxx is the platform of interest, such as msw, gtk, x11, mac.
-\section{Windows-specific files}
+\section{Windows-specific files}\label{windowsfiles}
wxWidgets application compilation under MS Windows requires at least two
extra files, resource and module definition files.
so programs that search your executable for icons (such
as the Program Manager) find your application icon first.}
-\section{Allocating and deleting wxWidgets objects}
+\section{Allocating and deleting wxWidgets objects}\label{allocatingobjects}
In general, classes derived from wxWindow must dynamically allocated
with {\it new} and deleted with {\it delete}. If you delete a window,
a drawing object that may be in use. Code that doesn't do this will probably work
fine on some platforms, and then fail under Windows.
-\section{Architecture dependency}
+\section{Architecture dependency}\label{architecturedependency}
A problem which sometimes arises from writing multi-platform programs is that
the basic C types are not defined the same on all platforms. This holds true
The macros handling bit-swapping with respect to the applications endianness
are described in the \helpref{Byte order macros}{byteordermacros} section.
-\section{Conditional compilation}
+\section{Conditional compilation}\label{conditionalcompilation}
One of the purposes of wxWidgets is to reduce the need for conditional
compilation in source code, which can be messy and confusing to follow.
listed in the file {\tt symbols.txt} may be used for this purpose,
along with any user-supplied ones.
-\section{C++ issues}
+\section{C++ issues}\label{cpp}
The following documents some miscellaneous C++ issues.
-\subsection{Templates}
+\subsection{Templates}\label{templates}
wxWidgets does not use templates (except for some advanced features that
are switched off by default) since it is a notoriously unportable feature.
-\subsection{RTTI}
+\subsection{RTTI}\label{rtti}
wxWidgets does not use C++ run-time type information since wxWidgets provides
its own run-time type information system, implemented using macros.
-\subsection{Type of NULL}
+\subsection{Type of NULL}\label{null}
Some compilers (e.g. the native IRIX cc) define NULL to be 0L so that
no conversion to pointers is allowed. Because of that, all these
It is recommended to adhere to this in all code using wxWidgets as
this make the code (a bit) more portable.
-\subsection{Precompiled headers}
+\subsection{Precompiled headers}\label{precompiledheaders}
Some compilers, such as Borland C++ and Microsoft C++, support
precompiled headers. This can save a great deal of compiling time. The
biased towards the precompiled headers facility available
in Microsoft C++.
-\section{File handling}
+\section{File handling}\label{filehandling}
When building an application which may be used under different
environments, one difficulty is coping with documents which may be
This is the sizer-aware resource system, and uses
XML-based resource specifications that can be generated by tools
such as \urlref{wxDesigner}{http://www.roebling.de} and XRC's own wxrcedit.
-You can find this in {\tt contrib/src/xrc}, {\tt contrib/include/wx/xrc}, {\tt contrib/samples/xrc}, and {\tt contrib/utils/wxrcedit}.
+You can find this in {\tt src/xrc}, {\tt include/wx/xrc}, {\tt samples/xrc}, and {\tt utils/wxrcedit}.
For more information, see the \helpref{XML-based resource system overview}{xrcoverview}.
\item[{\bf Object Graphics Library}]
OGL defines an API for applications that need to display objects connected by lines.
writing and debugging wxWidgets programs. If you have any good tips,
please submit them for inclusion here.
-\section{Strategies for reducing programming errors}
+\section{Strategies for reducing programming errors}\label{reducingerrors}
-\subsection{Use ASSERT}
+\subsection{Use ASSERT}\label{useassert}
Although I haven't done this myself within wxWidgets, it is good
practice to use ASSERT statements liberally, that check for conditions that
and your application. Using ASSERT is an example of `defensive programming':
it can alert you to problems later on.
-\subsection{Use wxString in preference to character arrays}
+\subsection{Use wxString in preference to character arrays}\label{usewxstring}
Using wxString can be much safer and more convenient than using char *.
Again, I haven't practiced what I'm preaching, but I'm now trying to use
The same goes for other data types: use classes wherever possible.
-\section{Strategies for portability}
+\section{Strategies for portability}\label{portability}
-\subsection{Use relative positioning or constraints}
+\subsection{Use relative positioning or constraints}\label{userelativepositioning}
Don't use absolute panel item positioning if you can avoid it. Different GUIs have
very differently sized panel items. Consider using the constraint system, although this
platforms, with slightly different dimensions in each. Or space your panel items out
to avoid problems.
-\subsection{Use wxWidgets resource files}
+\subsection{Use wxWidgets resource files}\label{useresources}
Use .xrc (wxWidgets resource files) where possible, because they can be easily changed
independently of source code.
\section{Strategies for debugging}\label{debugstrategies}
-\subsection{Positive thinking}
+\subsection{Positive thinking}\label{positivethinking}
It is common to blow up the problem in one's imagination, so that it seems to threaten
weeks, months or even years of work. The problem you face may seem insurmountable:
isn't painful at the time. Try not to worry -- there are many more important
things in life.
-\subsection{Simplify the problem}
+\subsection{Simplify the problem}\label{simplifyproblem}
Reduce the code exhibiting the problem to the smallest program possible
that exhibits the problem. If it is not possible to reduce a large and
to the problem. In some cases though, such as memory leaks or wrong
deallocation, this can still give totally spurious results!
-\subsection{Use a debugger}
+\subsection{Use a debugger}\label{usedebugger}
This sounds like facetious advice, but it is surprising how often people
don't use a debugger. Often it is an overhead to install or learn how to
use a debugger, but it really is essential for anything but the most
trivial programs.
-\subsection{Use logging functions}
+\subsection{Use logging functions}\label{uselogging}
There is a variety of logging functions that you can use in your program:
see \helpref{Logging functions}{logfunctions}.
in some circumstances (such as when your debugger doesn't support a lot
of debugging code, or you wish to print a bunch of variables).
-\subsection{Use the wxWidgets debugging facilities}
+\subsection{Use the wxWidgets debugging facilities}\label{usedebuggingfacilities}
You can use wxDebugContext to check for
memory leaks and corrupt memory: in fact in debugging mode, wxWidgets will
projects / wxWidgets.git / blobdiff