<TITLE>wxWindows 2 FAQ: General</TITLE>
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-wxWindows 2 FAQ: General
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+<b>wxWindows 2 FAQ: General</b>
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<h3>List of questions in this category</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="#whatis">What is wxWindows?</a></li>
+<li><a href="#licence">Can I use wxWindows 2 for both proprietary projects, and GPL'ed projects?</a></li>
+<li><a href="#support">Is there support?</a></li>
<li><a href="#users">Who uses wxWindows?</a></li>
-<li><a href="#platforms">What platforms are supported by wxWindows 2?</a></li>
-<li><a href="#specific">How does wxWindows 2 support platform-specific features?</a></li>
+<li><a href="#platforms">What platforms are supported by wxWindows?</a></li>
+<li><a href="#specific">How does wxWindows support platform-specific features?</a></li>
<li><a href="#stl">Does wxWindows use STL? or the standard string class?</a></li>
-<li><a href="#richedit">Is there a rich edit/markup widget for wxWindows 2?</a></ li>
-<li><a href="#dev">How is wxWindows 2 being developed?</a></li>
-<li><a href="#distrib">How is wxWindows 2 distributed?</a></li>
+<li><a href="#richedit">Is there a rich edit/markup widget for wxWindows?</a></ li>
+<li><a href="#exceptions">How to use C++ exceptions with wxWindows?</a></ li>
+<li><a href="#dev">How is wxWindows being developed?</a></li>
+<li><a href="#distrib">How is wxWindows distributed?</a></li>
<li><a href="#future">What are the plans for the future?</a></li>
+<li><a href="#base">What is wxBase?</a></li>
<li><a href="#univ">What is wxUniversal?</a></li>
<li><a href="#jave">What about Java?</a></li>
+<li><a href="#dotnet">What about .NET/Mono?</a></li>
<li><a href="#help">How can I help the project?</a></li>
</ul>
<hr>
different platforms. wxWindows defines a common API across platforms, but uses the native graphical user interface (GUI) on each platform,
so your program will take on the native 'look and feel' that users are familiar with.<P>
-Although GUI applications are mostly built programmatically, there is a dialog editor to help
+Although GUI applications are mostly built programmatically, there are several dialog editors to help
build attractive dialogs and panels. Robert Roebling's <a href="http://www.roebling.com">wxDesigner</a>
-makes light work of resizable, portable dialogs.<P>
+and Anthemion Software's <a href="http://www.anthemion.co.uk/dialogblocks/" target=_new>DialogBlocks</a>
+are two commercial examples, but there are others: see the <a href="lnk_tools.htm">Useful Tools</a> page.<P>
You don't have to use C++ to use wxWindows: there is a <a href="http://wxpython.org">Python interface</a> for wxWindows 2,
and also a <a href="http://wxperl.sourceforge.net" target=_top>Perl interface</a>.
<P>
-<h3>Can I use wxWindows 2 for both proprietary (commercial) projects, and GPL'ed projects?</h3>
+<h3><a name="licence">Can I use wxWindows 2 for both proprietary (commercial) projects, and GPL'ed projects?</a></h3>
Yes. Please see the <a href="newlicen.htm">licence</a> for details, but basically
you can distribute proprietary binaries without distributing any source code, and neither will wxWindows
or commercial developer.
<P>
-<h3>Is there support?</h3>
+<h3><a name="support">Is there support?</a></h3>
No official support, but the mailing list is very helpful and some people say that
wxWindows support is better than for much commercial software. The developers are
See <a href="users.htm">Users</a> for a list of some users and their applications, and
also <A href="feedback.htm">Feedback</a> for comments.<P>
+Our highest-profile user yet is industry veteran and Lotus Corp. founder Mitch Kapor
+and his <a href="http://www.osafoundation.org" target=_new>Open Source Applications Foundation</a>.
+<P>
<H3><a name="platforms">What platforms are supported by wxWindows 2?</a></H3>
These are the possibilities so far:<P>
<ul>
-<li>The richedit sample has a text editor that does markup.
<li>See <a href="http://www.scintilla.org" target=_top>www.scintilla.org</a> for
-a very nice syntax-highlighting editor widget. Robin Dunn is writing a wxWindows wrapper
-for this widget.
+a very nice syntax-highlighting editor widget. Robin Dunn has written a wxWindows wrapper
+for this widget, available in the wxWindows distribution under contrib/src/stc.
<li>If you only need to display marked-up information, rather than edit it,
then wxHTML will suit your needs. wxHTML is built into wxWindows - please see the reference
manual for details, and samples/html.
<P>
-<H3><a name="dev">How is wxWindows 2 being developed?</a></H3>
+<h3><a name="exceptions">How to use C++ exceptions with wxWindows?</a></h3>
+
+wxWindows library itself is unfortunately <i>not</i> exception-safe (as its
+initial version predates, by far, the addition of the exceptions to the C++
+language). However you can still use the exceptions in your own code and use
+the other libraries using the exceptions for the error reporting together with
+wxWindows.
+
+<p>
+There are a few issues to keep in mind, though:
+<ul>
+ <li>You shouldn't let the exceptions propagate through wxWindows code,
+ in particular you should always catch the exceptions thrown by the
+ functions called from an event handler in the handler itself and not
+ let them propagate upwards to wxWindows.
+
+ <li>You may need to ensure that the compiler support for the exceptions is
+ enabled as, considering that wxWindows itself doesn't use the
+ exceptions and turning their support on results in the library size
+ augmentation of 10% to 20%, it is turned off by default for a few
+ compilers. Moreover, for gcc (or at least its mingw version) you must
+ also turn on the RTTI support to be able to use the exceptions, so you
+ should use <tt>--disable-no_rtti --disable-no_exceptions</tt> options
+ when configuring the library (attention to the double negation).
+</ul>
+
+<p>
+
+<H3><a name="dev">How is wxWindows being developed?</a></H3>
We are using the <a href="cvs.htm">CVS</a> system to develop and maintain wxWindows. This allows
-us to make alterations and upload them instantly to the SourceForge server, from
+us to make alterations and upload them instantly to the server, from
which others can update their source.<P>
To build source from CVS, see the file BuildCVS.txt in the top-level wxWindows distribution
directory.<P>
-<H3><a name="distrib">How is wxWindows 2 distributed?</a></H3>
+<H3><a name="distrib">How is wxWindows distributed?</a></H3>
By ftp, and via the <a href="cdrom2.htm">wxWindows CD-ROM</a>.
<P>
If you are feeling adventurous, you may also check out the sources directly
-from the <a href="cvs.htm">cvs</a>
+from <a href="cvs.htm">cvs</a>.
<p>
<H3><a name="future">What are the plans for the future?</a></H3>
-Currently we're working too hard on getting wxWindows 2 finished (are GUI toolkits ever
+Currently we're working too hard on getting wxWindows finished (are GUI toolkits ever
finished?) to think very far ahead. However, we know we want to make wxWindows as robust
and well-publicised as possible. We also want to aim for better platform-independence of
-resources such as icons and bitmaps, standardising on
the PNG for all platforms.<P>
+resources such as icons and bitmaps, standardising on
PNG and XPM for all platforms.<P>
Other possibilities include: DCOM/CORBA compatibility; a wxWindows book;
<a href="http://wxworkshop.sourceforge.net/">wxWorkshop</a>, an IDE;
The high-level goal of wxWindows is to be thought of as the number one C++ framework,
for virtually any platform. Move over, MFC!<P>
+<h3><a name="base">What is wxBase?</a></h3>
+
+wxBase is a subset of wxWindows comprised by the non-GUI classes. It includes
+wxWindows container and primitive data type classes (including wxString,
+wxDateTime and so on) and also useful wrappers for the operating system objects
+such as files, processes, threads, sockets and so on. With very minor
+exceptions wxBase may be used in exactly the same way as wxWindows but it
+doesn't require a GUI to run and so is ideal for creating console mode
+utilities or server programs. It is also possible to create a program which can
+be compiled either as a console application (using wxBase) or a GUI one (using
+a full featured wxWindows port).
+
<H3><a name="univ">What is wxUniversal?</a></H3>
-wxUniversal is a new port of wxWindows being currently actively developed. The
-main difference is that wxUniversal implements all controls (or widgets) in
-wxWindows itself thus allowing to have much more flexibility (i.e. support for
-themes even under MS Windows!). It also means that it is now much easier to
+The main difference between wxUniversal-based ports (such as wxX11, wxMGL) and other ports (such as wxMSW, wxGTK+, wxMac)
+is that wxUniversal implements all controls (or widgets) in
+wxWindows itself thus allowing to have much more flexibility (for example, support for
+themes even under MS Windows). It also means that it is now much easier to
port wxWindows to a new platform as only the low-level classes must be ported
which make for a small part of the library.
<p>
meet all their cross-platform development needs. We don't anticipate a major threat
from Java, and the level of interest in wxWindows is as high as ever.<P>
+<H3><a name="dotnet">What about .NET/Mono?</a></H3>
+
+Microsoft is spending a lot on promoting the .NET initiative, which
+is a set of languages, APIs and web service components for Windows.
+Ximian has started an open source version of .NET, mostly for Linux.
+C# is Microsoft's alternative to Java, supporting 'managed code',
+garbage collection and various other Java-like language features.<P>
+
+Although this may be attractive to some developers, there
+is a variety of reasons why the .NET/Mono combination is unlikely
+to make wxWindows redundant. Please note that the following comments
+are Julian Smart's opinions.<P>
+
+<ol>
+<li>Not everyone wants or needs net services.
+<li>C++ will be used for a long time to come; compared with C++, C# is a recent development and its future is not certain.
+<li>Mono Forms may only target Winelib (at least to begin with), so the end result is not as native as
+wxWindows (I'm aware there is GTK# for use with the C# language).
+<li>C# is usually byte-compiled and therefore slower. Plus, .NET adds a layer of overhead to the client computer
+that wxWindows does not require.
+<li>Mono hasn't proven its long-term viability yet (it's a complex system of components); wxWindows is ready now.
+<li>You may not wish to buy into Microsoft marketing spin and APIs.
+<li>Microsoft may at some point sue developers of non-Microsoft .NET implementations. After all,
+platform-independence is not in Microsoft's interest.
+<li>.NET might never be implemented on some platforms, especially Mac and embedded variants of Linux.
+<li>wxPython and other language variants provide further reasons for wxWindows to continue.
+<li>The same issue exists for Qt: if Qt sales remain strong, it's a good indication that
+the market for a C++-based approach is still there. (Either that, or everyone's turning to wxWindows!)
+</ol>
+
+There is nothing to stop folk from developing a C# version of the wxWindows API;
+we already have bindings to Python, Perl, JavaScript, Lua, Basic, and Eiffel.
+Update: a <a href="http://wxnet.sourceforge.net/" target=_new>wx.NET</a> project is now in progress.
+
+<P>
+
<H3><a name="help">How can I help the project?</a></H3>
Please check out the <a href="http://www.wxwindows.org/develop2.htm">Community</a> pages,
in particular the <a href="projects.htm">suggested projects</a>, and
-mail
<a href="mailto:julian.smart@btopenworld.com">Julian Smart</a> or the developers' mailing list with your own suggestions.<P>
+mail the developers' mailing list with your own suggestions.<P>
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