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wxWindows 2 for Windows FAQ
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See also <a href="faq.htm">top-level FAQ page</a>.
<hr>
+<h3>List of questions in this category</h3>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#platforms">Which Windows platforms are supported?</a></li>
+<li><a href="#wince">What about Windows CE?</a></li>
+<li><a href="#compilers">What compilers are supported?</a></li>
+<li><a href="#bestcompiler">Which is the best compiler to use with wxWindows 2?</a></li>
+<li><a href="#unicode">Is Unicode supported?</a></li>
+<li><a href="#dll">Can you compile wxWindows 2 as a DLL?</a></li>
+<li><a href="#exesize">How can I reduce executable size?</a></li>
+<li><a href="#mfc">Is wxWindows compatible with MFC?</a></li>
+<li><a href="#newerrors">Why my code fails to compile with strange errors about new operator?</a></li>
+<li><a href="#mfcport">How do I port MFC applications to wxWindows?</a></li>
+<li><a href="#crash">Why do I sometimes get bizarre crash problems using VC++ 5/6?</a></li>
+<li><a href="#makefiles">How are the wxWindows makefiles edited under Windows?</a></li>
+<li><a href="#vcdebug">How do you use VC++'s memory leak checking instead of that in wxWindows?</a></li>
+<li><a href="#shortcutproblem">Why are menu hotkeys or shortcuts not working in my application?</a></li>
+</ul>
+<hr>
-<h3>Which Windows platforms are supported?</h3>
+<h3><a name="platforms">Which Windows platforms are supported?</a></h3>
-wxWindows can be used to develop and deliver applications on Windows 3.1, Win32s,
+wxWindows 2 can be used to develop and deliver applications on Windows 3.1, Win32s,
Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows NT. A Windows CE version is being looked into (see below).<P>
wxWindows 2 is designed to make use of WIN32 features and controls. However, unlike Microsoft,
we have not forgotten users of 16-bit Windows. Most features
work under Windows 3.1, including wxTreeCtrl and wxListCtrl using the generic implementation.
-However, don't expect very Windows-specific classes to work, such as wxTaskBarIcon. The wxRegConfig
-class doesn't work either because the Windows 3.1 registry is very simplistic. Check out the 16-bit
+However, don't expect very Windows-95-specific classes to work, such as wxTaskBarIcon. The wxRegConfig
+class doesn't work either because the Windows 3.1 registry is very simplistic. Check out the 16-bit
makefiles to see what other files have been left out.
<P>
16-bit compilation is supported under Visual C++ 1.5, and Borland BC++ 4 to 5.
programs with TWIN32, and finally produce an ix86 Windows executable using Cygwin/Mingw32,
without ever needing a copy of Microsoft Windows. See the Technical Note on the Web site detailing cross-compilation.<P>
-<h3>What about Windows CE?</h3>
+<h3><a name="wince">What about Windows CE?</a></h3>
This is under consideration, though we need to get wxWindows Unicode-aware first.
There are other interesting issues, such as how to combine the menubar and toolbar APIs
-as Windows CE requires. But there's no doubt that it will be possible, albeit
+as Windows CE requires. But there's no doubt that it will be possible, albeit
by mostly cutting down wxWindows 2 API functionality, and adding a few classes here
and there. Since wxWindows for 2 produces small binaries (less than 300K for
-the statically-linked 'minimal' sample), shoehorning wxWindows 2 into a Windows CE device's limited
+the statically-linked 'minimal' sample), shoehorning wxWindows 2 into a Windows CE device's limited
storage should not be a problem.<P>
-<h3>What compilers are supported?</h3>
+<h3><a name="compilers">What compilers are supported?</a></h3>
Please see the wxWindows 2 for Windows install.txt file for up-to-date information, but
currently the following are known to work:<P>
There is a linking problem with Symantec C++ which I hope someone can help solve.
<P>
-<h3>Which is the best compiler to use with wxWindows 2?</h3>
+<h3><a name="bestcompiler">Which is the best compiler to use with wxWindows 2?</a></h3>
-It's partly a matter of taste, but I (JACS) prefer Visual C++ since the debugger is very
-good, it's very stable, the documentation is extensive, and it generates small executables.
-Since project files are plain text, it's easy for me to generate appropriate project files
+It's partly a matter of taste, but I (JACS) prefer Visual C++ since the debugger is very
+good, it's very stable, the documentation is extensive, and it generates small executables.
+Since project files are plain text, it's easy for me to generate appropriate project files
for wxWindows samples.<P>
-Borland C++ is fine - and very fast - but it's hard (impossible?) to use the debugger without using project files, and
-the debugger is nowhere near up to VC++
's quality. The IDE isn't great.<P>
+Borland C++ is fine - and very fast - but it's hard (impossible?) to use the debugger without using project files, and
+the debugger is nowhere near up to VC++
's quality. The IDE isn't great.<P>
-C++Builder's power isn't really used with wxWindows since it needs integration with its
-own class library (VCL). For wxWindows, I've only used it with makefiles, in which case
-it
's almost identical to BC++ 5.0 (the same makefiles can be used).<P>
+C++Builder's power isn't really used with wxWindows since it needs integration with its
+own class library (VCL). For wxWindows, I've only used it with makefiles, in which case
+it
's almost identical to BC++ 5.0 (the same makefiles can be used).<P>
-You can't beat Cygwin's price (free), and you can debug adequately using gdb. However, it's
+You can't beat Cygwin's price (free), and you can debug adequately using gdb. However, it's
quite slow to compile since it does not use precompiled headers.<P>
CodeWarrior is cross-platform - you can debug and generate Windows executables from a Mac, but not
the other way around I think - but the IDE is, to my mind, a bit primitive.<P>
-Watcom C++ is a little slow and the debugger is not really up to today
's standards.<P>
+Watcom C++ is a little slow and the debugger is not really up to today
's standards.<P>
-<h3>Is Unicode supported?</h3>
+Among the free compilers the best choice seem to be Borland C++ command line
+tools and mingw32 (port of gcc to Win32). Both of them are supported by
+wxWindows.
-No, although there are other internationalisation features.<P>
+<h3><a name="unicode">Is Unicode supported?</a></h3>
-However, the issues surrounding Unicode support have been looked into so we know
-what we need to do, and have some header files ready to use containing appropriate
-type definitions. Just about every file in wxWindows will need changes, due to the
-pervasive nature of characters and character arrays. Unicode support is needed
-for the port to Windows CE (see above).<P>
+Yes, Unicode is fully supported under Windows NT/2000 (Windows 9x don't
+have Unicode support anyhow).
-<h3>Can you compile wxWindows 2 as a DLL?</h3>
+<h3><a name="dll">Can you compile wxWindows 2 as a DLL?</a></h3>
Yes (using the Visual C++ or Borland C++ makefile), but be aware that distributing DLLs is a thorny issue
-and you may be better off compiling statically-linked applications, unless you're
-delivering a suite of separate programs, or you're compiling a lot of wxWindows applications
+and you may be better off compiling statically-linked applications, unless you're
+delivering a suite of separate programs, or you're compiling a lot of wxWindows applications
and have limited hard disk space.<P>
With a DLL approach, and with different versions and configurations of wxWindows
wxWindows!
<P>
-<H3>How can I reduce executable size?</H3>
+<h3><a name="exesize">How can I reduce executable size?</a></h3>
You can compile wxWindows as a DLL (see above, VC++/BC++ only at present). You should also
-compile your programs for release using non-debugging and space-optimisation options.<P>
+compile your programs for release using non-debugging and space-optimisation options, but
+take with VC++ 5/6 space optimisation: it can sometimes cause problems.<P>
Statically-linked wxWindows 2 programs are smaller than wxWindows 1.xx programs, because of the way
wxWindows 2 has been designed to reduce dependencies between classes, and other
techniques. The linker will not include code from the library that is not (directly or
indirectly) referenced
-by your application. So for example, the
'minimal' sample is less than 300KB using VC++ 6.<P>
+by your application. So for example, the
'minimal' sample is less than 300KB using VC++ 6.<P>
If you want to distribute really small executables, you can
use <a href="http://www.icl.ndirect.co.uk/petite/" target=_top>Petite</a>
will shrink to a mere 250KB. With this sort of size, there is reduced incentive to
use DLLs.<P>
-
-<H3>Will wxWindows be compatible with MFC?</H3>
+<H3><a name="mfc">Is wxWindows compatible with MFC?</a></H3>
There is a sample which demonstrates MFC and wxWindows code co-existing in the same
-application. However, don't expect to be able to enable wxWindows windows with OLE-2
+application. However, don't expect to be able to enable wxWindows windows with OLE-2
functionality using MFC.<P>
+<H3><a name="newerrors">Why my code fails to compile with strange errors about new operator?</a></H3>
+
+The most common cause of this problem is the memory debugging settings in
+<tt>wx/msw/setup.h</tt>. You have several choices:
+
+<ul>
+ <li> Either disable overloading the global operator new completely by
+ setting <tt>wxUSE_GLOBAL_MEMORY_OPERATORS</tt> and
+ <tt>wxUSE_DEBUG_NEW_ALWAYS</tt> to 0 in this file
+ <li> Or leave them on but do <tt>#undef new</tt> after including any
+ wxWindows headers, like this the memory debugging will be still on
+ for wxWindows sources but off for your own code
+</ul>
+
+Notice that IMHO the first solution is preferable for VC++ users who can use
+the <a href="#vcdebug">VC++ CRT memory debugging features</a> instead.
+
+<H3><a name="mfcport">How do I port MFC applications to wxWindows?</a></H3>
+
+Set up your interface from scratch using wxWindows (especially wxDesigner --
+it'll save you a <i>lot</i> of time) and when you have a shell prepared, you can start
+'pouring in' code from the MFC app, with appropriate
+modifications. This is the approach I have used, and I found
+it very satisfactory. A two-step process then - reproduce the bare
+interface first, then wire it up afterwards. That way you deal
+with each area of complexity separately. Don't try to think MFC
+and wxWindows simultaneously from the beginning - it is easier to
+reproduce the initial UI by looking at the behaviour of the MFC
+app, not its code.
+
+<H3><a name="crash">Why do I sometimes get bizarre crash problems using VC++ 5/6?</a></H3>
+
+Some crash problems can be due to inconsistent compiler
+options (and of course this isn't limited to wxWindows).
+If strange/weird/impossible things start to happen please
+check (dumping IDE project file as makefile and doing text comparison
+if necessary) that the project settings, especially the list of defined
+symbols, struct packing, etc. are exactly the same for all items in
+the project. After this, delete everything (including PCH) and recompile.<P>
+
+VC++ 5's optimization code seems to be broken and can
+cause problems: this can be seen when deleting an object Dialog
+Editor, in Release mode with optimizations on. If in doubt,
+switch off optimisations, although this will result in much
+larger executables. It seems possible that the library can be created with
+strong optimization, so long as the application is not strongly
+optimized. For example, in wxWindows project, set to 'Minimum
+Size'. In Dialog Editor project, set to 'Customize: Favor Small
+Code' (and no others). This will then work.<P>
+
+<H3><a name="makefiles">How are the wxWindows makefiles edited under Windows?</a></H3>
+
+As of wxWindows 2.1, there is a new system written by Vadim Zeitlin, that
+generates the makefiles from templates using tmake.<P>
+
+Here are Vadim's notes:<P>
+
+<blockquote>
+To use these new makefiles, you don't need anything (but see below).
+However, you should NOT modify them because these files will be
+rewritten when I regenerate them using tmake the next time. So, if
+you find a problem with any of these makefiles (say, makefile.b32)
+you'll need to modify the corresponding template (b32.t in this
+example) and regenerate the makefile using tmake.<P>
+
+tmake can be found at
+<a href="http://www.troll.no/freebies/tmake.html" target=_new>www.troll.no/freebies/tmake.html</a>.
+It's a Perl5 program and so it needs Perl (doh). There is a binary for
+Windows (available from the same page), but I haven't used it, so
+I don't know if it works as flawlessly as "perl tmake" does (note
+for people knowing Perl: don't try to run tmake with -w, it won't
+do you any good). Using it extremely simple: to regenerate makefile.b32
+just go to distrib/msw/tmake and type<P>
+
+<pre>tmake -t b32 wxwin.pro -o ../../src/msw/makefile.b32</pre><P>
+
+The makefiles are untested - I don't have any of Borland, Watcom or
+Symantec and I don't have enough diskspace to recompile even with
+VC6 using makefiles. The new makefiles are as close as possible to the
+old ones, but not closer: in fact, there has been many strange things
+(should I say bugs?) in some of makefiles, some files were not compiled
+without any reason etc. Please test them and notify me about any problems.
+Better yet, modify the template files to generate the correct makefiles
+and check them in.<P>
+
+The templates are described in tmake ref manual (1-2 pages of text)
+and are quite simple. They do contain some Perl code, but my Perl is
+primitive (very C like) so it should be possible for anybody to make
+trivial modifications to it (I hope that only trivial modifications
+will be needed). I've tagged the ol makefiles as MAKEFILES_WITHOUT_TMAKE
+in the cvs, so you can always retrieve them and compare the new ones,
+this will make it easier to solve the problems you might have.<P>
+
+Another important file is filelist.txt: it contains the list of all
+files to be compiled. Some of them are only compiled in 16/32 bit mode.
+Some other are only compiled with some compilers (others can't compile
+them) - all this info is contained in this file.<P>
+
+So now adding a new file to wxWindows is as easy as modifying filelist.txt
+(and Makefile.ams for Unix ports) and regenerating the makefiles - no
+need to modify all files manually any more.<P>
+
+ Finally, there is also a file vc6.t which I use myself: this one
+generates a project file for VC++ 6.0 (I didn't create vc5.t because
+I don't need it and can't test it, but it should be trivial to create
+one from vc6.t - probably the only things to change would be the
+version number in the very beginning and the /Z option - VC5 doesn't
+support edit-and=continue). This is not an officially supported way
+of building wxWindows (that is, nobody guarantees that it will work),
+but it has been very useful to me and I hope it will be also for
+others. To generate wxWindows.dsp run<P>
+
+<pre>tmake -t vc6 wxwin.pro -o ../../wxWindows.dsp</pre><P>
+
+Then just include this project in any workspace or open it from VC IDE
+and it will create a new workspace for you.<P>
+
+If all goes well, I'm planning to create a template file for Makefile.ams
+under src/gtk and src/motif and also replace all makefiles in the samples
+subdirectories with the project files from which all the others will be
+generated. At least it will divide the number of files in samples
+directory by 10 (and the number of files to be maintained too).
+</blockquote>
+
+<P>
+
+<H3><a name="vcdebug">How do you use VC++'s memory leak checking instead of that in wxWindows?</a></H3>
+
+Vadim Zeitlin:
+
+<pre>
+On the VC++ level, it's just the matter of calling _CrtSetDbgFlag() in the very
+beginning of the program. In wxWindows, this is done automatically when
+compiling with VC++ in debug mode unless wxUSE_GLOBAL_MEMORY_OPERATORS or
+__NO_VC_CRTDBG__ are defined - this check is done in wx/msw/msvcrt.h which
+is included from app.cpp which then calls wxCrtSetDbgFlag() without any
+ifdefs.
+
+This works quite well: at the end of the program, all leaked blocks with their
+malloc count are shown. This number (malloc count) can be used to determine
+where exactly the object was allocated: for this it's enough to set the variable
+_crtBreakAlloc (look in VC98\crt\srs\dbgheap.c line 326) to this number and
+a breakpoint will be triggered when the block with this number is allocated.
+
+For simple situations it works like a charm. For something more complicated
+like reading uninitialized memory a specialized tool is probably better...
+
+Regards,
+VZ
+</pre>
+
+<P>
+
+<H3><a name="shortcutproblem">Why are menu hotkeys or shortcuts not working in my application?</a></H3>
+
+This can happen if you have a child window intercepting EVT_CHAR events and swallowing
+all keyboard input. You should ensure that event.Skip() is called for all input that
+isn'used by the event handler.
+
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