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-<TITLE>wxWindows 2 FAQ: General</TITLE>
+<TITLE>wxWidgets 2 FAQ: General</TITLE>
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-wxWindows 2 FAQ: General
+<b>wxWidgets 2 FAQ: General</b>
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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="#whatis">What is wxWidgets?</a></li>
+<li><a href="#licence">Can I use wxWidgets 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 wxWidgets?</a></li>
+<li><a href="#platforms">What platforms are supported by wxWidgets?</a></li>
+<li><a href="#specific">How does wxWidgets support platform-specific features?</a></li>
+<li><a href="#stl">Does wxWidgets use STL? or the standard string class?</a></li>
+<li><a href="#richedit">Is there a rich edit/markup widget for wxWidgets?</a></ li>
+<li><a href="#exceptions">How to use C++ exceptions with wxWidgets?</a></ li>
+<li><a href="#dev">How is wxWidgets being developed?</a></li>
+<li><a href="#distrib">How is wxWidgets 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>
-<H3><a name="whatis">What is wxWindows?</a></H3>
+<H3><a name="whatis">What is wxWidgets?</a></H3>
-wxWindows is a class library that allows you to compile graphical C++ programs on a range of
-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>
+wxWidgets is a class library that allows you to compile graphical C++ programs on a range of
+different platforms. wxWidgets 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
-build attractive dialogs and panels.<P>
+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>
+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: wxWindows 1 has been interfaced to several interpreted languages,
-such as CLIPS, Python, Scheme, XLisp and Perl, and there is a Python interface for wxWindows 2.
+You don't have to use C++ to use wxWidgets: there is a <a href="http://wxpython.org">Python interface</a> for wxWidgets 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 wxWidgets 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
+you can distribute proprietary binaries without distributing any source code, and neither will wxWidgets
conflict with GPL code you may be using or developing with it.
<P>
-The conditions for using wxWindows 2 are the same whether you are a personal, academic
+The conditions for using wxWidgets 2 are the same whether you are a personal, academic
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
+wxWidgets support is better than for much commercial software. The developers are
keen to fix bugs as soon as possible, though obviously there are no guarantees.
<P>
-<H3><a name="users">Who uses wxWindows?</a></H3>
+<H3><a name="users">Who uses wxWidgets?</a></H3>
Many organisations - commercial, government, and academic - across the
-world. It's impossible to estimate the true number of users, since
-wxWindows is obtained by many different means, and we cannot monitor
+world. It's impossible to estimate the true number of users, since
+wxWidgets is obtained by many different means, and we cannot monitor
distribution. The mailing list contains around 300-400 entries which is
quite large for a list of this type.<P>
+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 wxWidgets 2?</a></H3>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Windows 3.1, Windows 95/98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows ME.
+<li>Linux and other Unix platforms with GTK+.
+<li>Unix with Motif or the free Motif clone Lesstif.
+<li>Mac OS.
+<li>Embedded platforms are being investigated. See the <a href="wxuniv.htm">wxUniversal</a> project.
+<li>An OS/2 port is in progress, and you can also compile wxWidgets for GTK+ or Motif
+on OS/2.
+</ul>
+<P>
+
+<H3><a name="specific">How does wxWidgets 2 support platform-specific
+features?</a></H3>
+
+This is a hotly-debated topic amongst the developers. My own philosophy
+is to make wxWidgets as platform-independent as possible, but allow in a
+few classes (functions, window styles) that are platform-specific.
+For example, Windows metafiles and Windows 95 taskbar icons have
+their own classes on Windows, but nowhere else. Because these classes
+are provided and are wxWidgets-compatible, it doesn't take much
+coding effort for an application programmer to add support for
+some functionality that the user on a particular platform might otherwise
+miss. Also, some classes that started off as platform-specific, such
+as the MDI classes, have been emulated on other platforms. I can imagine
+that even wxTaskBarIcon may be implemented for Unix desktops one day.
+<P>
+
+In other words, wxWidgets is not a 'lowest common denominator' approach,
+but it will still be possible to write portable programs using the
+core API. Forbidding some platform-specific classes would be a stupid
+approach that would alienate many potential users, and encourage
+the perception that toolkits such as wxWidgets are not up to the demands
+of today's sophisticated applications.<P>
+
+Currently resources such as bitmaps and icons are handled in a platform-specific
+way, but it is hoped to reduce this dependence in due course.<P>
+
+Another reason why wxWidgets 2 is not a 'lowest common denominator' toolkit is that
+some functionality missing on some platform has been provided using generic,
+platform-independent code, such as the wxTreeCtrl and wxListCtrl classes.<P>
+
+<H3><a name="stl">Does wxWidgets use STL? or the standard string class?</a></H3>
+
+No. This is a much-discussed topic that has (many times) ended with the conclusion that it is in
+wxWidgets' best interests to avoid use of templates. Not all compilers can handle
+templates adequately so it would dramatically reduce the number of compilers
+and platforms that could be supported. It would also be undersirable to make
+wxWidgets dependent on another large library that may have to be downloaded and installed.
+In addition, use of templates can lead to executable bloat, which is something
+wxWidgets 2 is strenously trying to avoid.<P>
+
+The standard C++ string class is not used, again because it is not available to all compilers,
+and it is not necessarily a very efficient implementation. Also, we retain more flexibility
+by being able to modify our own string class. Some compatibility with the string class
+has been built into wxString.<P>
+
+There is nothing to stop an application using templates or the string class for its own
+purposes. With wxWidgets debugging options on, you may find you get errors when including
+STL headers. You can work around it either by switching off memory checking,
+or by adding this to a header before you include any STL files:<P>
+
+<PRE>
+#ifdef new
+#undef new
+#endif
+</PRE>
+
+<P>
+
+
+<H3><a name="richedit">Is there a rich edit/markup widget for wxWidgets 2?</a></H3>
+
+These are the possibilities so far:<P>
+
+<ul>
+<li>See <a href="http://www.scintilla.org" target=_top>www.scintilla.org</a> for
+a very nice syntax-highlighting editor widget. Robin Dunn has written a wxWidgets wrapper
+for this widget, available in the wxWidgets 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 wxWidgets - please see the reference
+manual for details, and samples/html.
+<li>There are rich edit widgets in both WIN32 and GTK+, but there is currently
+no wxWidgets wrapper for these (but text attribute functions are being added in the wxWidgets 2.3.x series).
+</ul>
+
+<P>
+
+<h3><a name="exceptions">How to use C++ exceptions with wxWidgets?</a></h3>
+
+wxWidgets 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
+wxWidgets.
+
+<p>
+There are a few issues to keep in mind, though:
+<ul>
+ <li>You shouldn't let the exceptions propagate through wxWidgets 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 wxWidgets.
+
+ <li>You may need to ensure that the compiler support for the exceptions is
+ enabled as, considering that wxWidgets 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 wxWidgets being developed?</a></H3>
+
+We are using the <a href="cvs.htm">CVS</a> system to develop and maintain wxWidgets. This allows
+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 wxWidgets distribution
+directory.<P>
+
+<H3><a name="distrib">How is wxWidgets distributed?</a></H3>
+
+By ftp, and via the <a href="cdrom2.htm">wxWidgets CD-ROM</a>.
+<P>
+If you are feeling adventurous, you may also check out the sources directly
+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 wxWidgets finished (are GUI toolkits ever
+finished?) to think very far ahead. However, we know we want to make wxWidgets 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 PNG and XPM for all platforms.<P>
+
+Other possibilities include: DCOM/CORBA compatibility; a wxWidgets book;
+<a href="http://wxworkshop.sourceforge.net/">wxWorkshop</a>, an IDE;
+other platforms, especially embedded systems; other interface abilities such as speech output.<P>
+
+We will investigate the possibility of compiler or operating system vendors bundling wxWidgets with
+their product.<P>
+
+The high-level goal of wxWidgets 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 wxWidgets comprised by the non-GUI classes. It includes
+wxWidgets 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 wxWidgets 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 wxWidgets port).
+
+<H3><a name="univ">What is wxUniversal?</a></H3>
+
+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
+wxWidgets 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 wxWidgets to a new platform as only the low-level classes must be ported
+which make for a small part of the library.
+<p>
+You may find more about wxUniversal <a href=wxuniv.htm>here</a>.
+
+<H3><a name="jave">What about Java?</a></H3>
+
+The Java honeymoon period is over :-) and people are realising that it cannot
+meet all their cross-platform development needs. We don't anticipate a major threat
+from Java, and the level of interest in wxWidgets 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 wxWidgets 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
+wxWidgets (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 wxWidgets does not require.
+<li>Mono hasn't proven its long-term viability yet (it's a complex system of components); wxWidgets 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 wxWidgets 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 wxWidgets!)
+</ol>
+
+There is nothing to stop folk from developing a C# version of the wxWidgets 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 the developers' mailing list with your own suggestions.<P>
+
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