X-Git-Url: https://git.saurik.com/wxWidgets.git/blobdiff_plain/2b5f62a0b2db198609b45dec622a018dae37008e..63e1921d0be4956ab729735189ccf637773a7e27:/docs/publicity/announce.txt diff --git a/docs/publicity/announce.txt b/docs/publicity/announce.txt index 0ef3435e40..0bffcc812f 100644 --- a/docs/publicity/announce.txt +++ b/docs/publicity/announce.txt @@ -1,147 +1,78 @@ -Announcing wxWindows 2.3.4: a cross-platform GUI toolkit ----------------------------------------------------------------- +July 9, 2012 -- The wxWidgets team is pleased to announce the +latest 2.9.4 release of wxWidgets library. -September 16th, 2002 -- the wxWindows team is pleased to -announce the release of a development snapshot of the mature -cross-platform C++ application framework. +wxWidgets 2.9.4 is available at -The following platforms are supported: - -- Windows 95/98/ME, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP -- Unix with GTK+ 1.x and 2.0 -- Unix with X11 -- Unix with Motif/Lesstif -- VMS with GTK+ 1.x -- MacOS 8.6, 9.x and 10.x -- OS/2 (alpha) - -To get wxWindows, go to the Download page at: - - http://www.wxwindows.org - -This is likely to be the last development snapshot in the -2.3.x series, before the release of the stable 2.4.x series. - -*** About wxWindows - -wxWindows is a comprehensive open-source, multi-platform C++ -GUI framework, that can be used to build commercial and free -software. It's used by many organisations all over the world, -including the company that invented the GUI. - -For most ports, wxWindows adopts the native look and feel of -each platform since it uses the native widget sets. There is also -a generic widget set, used for the wxX11 port - no other widget set -is required, giving the potential for embedded use. - -An extraordinary range of classes is provided - but don't be put -off by this because most people find wxWindows easier to learn -and use than MFC and other frameworks. - -As well as comprehensive support for the usual widgets, advanced -features include: HTML viewing/printing, wxImage class providing -handlers for eading and writing many image types, resizeable panels -and dialogs on all platforms, document/view, OpenGL support, -HTML-based and context-sensitive help, wizards, drag and drop, -a grid class, ODBC support, threads, sockets, container classes, -and much more. An 1800-page reference manual is provided in HTML, -MS HTML Help, WinHelp, wxWindows Help and PDF, and there are over -70 samples and demos. - -If you're an MFC user, you'll find many wxWindows concepts -reassuringly familiar, while often clearer and more consistent. -If you're not, you should still find it intuitive from the start. - -wxWindows bindings for several other languages are available, -including Python, Perl, Basic, Lua, JavaScript and Eiffel. - -If you're considering wxWindows, do check out some of these links: - - http://www.wxwindows.org/feedback.htm ; Comments from users - http://www.wxwindows.org/screensh.htm ; Screenshots - http://www.wxwindows.org/users.htm ; A list of some of our - ; users - -Have fun! - -Julian Smart and the wxWindows team - -===== - -A small selection of the comments from the Feedback page: - -"wxWindows 2.xx has been an absolute dream; putting together a -nice interface has been quite easy, and I'm especially pleased -that I can do most of our development on *nix with confidence -that only minor issues will have to get cleaned up when we build -on Windows." - -"I use wxWindows as a GUI Toolkit for Python. Its stability, -flexibility and speed are the base of industrial strength -cross-platform GUI application design with interpreted languages -like Python. Porting is child's play. Thanks for this great -piece of software!" - -"Excellent, stable and intuitive API. Very straightforward to -learn and easy to port Java, X11 and Win32 code to." - -"Thanks heaps for the best piece of software I've ever come -across (wxWindows)." - -"I chose wxWindows for a very much Windows-only application -because of the simplicity of the API compared to MFC and Win32 -GDI programming. Aside from some minor mistakes in the manual -which confused me for a while, wxWin has been really easy to use -and increased my productivity immensely compared to using -another framework." - -"wxWindows is a great product. One of its best features, IMHO, -are all the language bindings. It's very easy to prototype your -app in wxPython, then convert to a C/C++ app later." - -"Porting to wxWindows is easy - I recently ported an MFC project -at work to wxGTK on Solaris, and changing all the MFC calls to -wxWindows calls only took a couple of hours for a 2 man-month -project... I've never had an easier porting experience. -wxWindows was intentially built to work like MFC to make it easy -to port, and they most certainly succeeded, with the notable -exception of OLE support. I ported a several man month project -in a day or two, and none of it was hard or confusing, it just -amounted to looking up the equivalent functions in the help. I -could do the conversion much faster now because I wouldn't have -to keep glancing at the web page." - -"I'd like to take the opportunity and say a big thank you to all -the wxWin developers and contributors. wxWindows is the best -piece of software I have been using so far, and I can't believe -that I haven't discovered it earlier. I never thought that -cross-platform development could be so easy and simply cool. -Great stuff :)" - -"Just wanted to commend you on wxWindows. As I'm reading the -code samples (the checklistbox right now), I'm realizing that -this is so intuitive and so Java-like in some parts of it, -especially with the way the layout works... Very good work and -thank you." - -"I have used wxWindows in the past very successfully on multiple -projects, and think it's the bee's knees. Thanks for everything!" - -"Well, I'm using wxWindows since 2 days and I'm already in love -with it :) The sizers saved me from writing a complete layout -solution myself. Great work! You guys rock!" - -"wxWindows is jaw dropping amazing. Community support from the -mailing list is extraordinary. Are you sure this is free?" - -"I love wxWindows. I can program 10 times faster than with MFC, -and almost everything works the first time. And unlike MFC, -there are (useful) examples and documentation. Thanks to you -guys who did all the work to develop this framework. Big kudos." - -"ImageLinks now uses the Open Source version of wxWindows for -all its current GUI development. Doing this ensures that -everything interfaces cleanly and also makes it easier in the -long run to add other GUIs along the way because ImageLinks has -access to all the source code." + https://sourceforge.net/downloads/wxwindows/2.9.4/ +and soon will also appear at our FTP mirror at + + ftp://ftp.wxwidgets.org/pub/2.9.4/ + +Please choose the archive format suitable for your platform, i.e. 7z +or ZIP for Windows platforms and tar.bz2 for the Unix systems +including OS X (all archives contain sources for all wxWidgets ports +but they use different line endings) and follow the instructions in +readme.txt file for installing it. Notice that if you decide to use +the Windows installer (.exe file) you still need to build wxWidgets +as only sources, not binaries, are installed. + +However, for the first time ever, we also experimentally provide the +pre-built versions of wxMSW libraries built with several version of +Microsoft Visual C++ compiler. You can download them from + + https://sourceforge.net/downloads/wxwindows/2.9.4/binaries/ + +Please see the README file there for the descriptions of the +individual files. + + +This release mostly focuses on bug fixes in preparation for 3.0 +release, in particular there are a lot of improvements in wxOSX/Cocoa +port. The most important new feature in this release is experimental +support for building wxGTK with GTK+ 3 version of the toolkit. Other +noteworthy additions are: + +- Transparent background is now support for wxGTK windows. +- New style directory selection dialog is now used in wxMSW. +- Native wxDatePickerCtrl and wxTimePickerCtrl for wxOSX. +- wxFSInputStream stream class for reading data from wxFileSystem. +- wxGrid::Render() method allows to print or save wxGrid contents. +- Strike-through fonts are now supported. +- Horizontal mouse wheel events are now generated. + + +The list of of changes since the 2.8 series is much too long to be +listed here but the most important ones are: + +- Completely overhauled Unicode support which is much easier to use. +- New Cocoa-based wxOSX port for Mac OS X for both 32 and 64 bits. +- New property grid and ribbon libraries are now included in wxWidgets. +- Better interoperability with standard library classes. +- Totally revised and more readable manual. +- Improved debugging support. + +Please see the changes.txt file in the "docs" subdirectory of +wxWidgets distribution or also available online at +https://sourceforge.net/projects/wxwindows/files/2.9.4/changes.txt/docs/changes.txt +for more details and http://docs.wxwidgets.org/2.9.4/overview_changes_since28.html +if you are upgrading from wxWidgets 2.8. + + +Note about naming: while 2.9.4 is called a "development" release, +this only means that API is not guaranteed to remain unchanged in +the subsequent 2.9.x releases (although it is very unlikely to change +in incompatible ways at this stage), unlike in the stable 2.8.x branch +where source and binary compatibility is always preserved between the +different micro releases. We believe the current version is stable and +suitable for use in production environment and recommend using it for +any new projects using wxWidgets. + +We are especially looking forward to your feedback about the changes +in this release compared to 2.8 version if you're upgrading. Please +let us know about any regressions (http://trac.wxwidgets.org/newticket) +so that we could fix them in the upcoming 3.0. Thanks in advance! + + Enjoy! + +Vadim Zeitlin, on behalf of wxWidgets development team.