-|
-
-wxWindows 2 for Windows FAQ
+ |
+
+wxWidgets for Windows FAQ
|
@@ -26,87 +27,137 @@ See also top-level FAQ page.
-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).
+wxWidgets can be used to develop and deliver applications on Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT,
+Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Vista. A Windows CE
+port is also available (see below).
-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-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.
-
-16-bit compilation is supported under Visual C++ 1.5, and Borland BC++ 4 to 5.
+16-bit compilation is only supported for wxWidgets 2.4 and previous versions,
+using Visual C++ 1.5 and Borland BC++ 4 to 5.
-wxWindows 2 for Windows will also compile on Unix with gcc using TWIN32 from Willows,
-although TWIN32 is still in a preliminary state. The resulting executables are
-Unix binaries that work with the TWIN32 Windows API emulator.
+wxWidgets for Windows will also compile on Unix with gcc using Wine from WineHQ.
+The resulting executables are Unix binaries that work with the Wine Windows API emulator.
-You can also compile wxWindows 2 for Windows on Unix with Cygwin or Mingw32, resulting
+You can also compile wxWidgets for Windows on Unix with Cygwin or Mingw32, resulting
in executables that will run on Windows. So in theory you could write your applications
-using wxGTK or wxMotif, then check/debug your wxWindows for Windows
-programs with TWIN32, and finally produce an ix86 Windows executable using Cygwin/Mingw32,
+using wxGTK or wxMotif, then check/debug your wxWidgets for Windows
+programs with Wine, 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.
-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
-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
-storage should not be a problem.
+This port supports Pocket PC 2002/2003 and MS Smartphone 2002/2003, using
+Embedded Visual C++ 3 or 4. For further information, see the wxMSW section in
+the wxWidgets Reference Manual, and also the wxEmbedded page.
+
+
+
+From wxWidgets 2.5, the XP manifest is included in wx/msw/wx.rc and
+so your application will be themed automatically so long as you include wx.rc
+in your own .rc file.
+
+For versions of wxWidgets below 2.5, you need to provide the manifest
+explicitly, as follows.
+
+In the same directory as you have your executable (e.g. foo.exe) you
+put a file called foo.exe.manifest in which you have something like
+the following:
+
+
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
+<assembly
+ xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1"
+ manifestVersion="1.0">
+<assemblyIdentity
+ processorArchitecture="x86"
+ version="5.1.0.0"
+ type="win32"
+ name="foo.exe"/>
+ <description>Foo program</description>
+ <dependency>
+ <dependentAssembly>
+ <assemblyIdentity
+ type="win32"
+ name="Microsoft.Windows.Common-Controls"
+ version="6.0.0.0"
+ publicKeyToken="6595b64144ccf1df"
+ language="*"
+ processorArchitecture="x86"/>
+ </dependentAssembly>
+ </dependency>
+</assembly>
+
+
+If you want to add it to your application permanently,
+you can also include it in your .rc file using this
+line:
+
+
+ 1 24 "winxp.manifest"
+
+
+For an explanation of this syntax, please see
+this
+article.
+
-Please see the wxWindows 2 for Windows install.txt file for up-to-date information, but
+Please see the wxWidgets for Windows install.txt file for up-to-date information, but
currently the following are known to work:
-- Visual C++ 1.5, 4.0, 5.0, 6.0
-
- Borland C++ 4.5, 5.0
-
- Borland C++Builder 1.0, 3.0
-
- Watcom C++ 10.6 (WIN32)
-
- Cygwin b20
+
- Visual C++ 1.5, 4.0, 5.0, 6.0, 7.0, 7.1
+
- Borland C++ 4.5, 5.0, 5.5
+
- Borland C++Builder 1.0, 3.0, X
+
- Watcom C++ 10.6 (Win32), OpenWatcom 1.0
+
- Cygwin (using configure)
- Mingw32
-
- MetroWerks CodeWarrior 4
+
- MetroWerks CodeWarrior (many versions)
+
- Digital Mars 8.34+
-There is a linking problem with Symantec C++ which I hope someone can help solve.
-
-
+
-It's partly a matter of taste, but I (JACS) prefer Visual C++ since the debugger is very
+It's partly a matter of taste, but some people 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.
+for wxWidgets samples.
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.
-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
+C++Builder's power isn't really used with wxWidgets since it needs integration with its
+own class library (VCL). For wxWidgets, I've only used it with makefiles, in which case
it's almost identical to BC++ 5.0 (the same makefiles can be used).
You can't beat Cygwin's price (free), and you can debug adequately using gdb. However, it's
@@ -119,50 +170,106 @@ Watcom C++ is a little slow and the debugger is not really up to today's sta
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.
+wxWidgets. However BC++ has trouble compiling large executables statically,
+so you need to dynamically link the wxWidgets libraries.
-Yes, Unicode is fully supported under Windows NT/2000 (Windows 9x don't
-have Unicode support anyhow).
+Yes, Unicode is fully supported under Windows NT/2000 and there is limited
+support for it under Windows 9x using MSLU.
+
+
+
-
+For Japanese under Win2000, it seems that wxWidgets has no problems working
+with double byte char sets (meaning DBCS, not Unicode). First you have to
+install Japanese support on your Win2K system and choose for ANSI translation
+HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Nls\CodePage=932
+(default is 1252 for Western). Then you can see all the Japanese letters in
+wxWidgets applications.
+
+
+
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
+delivering a suite of separate programs, or you're compiling a lot of wxWidgets applications
and have limited hard disk space.
-With a DLL approach, and with different versions and configurations of wxWindows
+With a DLL approach, and with different versions and configurations of wxWidgets
needing to be catered for, the end user may end up with a host of large DLLs in his or her Windows system directory,
negating the point of using DLLs. Of course, this is not a problem just associated with
-wxWindows!
+wxWidgets!
-You can compile wxWindows as a DLL (see above, VC++/BC++ only at present). You should also
+You can compile wxWidgets 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, but
take with VC++ 5/6 space optimisation: it can sometimes cause problems.
-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.
-
If you want to distribute really small executables, you can
-use Petite
+use Petite
by Ian Luck. This nifty utility compresses Windows executables by around 50%, so your 500KB executable
will shrink to a mere 250KB. With this sort of size, there is reduced incentive to
-use DLLs.
+use DLLs. Another good compression tool (probably better than Petite) is UPX.
+
+
+Please do not be surprised if MinGW produces a statically-linked minimal executable of 1 MB. Firstly, gcc
+produces larger executables than some compilers. Secondly, this figure will
+include most of the overhead of wxWidgets, so as your application becomes more
+complex, the overhead becomes proportionally less significant. And thirdly, trading executable compactness
+for the enormous increase in productivity you get with wxWidgets is almost always well worth it.
+
+If you have a really large executable compiled with MinGW (for example 20MB) then
+you need to configure wxWidgets to compile without debugging information: see
+docs/msw/install.txt for details. You may find that using configure instead
+of makefile.g95 is easier, particularly since you can maintain debug and
+release versions of the library simultaneously, in different directories.
+Also, run 'strip' after linking to remove all traces of debug info.
+
-
+
-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
+There is a sample which demonstrates MFC and wxWidgets code co-existing in the same
+application. However, don't expect to be able to enable wxWidgets windows with OLE-2
functionality using MFC.
+
+
+When you build the wxWidgets library, setup.h is copied
+from include/wx/msw/setup.h to e.g. lib/vc_msw/mswd/wx/setup.h (the path
+depends on the configuration you're building). So you need to add
+this include path if building using the static Debug library:
+
+lib/vc_lib/mswd
+
+or if building the static Release library, lib/vc_lib/msw.
+
+See also the wxWiki Contents
+for more information.
+
+
+
+
+If you get errors like
+
+
+no matching function for call to 'wxDC::DrawTextA(const char[5], int,
+int)'
+
+
+or similar ones for the other functions, i.e. the compiler error messages
+mention the function with the 'A' suffix while you didn't
+use it in your code, the explanation is that you had included
+<windows.h> header which redefines many symbols to have such
+suffix (or 'W' in the Unicode builds).
+
+
+The fix is to either not include <windows.h> at all or include
+"wx/msw/winundef.h" immediately after it.
+
The most common cause of this problem is the memory debugging settings in
@@ -173,30 +280,31 @@ The most common cause of this problem is the memory debugging settings in
setting wxUSE_GLOBAL_MEMORY_OPERATORS and
wxUSE_DEBUG_NEW_ALWAYS to 0 in this file
Or leave them on but do #undef new after including any
- wxWindows headers, like this the memory debugging will be still on
- for wxWindows sources but off for your own code
+ wxWidgets headers, like this the memory debugging will be still on
+ for wxWidgets sources but off for your own code
Notice that IMHO the first solution is preferable for VC++ users who can use
the VC++ CRT memory debugging features instead.
-
+
-Set up your interface from scratch using wxWindows (especially wxDesigner --
+Set up your interface from scratch using wxWidgets (especially wxDesigner
+or DialogBlocks --
it'll save you a lot 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
+and wxWidgets simultaneously from the beginning - it is easier to
reproduce the initial UI by looking at the behaviour of the MFC
app, not its code.
Some crash problems can be due to inconsistent compiler
-options (and of course this isn't limited to wxWindows).
+options (and of course this isn't limited to wxWidgets).
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
@@ -209,16 +317,19 @@ 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
+optimized. For example, in wxWidgets project, set to 'Minimum
Size'. In Dialog Editor project, set to 'Customize: Favor Small
Code' (and no others). This will then work.
-
+
-As of wxWindows 2.1, there is a new system written by Vadim Zeitlin, that
+wxWidgets 2.5.x and above uses Bakefile to generate makefiles, which
+is described in technical note 16 under docs/tech in your distribution.
+
+For 2.4.x, there is a system written by Vadim Zeitlin that
generates the makefiles from templates using tmake.
-Here are Vadim's notes:
+Here are Vadim's notes on tmake:
To use these new makefiles, you don't need anything (but see below).
@@ -261,7 +372,7 @@ 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.
-So now adding a new file to wxWindows is as easy as modifying filelist.txt
+So now adding a new file to wxWidgets 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.
@@ -271,11 +382,11 @@ 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),
+of building wxWidgets (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
+others. To generate wxWidgets.dsp run
-
tmake -t vc6 wxwin.pro -o ../../wxWindows.dsp
+
tmake -t vc6 wxwin.pro -o ../../wxWidgets.dsp
Then just include this project in any workspace or open it from VC IDE
and it will create a new workspace for you.
@@ -289,13 +400,13 @@ directory by 10 (and the number of files to be maintained too).
-
+
Vadim Zeitlin:
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
+beginning of the program. In wxWidgets, 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
@@ -320,7 +431,142 @@ VZ
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.
+isn'used by the event handler.
+
+It can also happen if you append the submenu to the parent
+menu {\it before} you have added your menu items. Do the append {\it after} adding
+your items, or accelerators may not be registered properly.
+
+
+
+Currently this is not possible because the wxConfig family of classes is
+supposed to deal with per-user application configuration data, and HKLM is
+only supposed to be writeable by a user with Administrator privileges. In theory,
+only installers should write to HKLM. This is still a point debated by the
+wxWidgets developers. There are at least two ways to work around it if you really
+need to write to HKLM.
+
+First, you can use wxRegKey directly, for example:
+
+
+ wxRegKey regKey;
+
+ wxString idName(wxT("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\My Company\\My Product\\Stuff\\"));
+ idName += packid;
+
+ regKey.SetName(idName);
+
+ {
+ wxLogNull dummy;
+ if (!regKey.Create())
+ {
+ idName = wxT("HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\SOFTWARE\\My Company\\My Product\\Stuff\\");
+ idName += packid;
+ regKey.SetName(idName);
+ if (!regKey.Create())
+ return FALSE;
+ }
+ }
+
+ if (!regKey.SetValue(wxT("THING"), (long) thing)) err += 1;
+
+ regKey.Close();
+
+
+
+Or, you can employ this trick suggested by Istvan Kovacs:
+
+
+class myGlobalConfig : public wxConfig
+{
+ myGlobalConfig() :
+ wxConfig ("myApp", "myCompany", "", "", wxCONFIG_USE_GLOBAL_FILE)
+{};
+ bool Write(const wxString& key, const wxString& value);
+}
+
+bool myGlobalConfig::Write (const wxString& key, const wxString& value)
+{
+ wxString path = wxString ("SOFTWARE\\myCompany\\myApp\\") + wxPathOnly(key);
+ wxString new_path = path.Replace ("/", "\\", true);
+ wxString new_key = wxFileNameFromPath (key);
+ LocalKey().SetName (wxRegKey::HKLM, path);
+ return wxConfig::Write (new_key, value);
+}
+
+
+
+
+This is being worked on. Please see this page
+for the current status.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+If you have downloaded the wxWidgets sources from the cvs using a Unix cvs
+client or downloaded a daily snapshot in .tar.gz format, it is likely
+that the project files have Unix line endings (LF) instead of the DOS ones (CR
+LF). However all versions of Visual C++ up to and including 7.1 can only open
+the files with the DOS line endings, so you must transform the files to this
+format using any of the thousands ways to do it.
+
+Of course, another possibility is to always use only the Windows cvs client
+and to avoid this problem completely.
+
+
+
+
+If you get errors like this
+
+
+MSVCRTD.lib(MSVCRTD.dll) : error LNK2005: _xxxxxx already defined in LIBCD.lib(yyyyy.obj)
+
+
+when linking your project, this means that you used different versions of CRT
+(C Run-Time) library for wxWindows (or possibly another library) and the main
+project. Visual C++ provides static or dynamic and multithread safe or not
+versions of CRT for each of debug and release builds, for a total of 8
+libraries. You can choose among them by going to the "Code generation"
+page/subitem of the "C++" tab/item in the project proprieties dialog in VC6/7.
+
+To avoid problems, you must use the same one for all
+components of your project. wxWindows uses multithread safe DLL version of the
+CRT which is a good choice but may be problematic when distributing your
+applications if you don't include the CRT DLL in your installation -- in this
+case you may decide to switch to using a static CRT version. If you build with
+wxUSE_THREADS == 0 you may also use the non MT-safe version as it is
+slightly smaller and faster.
+
+But the most important thing is to use the same CRT setting for
+all components of your project.
+
+
+
+If you get errors when including Microsoft DirectShow or DirectDraw headers,
+the following message from Peter Whaite could help:
+
+> This causes compilation errors within DirectShow:
+>
+> wxutil.h(125) : error C2065: 'EXECUTE_ASSERT' : undeclared identifier
+> amfilter.h(1099) : error C2065: 'ASSERT' : undeclared identifier
+
+The reason for this is that __WXDEBUG__ is also used by the DXSDK (9.0
+in my case) to '#pragma once' the contents of
+DXSDK/Samples/C++/DirectShow/BaseClasses/wxdebug.h. So if __WXDEBUG__
+is defined, then wxdebug.h doesn't get included, and the assert macros
+don't get defined. You have to #undef __WXDEBUG__ before including the
+directshow baseclass's <streams.h>.
+
+
+
+
+
+To handle a Windows message you need to override a virtual
+MSWWindowProc() method in a wxWindow-derived class. You should then
+test if nMsg parameter is the message you need to process and perform
+the necessary action if it is or call the base class method otherwise.