| - -wxWidgets 2 for Windows FAQ - - | -
- -See also top-level FAQ page. -
- -wxWidgets 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. -
- -wxWidgets 2 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 wxWidgets 2 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 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.
- -
- -
-<?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" -- -In wxWidgets 2.5, this will be in the wx/msw/wx.rc and -so will happen automatically so long as you include wx.rc -in your own .rc file.
- -For an explanation of this syntax, please see -this -article. -
- -
- -
- - -
- -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 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 -quite slow to compile since it does not use precompiled headers.
- -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.
- -Watcom C++ is a little slow and the debugger is not really up to today's standards.
- -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 -wxWidgets. - -
- -
- -
- -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 -wxWidgets! -
- -
- -If you want to distribute really small executables, you can -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. 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. -
- -
- -
- -lib/mswd
- -or if building the static Release library, lib/msw.
- -See also the wxWiki Contents -for more information.
- - -
-
-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. - -
- -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 wxWidgets project, set to 'Minimum -Size'. In Dialog Editor project, set to 'Customize: Favor Small -Code' (and no others). This will then work.
- -
- -Here are Vadim's notes:
- -
-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.- -- -tmake can be found at -www.troll.no/freebies/tmake.html. -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
- -
tmake -t b32 wxwin.pro -o ../../src/msw/makefile.b32- -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.
- -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.
- -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.
- -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.
- - 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 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 wxWidgets.dsp run
- -
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.
- -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). -
- -
-On the VC++ level, it's just the matter of calling _CrtSetDbgFlag() in the very -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 -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 -- -
- -
- -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.
- -
- -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);
-}
-
-
-- - -
-Of course, another possibility is to always use only the Windows cvs client -and to avoid this problem completely. -
- - - - - -