php-deluxe.net - description WxWidgets

WxWidgets

In computing, wxWidgets (formerly known as wxWindows) is an open source, Cross-platform widget toolkit; that is, a library of basic elements for building a graphical user interface (GUI).

wxWidgets is released under a permissive modified (but explicitly Open Source Initiative-approved) LGPL . It was started in 1992 by Julian Smart who, as primus inter pares, is still a core developer.

wxWidgets enables a program to compile and run on several computer platforms with none or minimal code changes. It covers systems like Microsoft Windows, Apple Macintosh, Linux/Unix (for X11, Motif (widget toolkit), and GTK), OpenVMS, and OS/2. An embedded system version is under development.

The library is implemented in C plus plus, but bindings are available for many commonly used programming languages, among them, Python programming language (wxPython), Smalltalk programming language (wxSqueak), Perl, and Java programming language. For a complete list, with links to the respective project sites, see the external references at the end of this article.

wxWidgets is best described as a native toolkit. Instead of emulating the display of widgets using graphic primitives on the different supported platforms, wxWidgets provides a thin abstraction to the native widgets. In other words, the underlying wxWidgets code prefers calling a native widget on the platform, instead of reimplementing custom widgets. This leads to a faster, more native looking interface when compared to toolkits like Swing (Java) (for Java).

wxWidgets is not just designed to display GUIs. It also has a built in ODBC based database library, an Interprocess Communication layer, socket networking functionality, and more.

= Name change from wxWindows to wxWidgets =

On February 20th, 2004, the developers of wxWindows announced that the project was changing its name to wxWidgets , as a result of pressures from Microsoft on Julian Smart to respect Microsoft s United Kingdom trademark of the term Windows .

= External Links =

*[http://wxwidgets.org/ Official Website] *[http://wxwidgets.org/name.htm Name change announcement] *[http://wxforum.org Unofficial forums]

Language bindings: *[http://wxbasic.sourceforge.net/] binding wxBasic for the BASIC programming language *[http://wxperl.sourceforge.net/] binding WxPerl for the Perl programming language *[http://www.wxpython.org/] binding wxPython for the Python programming language *[http://wxruby.rubyforge.org/] binding wxRuby for the Ruby programming language in September 2004 early beta *[http://www.wxsqueak.org/] binding wxSqueak for the Smalltalk programming language *[http://www.luascript.thersgb.net/ wxLua] for Lua programming language *[http://www.wx4j.org/ wx4j] for Java programming language *[http://wxjs.sourceforge.net/ wxJS] for JavaScript *[http://wxhaskell.sourceforge.net/ wxHaskell] for Haskell programming language *[http://elj.sourceforge.net/projects/gui/ewxw/ wxEiffel] for the Eiffel programming language *[http://wxnet.sourceforge.net/ wx.NET] for C Sharp/Microsoft .NET *wxGlade GUI designer for wxWidgets. *[http://wxdsgn.sourceforge.net wxDev-C++] A variation of the Dev-C Plus Plus IDE that incorporates a form designer for wxWidgets

= Reference documentation =

[http://www.informit.com/title/0131473816 Cross-Platform GUI Programming with wxWidgets ] - probably the first published book covering wxWidgets entirely.

[http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspp=405047&rl=1 Drawing and Printing in C++ with wxWidgets] - This chapter introduces the idea of the device context, generalizing the concept of a drawing surface such as a window or a printed page. It will discuss the available device context classes and the set of drawing tools that wxWidgets provides for handling fonts, color, line drawing, and filling.