   
Why another cross-platform development tool?
wxWidgets was developed to provide a cheap and flexible way to maximize
investment in GUI application development. While a number of commercial
class libraries already existed for cross-platform development,
none met all of the following criteria:
- low price;
- source availability;
- simplicity of programming;
- support for a wide range of compilers.
Since wxWidgets was started, several other free or almost-free
GUI frameworks have emerged. However, none has the range of
features, flexibility, documentation and the well-established
development team that wxWidgets has.
As open source software, wxWidgets has benefited from comments,
ideas, bug fixes, enhancements and the sheer enthusiasm of
users. This gives wxWidgets a certain advantage over its
commercial competitors (and over free libraries without an
independent development team), plus a robustness against the
transience of one individual or company. This openness and
availability of source code is especially important when the
future of thousands of lines of application code may depend upon
the longevity of the underlying class library.
Version 2 goes much further than previous versions in terms of
generality and features, allowing applications to be produced
that are often indistinguishable from those produced using
single-platform toolkits such as Motif, GTK+ and MFC.
The importance of using a platform-independent class library
cannot be overstated, since GUI application development is very
time-consuming, and sustained popularity of particular GUIs
cannot be guaranteed. Code can very quickly become obsolete if
it addresses the wrong platform or audience. wxWidgets helps to
insulate the programmer from these winds of change. Although
wxWidgets may not be suitable for every application (such as an
OLE-intensive program), it provides access to most of the
functionality a GUI program normally requires, plus many extras
such as network programming, PostScript output, and HTML
rendering; and it can of course be extended as needs dictate.
As a bonus, it provides a far cleaner and easier programming
interface than the native APIs. Programmers may find it
worthwhile to use wxWidgets even if they are developing on only
one platform.
It is impossible to sum up the functionality of wxWidgets in a few paragraphs, but
here are some of the benefits:
- Low cost (free, in fact!)
- You get the source.
- Available on a variety of popular platforms.
- Works with almost all popular C++ compilers and Python.
- Over 50 example programs.
- Over 1000 pages of printable and on-line documentation.
- Includes Tex2RTF, to allow you to produce your own documentation
in Windows Help, HTML and Word RTF formats.
- Simple-to-use, object-oriented API.
- Flexible event system.
- Graphics calls include lines, rounded rectangles, splines, polylines, etc.
- Constraint-based and sizer-based layouts.
- Print/preview and document/view architectures.
- Toolbar, notebook, tree control, advanced list control classes.
- PostScript generation under Unix, normal MS Windows printing on the PC.
- MDI (Multiple Document Interface) support.
- Can be used to create DLLs under Windows, dynamic libraries on Unix.
- Common dialogs for file browsing, printing, colour selection, etc.
- Under MS Windows, support for creating metafiles and copying
them to the clipboard.
- An API for invoking help from applications.
- Ready-to-use HTML window (supporting a subset of HTML).
- Network support via a family of socket and protocol classes.
- Support for platform independent image processing.
- Built-in support for many file formats (BMP, PNG, JPEG, GIF, XPM, PNM, PCX).
|
