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wxWidgets

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wxWidgets
Developer(s)Various developers and contributors[1]
Initial release1992; 32 years ago (1992)
Stable release
2.8.12 / March 22, 2011; 13 years ago (2011-03-22)
Preview release
2.9.5 / July 16, 2013; 11 years ago (2013-07-16)
Repository
Written inC++
Operating systemCross-platform
TypeDevelopment library
LicensewxWindows License
Websitewxwidgets.org

wxWidgets (formerly wxWindows) is a widget toolkit and tools library for creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs) for cross-platform applications. wxWidgets enables a program's GUI code to compile and run on several computer platforms with minimal or no code changes. It covers systems such as Microsoft Windows, OS X (Carbon and Cocoa), iOS (Cocoa Touch), Linux/Unix (X11, Motif, and GTK+), OpenVMS, OS/2 and AmigaOS. A version for embedded systems is under development.[2]

wxWidgets is used across many industry sectors, most notably by Xerox, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Lockheed Martin, NASA and the Center for Naval Analyses. It is also used in the public sector and education by, for example, Dartmouth Medical School, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Center for Biotechnology Information, and many others.[3] wxWidgets is used in many open source projects,[4] and by individual developers. A wide choice of compilers and other tools to use with wxWidgets, allows development of highly sophisticated applications on a tight budget.[3]

It is free and open source software, distributed under the terms of the wxWidgets License, which satisfies those who wish to produce for GPL and proprietary software.[5]

History

wxWidgets (initially wxWindows) was started in 1992 by Julian Smart at the University of Edinburgh.[6] He attained an honours degree in Computational science from the University of St Andrews in 1986, and is still a core developer.[7][8]

On February 20, 2004, the developers of wxWindows announced that the project was changing its name to wxWidgets, as a result of Microsoft requesting Julian Smart to respect Microsoft's United Kingdom trademark of the term Windows.[9]

Major release versions were 2.4 on 6 January 2003, 2.6 on 21 April 2005 and 2.8.0 on 14 December 2006.

wxWidgets has participated in the Google Summer of Code since 2006.[10][11]


The following table contains the release history of wxWidgets, showing all of its major release versions.

Version number Date Notable changes
Project started by Julian Smart 1992[12]
wxWindows 1
Alpha 1 5 April 1997[13]
Beta 1 24 December 1998[13]
wxWidgets 2
2.0.1 1 March 1999[13]
2.2.0 9 July 2000[14]
2.4.0 6 January 2003[14]
2.6.0 21 April 2005[14]
2.8.0 14 December 2006[15]
  • wxAUI library.
  • Generic wxRichTextCtrl.
  • wxComboCtrl with custom, graphical comboboxes.
  • Further functionality including wxAnimationCtrl, wxSimpleHtmlListBox, wxHyperlinkCtrl, wxColourPickerCtrl, wxDirPickerCtrl, wxFilePickerCtrl, wxFontPickerCtrl, wxCollapsiblePane, wxSearchCtrl, wxAboutBox, wxTreebook, tar streams.
Future versions
3.0 "Soon" after the release of 2.9.5 (May 2013?)[16]
  • GTK+ 3 port
  • Transparent Unicode support
  • Unification of debug-release builds
  • Cocoa-based wxOSX port running in 64-bit mode
  • PersistentControls
  • Support for window-modal and application-modal dialogs
  • wxRibbon - ribbon implementation
  • wxPropertyGrid
3.2 [16]
  • Drop Win9x platform support.
  • Drop Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 support.

License

Further information: wxWindows License

wxWidgets is distributed under a custom made wxWindows License, similar to the GNU Lesser General Public License, with an exception stating that derived works in binary form may be distributed on the user's own terms. This license is a free software license, making wxWidgets free software.[5] It has been approved by the Open Source Initiative (OSI).[17]

Official support

Supported platforms

wxWidgets is supported on the following platforms.[18]

  • Windows - wxMSW (Windows 95, 98, Me; NT, 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8)
  • Linux/Unix wxGTK, wxX11, wxMotif
  • OS X - wxMac (10.3 using Carbon)
  • OS/2 - wxOS2, wxPM, wxWidgets for GTK+ or Motif can be compiled on OS/2
  • Embedded platforms - wxEmbedded[2]

External ports

  • Amiga - wxWidgets-AOS: AmigaOS port[19]

Supported compilers

See also: Supported classes by wxWidgets' ports

wxWidgets is officially confirmed to work properly with the following compilers.[20]

wxMSW wxGTK
Compiler Version Compiler Version
Microsoft Visual Studio - Visual C++
Borland C++
C++Builder
Watcom C++, OpenWatcom
CodeWarrior
Cygwin
MinGW
Digital Mars C/C++ compiler 		5.0 +
5.5 +
2006 +
10.6 +
7 +
1.5 +
2.0 +
8.40 + 		g++
Sun Studio C/C++
HP aC++
IBM XL C/C++ 		2.95 +
5.9
3.80
8.00

Implementation

wxPython logo

The wxWidgets library is implemented in C++, with bindings available for many commonly used programming languages. Some of them:[21]

Language Binding Latest release Latest release date
Python wxPython 2.8.12.1 2011-07-23[22]
PHP wxPHP 2.9.4.0 2012-05-15[23]
Erlang wxErlang 0.99.2 2012-04-01[24]
Haskell wxHaskell 0.90 2012-04-13[25]
Tcl wxTCL [26]
Lua wxLua 2.8.12.2 2012-07-26[27]
Perl wxPerl 0.98 2010-08-18[28]
Ruby wxRuby 2.0.1 2009-09-08[29]
Smalltalk wxSqueak 0.5.1 2008-07-06[30]
Basic wxBasic 2.8.12.30 2011-05-05[31]
FreeBasic wx-c 2.8.12
BlitzMax wxMax 1.01 2009-10[32]
C wxC [33]
D wxD 0.16 2011-08-26[34]
Euphoria wxEuphoria 0.16.0 2011-06-20[35]
.NET Framework wx.NET 0.9.2 2010-07-14[36]
Java wx4j 0.2.0 2004-04-01[37]
JavaScript GLUEscript 0.2.00 2012-02-03[38]

wxWidgets is best described as a native mode toolkit as it provides a thin abstraction to a platform's native widgets, contrary to emulating the display of widgets using graphic primitives. Calling a native widget on the target platform results in a more native looking interface than toolkits such as Swing (for Java), as well as offering performance and other benefits.[39]

The toolkit is also not restricted to GUI development, having an inter-process communication layer, socket networking functionality, and more.

RAD tools and IDEs for wxWidgets

CodeLite under Windows XP
Code::Blocks running under Ubuntu

There are many Rapid Application Development (RAD) and Integrated Development Environment (IDE) tools available, among them:[40][41]

Applications built using wxWidgets

Amaya under Windows 7
See also: Category: Software that uses wxWidgets

Notable applications that use wxWidgets:

See also

References

  1. ^ wxWidgets developers and contributors
  2. ^ a b "wxEmbedded: wxWidgets for embedded applications". Sourceforge.net. Retrieved 2007-04-23.
  3. ^ a b "About Who uses wxWidgets?". wxWidgets.org. Retrieved 2011-04-12.
  4. ^ "List of open source applications that uses wxWidgets". SourceForge.net. Retrieved 2011-04-22.
  5. ^ a b ""License" page on website". The wxWindows License is essentially the L-GPL (Library General Public License), with an exception stating that derived works in binary form may be distributed on the user's own terms.
  6. ^ "About the wxWidgets Project". wxwidgets.org. Retrieved 2010-01-02.
  7. ^ "About Julian Smart, www.anthemion.co.uk". Anthemion.co.uk. 1964-03-27. Retrieved 2009-06-08.
  8. ^ "Julian Smart". Bookfayre.cz. Retrieved 2009-06-08.
  9. ^ Smart, Julian (2004). "Name change". Sourceforge.net. Retrieved 2007-04-23. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  10. ^ Smart, Julian (2006-10-10). "Google Summer of Code 2006: wxWidgets projects summary". wxwidgets.org. Retrieved 2011-04-11.
  11. ^ "Google Summer of Code 2006". Retrieved 2011-04-11.
  12. ^ "History of wxWidgets". wxWidgets.org. Retrieved 2011-04-11.
  13. ^ a b c "wxWidgets Change Log". wxWidgets.org. Retrieved 2011-04-11.
  14. ^ a b c "News". wxWidgets.org. Retrieved 2011-04-11.
  15. ^ Sudiarto Raharjo, Willy (2006-12-14). "WxWidgets 2.8.0". Retrieved 2011-04-11.
  16. ^ a b "wxWidgets Roadmap". Retrieved 2013-05-02.
  17. ^ "Open Source Initiative OSI - The wxWindows Library Licence:Licensing". Open Source Initiative. Retrieved 2011-04-28.
  18. ^ "wxWidgets - General FAQ". wxwidgets.org. Retrieved 2011-04-29.
  19. ^ "wxWidgets-AOS: AmigaOS port". Retrieved 2011-04-24.
  20. ^ "Supported Platforms". wxwidgets.org. Retrieved 2011-04-24.
  21. ^ "wxWidgets General Information". wxwidgets.org. Retrieved 2011-04-11.
  22. ^ "wxPython". Retrieved 2011-08-14.
  23. ^ "wxPHP". Retrieved 2012-09-01.
  24. ^ "wxErlang User's Guide". Retrieved 2012-09-01.
  25. ^ "WxHaskell - HaskellWiki". Retrieved 2012-09-01.
  26. ^ "wx Extension for Tcl". Retrieved 2011-04-12.
  27. ^ "wxLua - homepage". Retrieved 2012-09-01.
  28. ^ "wxPerl". Retrieved 2011-04-12.
  29. ^ "wxRubyWiki: wxRuby". Retrieved 2011-04-12.
  30. ^ "wxSqueak official website". Retrieved 2011-04-12.
  31. ^ "wxBasic news". Retrieved 2011-04-12.
  32. ^ "wxmax - BlitzMax binding for wxWidgets". Retrieved 2011-04-12.
  33. ^ "wxC official website". Retrieved 2011-04-12.
  34. ^ "wxD - Cross-Platform GUI Library". Retrieved 2012-09-01.
  35. ^ "wxEuphoria official website". Retrieved 2011-08-14.
  36. ^ "wx.NET Home Page". Retrieved 2011-04-12.
  37. ^ "wx4j: A Java Binding for wxWidgets". Retrieved 2011-04-12.
  38. ^ "GLUEscript - Glueing Libraries Using EcmaScript". Retrieved 2012-09-01.
  39. ^ "WxWidgets Compared To Other Toolkits". wxwidgets.org. Retrieved 2010-01-02.
  40. ^ "Tools for wxWidgets". wxWidgets.org. Retrieved 2011-04-12.
  41. ^ "List of Integrated Development Environments". wxWidgets.org. Retrieved 2011-04-12.

Further reading

Wikimedia Commons has media related to wxWidgets.
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