- WxWidgets
lowercase|title=wxWidgets infobox software
name = wxWidgets
developer = [http://wxwidgets.org/about/whowhat.htm wxWidgets Developers and Contributors]
released = 1992
latest_release_version = 2.8.9
latest_release_date = release date and age|2008|09|22
programming_language =C++
operating_system =Cross-platform
genre = Development library
license = [http://www.wxwidgets.org/newlicen.htm wxWindows Library Licence]
website = http://www.wxwidgets.org/wxWidgets (formerly wxWindows) is a
widget toolkit for creatinggraphical user interface s (GUIs) forcross-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 asMicrosoft Windows ,Mac OS X ,Linux /Unix (X11 , Motif, andGTK+ ),OpenVMS ,OS/2 andAmigaOS . A version forembedded system s is under development. cite web|url=http://www.wxwidgets.org/docs/embedded.htm |title=wxEmbedded: wxWidgets for embedded applications |accessdate=2007-04-23 |publisher=Sourceforge.net ]History
wxWidgets (initially wxWindows) was started in 1992 by Julian Smart at the
University of Edinburgh . [http://wxwidgets.org/about/] He attained an honours degree inComputational Science from theUniversity of St Andrews in the year1986 , and is still a core developer. [ [http://www.anthemion.co.uk/julian.htm About Julian Smart, www.anthemion.co.uk] ] [ [http://www.bookfayre.cz/books/name/julian_smart.2247651.html.cs Julian Smart, bookfayre.cz] ]On February 20, 2004, the developers of wxWindows announced that the project was changing its name to "wxWidgets", as a result of requests from
Microsoft of Julian Smart to respect Microsoft'sUnited Kingdom trademark of the term "Windows". cite web | url = http://wxwidgets.org/about/name.htm |title=Name change |accessdate=2007-04-23 |last=Smart |first=Julian |coauthors=Robin Dunn |month=August | year=2004 |publisher=Sourceforge.net ]License
wxWidgets is distributed under a custom made licence, 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 licence is afree software licence , making wxWidgetsfree software . [ cite web | url = http://www.wxwidgets.org/about/newlicen.htm |title = "Licence" page on website | quote = The wxWindows Licence is essentially the L-GPL (Library General Public Licence), with an exception stating that derived works in binary form may be distributed on the user's own terms. ]Implementation
The wxWidgets library is implemented in
C++ , with bindings available for many commonly usedprogramming language s, among them, Python (wxPython ), Erlang (wxErlang ), Haskell (wxHaskell ), Lua (wxLua ),Perl (wxPerl ), Ruby (wxRuby ), Smalltalk (wxSqueak ), Java (wx4j) and evenJavaScript (wxJavaScript). For a complete list, with links to the respective project sites, see the external references at the end of this article. There is alsoPLT Scheme , which uses an incompatible branch of wxWindows (version 1), created in 1995. The toolkit is deeply integrated with the language run-time (garbage collection, resource administration) unlike in other languages, which simply provide a library binding.wxWidgets is best described as a
native mode toolkit as it provides a thin abstraction to a platform's native widgets, as opposed 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.The toolkit is also not restricted to GUI development, having a built-in ODBC-based database library, an
inter-process communication layer, socket networking functionality, and more.RAD tools and IDEs for wxWidgets
*
Boa Constructor (Python)
* (via wxSmith plugin)
*wxDev-C++
*wxGlade
*wxFormBuilder ( [http://www.wxformbuilder.org Official site] )See also
*
Widget toolkit
*List of widget toolkits References
External links
* [http://wxwidgets.org/ Official Website]
* [http://sourceforge.net/projects/wxwidget-aos/ wxWidgets-AOS AmigaOS Port Official Site]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.