Introduction to wxWidgets

Introduction

wxWidgets formerly known as wxWindows is a framework for developing cross-platform GUI applications in C++. Julian Smart started the framework in 1992 at the Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute, University of Edinburgh. In 1995, a port to Xt was released by Markus Holzem. In May 1997, the Windows and the GTK+ ports were merged and put into a CVS repository.

What is wxWidgets

wxWidgets gives you a single, easy-to-use API for writing GUI applications on multiple platforms. Link it with the appropriate library for your platform (Windows/Unix/Mac) and compiler (almost any popular C++ compiler), and your application will adopt the look and feel appropriate to that platform. On top of the great GUI functionality, wxWindows gives you: online help, network programming, streams, clipboard and drag and drop, multithreading, image loading and saving in a variety of popular formats, database support, HTML viewing and printing, and much more.

Who should use wxWidgets

wxWidgets is a framework very much similar to MFC, except for a few negative points of its own. Those MFC programmers who are aware of the growing number of Linux users and who want to write cross platform GUI applications can use wxWidgets. With wxWidgets, it is very easy to use a framework based on C++ and it has a proven record of 13 years. In fact, wxWidgets is very stable and is supported on:

• Windows 3.1, Windows 95/98, Windows NT, Windows 2000/XP, Windows ME, Windows CE.
• Linux and other UNIX platforms with GTK+.
• UNIX with Motif or the free Motif clone Lesstif.
• Mac OS.
• Embedded platforms are being investigated. See the wxUniversal project.
• An OS/2 port is in progress, and you can also compile wxWidgets for GTK+ or Motif on OS/2.

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/library/wxwidgets.aspx