===== Announcing wxWindows 1.67 ===== ===== A Free C++ GUI toolkit for Motif, Open Look, Windows 3.1, ===== ===== Windows 95 and Windows NT ===== ===== --o-- ===== ===== http://web.ukonline.co.uk/julian.smart/wxwin ===== wxWindows is a C++ framework for developing multi-platform, graphical applications from the same body of C++ code. Currently supporting Motif, Open Look and MS Windows, a Mac port is under development. A third-party port supports development using Xt. Main features + Simple-to-use, object-oriented API + Graphics calls include splines, polylines, rounded rectangles, etc. + Simple programmatic panel/dialog item layout + Support for menu bars and status lines + Toolbar class + Pens, brushes, fonts, icons, cursors, bitmaps + Easy, object-oriented interprocess communication (DDE subset) under MS Windows and UNIX + Encapsulated PostScript generation and MS Windows printing + Print/preview framework + Document/view/undo framework + Memory-checking and debugging features + ODBC subset support + Virtually automatic MDI support under MS Windows + Support for MS Windows printer and file selector common dialogs, with equivalents for UNIX + Under MS Windows, support for copying metafiles to the clipboard + Programmatic form facility for building form-like screens fast, with constraints on values + Applications can access MS Windows Help or wxHelp help system + All source, examples + Reference manual in PostScript, wxHelp, WinHelp, HTML, RTF forms Additional features + Simple-to-use Windows program installation utility for delivering your applications + wxCLIPS: an interface to NASA's CLIPS, for rapid GUI prototyping and application extension + wxPython: an IDE for rapid object-oriented GUI development + Tex2RTF utility for maintaining online and printed manuals + Tree layout, graph layout, charting and grid classes + Contributed advanced editor/hypertext classes + Dialog Editor Compilers supported + Most Windows compilers: MS Visual C++ 1.x/4.x/5.x, Borland 3.1/4.x/5.x, Symantec C++, Watcom C++ (WIN32 only), GNU-WIN32 + Most UNIX compilers, including GCC Platforms supported + All MS Windows variants + Most if not all UNIX variants, including Linux, Solaris 1.x, Solaris 2.x, HP/UX, SGI IRIX, OSF/1, IBM AIX + VAX/VMS (partial support) + Mac (68K and PPC) port in progress, with alphas available Weaknesses To avoid disappointment, it should be pointed out that wxWindows may not be suitable for everyone. It contains a few bugs and some ugly code, unlike any commercial equivalent :-); it does not have the slickness or coverage of a tool like Microsoft's MFC; and you may not agree with the compromises made for portability. On the other hand, it is in a state of continuous development and improvement. Some changes may need to be made for specific platforms, although most compilers and UNIXes are now catered for. And wxWindows does produce large executables and increase compilation time, although there are strategies for minimizing these problems, depending on brand of compiler and operating system: see the FAQ. Where to get it wxWindows is currently available from the Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute by anonymous FTP. + FTP to one of: ftp.aiai.ed.ac.uk/pub/packages/wxwin (UK) ftp.mapsy.nat.tu-bs.de/pub/mirror/wxwin (Germany) silr.ireste.fr/pub/mirror/wxwin (France) senna.eng.monash.edu.au/pub/wxwin (Australia) + log on as `anonymous', and give your user ID as password + Change directory into /pub/packages/wxwin/1.67, (unix or mswin subdirectories), change transmission method to binary, and get wx167*.tar.gz (UNIX) and/or setup.* (PC) + Get install.txt. + For automated installation under UNIX, get wxinstal. + Get the WinHelp, PostScript or HTML documentation required (the PC distribution contains the WinHelp files already). + Both archives contain the source code for both platforms. Installation See install.txt and the installation script wxinstal. Note that the local HTML documentation can be accessed from docs/html/index.htm. Bugs and an exhortation wxWindows, like most other software, has the occasional buglet (bugs.txt contains a list of some of them). I would be grateful for bug reports (even better, fixes) though I can't guarantee to integrate them. Meanwhile, please do join the growing wxWindows community: it's fun, and it's going places. The more contributors, the stronger the chances that it will be the best toolkit of its type within the next year or so. wxWindows discussion forum There are discussion and announcements mailing lists for users or potential users of wxWindows. Mail one of the following addresses to subscribe to the relevant list. These lists are automated. Send a message with the message body: subscribe which-list [your-mail-address] or unsubscribe which-list [your-mail-address] where which-list is wxwin-users or wxwin-announce, and your-mail-address is your regular email address if you need to specify it explicitly. To get help on the syntax, send a message with 'help' in the message body. If there is a problem, please mail Timothy Peters (tim.peters@nene.ac.uk). wxwin-users-request@babbage.eng.nene.ac.uk - to subscribe to wxwin-users discussion list wxwin-announce-request@babbage.eng.nene.ac.uk - to subscribe to wxwin-announce mailing list General discussions take place on wxwin-users; wxwin-announce is for people preferring lower bandwidth, and I will always send announcements to wxwin-users as well as wxwin-announce. So there's not usually a need to subscribe to both. ------------------------------------------------------------------ THANK YOU, to everyone who has contributed code, suggestions or moral support. Julian Smart, July 1997 julian.smart@ukonline.co.uk