wxWidgets

wxWidgets

Original author(s)	Julian Smart
Developer(s)	Various developers and contributors
Initial release	1992 (1992)
Stable release	3.1.0 (29 February 2016 (2016-02-29)) [±]
Development status	Active
Written in	C++
Operating system	Cross-platform
Type	Development library
License	wxWindows License
Website	wxwidgets.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.

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. wxWidgets is used in many open source projects, and by individual developers. A wide choice of compilers and other tools to use with wxWidgets allows development of highly sophisticated applications.

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.

History

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

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.

Major release versions were 2.4 on 6 January 2003, 2.6 on 21 April 2005 and 2.8.0 on 14 December 2006. Version 3.0 was released on 11 November 2013.

wxWidgets has participated in the Google Summer of Code since 2006.

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
wxWindows 1
Alpha 1	5 April 1997
Beta 1	24 December 1998
wxWidgets 2
2.0.1	1 March 1999
2.2.0	9 July 2000
2.4.0	6 January 2003
2.6.0	21 April 2005
2.8.0	14 December 2006	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.
wxWidgets 3
3.0	11 November 2013	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
Future versions
3.2		Drop Win9x platform support. Drop Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 support.

License

Further information: wxWindows License

wxWindows License

DFSG compatible	Yes
FSF approved	Yes
OSI approved	Yes
GPL compatible	Yes
Copyleft	Yes
Linking from code with a different license	Yes

wxWidgets is distributed under a custom made wxWindows License, similar to the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), 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 approved by the FSF, making wxWidgets free software. It has been approved by the Open Source Initiative (OSI).

Official support

Supported platforms

wxWidgets is supported on the following platforms.

• Windows - wxMSW (Windows 95, 98, Me; NT, 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8)
• Linux/Unix wxGTK, wxX11, wxMotif
• OS X - wxMac (10.3 using Carbon, 10.5 using Cocoa)
• OS/2 - wxOS2, wxPM, wxWidgets for GTK+ or Motif can be compiled on OS/2
• Embedded platforms - wxEmbedded

External ports

• Amiga - wxWidgets-AOS: AmigaOS port (Work In Progress)

Supported compilers

See also: Supported classes by wxWidgets' ports

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

Toolkit	Compiler	Version
wxMSW	Microsoft Visual Studio - Visual C++	5.0+
	Borland C++	5.5+
	C++Builder	2006+
	Watcom C++, OpenWatcom	10.6+
	CodeWarrior	7+
	Cygwin	1.5+
	MinGW	2.0+
	Digital Mars C/C++ compiler	8.40+
wxGTK	g++	2.95+
	Clang++	3.3+
	Intel C++ Compiler	9.1+
	Sun Studio C/C++	5.9
	HP aC++	3.8
	IBM XL C/C++	8.0

Programming language bindings

Main article: List of language bindings for wxWidgets

wxPython logo

The wxWidgets library is implemented in C++, with bindings available for many commonly used programming languages.

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.

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:

• Boa Constructor (Python)
• Code::Blocks (via wxSmith plugin)
• CodeLite (via wxCrafter plugin)
• wxDev-C++ (Plugin)
• wxGlade
• wxFormBuilder
• Philasmicos Entwickler Studio

Applications built using wxWidgets

File:Amaya inuse.png

Amaya under Windows 7

See also: Category: Software that uses wxWidgets

Notable applications that use wxWidgets:

• 0 A.D. (video game) – a FLOSS video game similar to Age of Empires
• Amaya – web authoring tool
• aMule – peer-to-peer file sharing application
• Audacity – cross-platform sound editor
• BitTorrent – peer-to-peer file sharing application
• Code::Blocks – C/C++ IDE
• CodeLite – simple C++ Editor (Collection of free Tools, implemented by plugins)
• Dolphin - Nintendo GameCube, Wii, and Triforce emulator
• FileZilla – FTP client
• Guayadeque Music Player – a music player with database
• RapidSVN – Subversion client
• TortoiseCVS – CVS client
• Skyscraper Simulator - open-source 3D building simulator
• NetCDF Explorer - browser for netCDF files.

See also

• FLTK - a light, cross platform, non-native widget toolkit
• FOX toolkit - a fast, open source, cross-platform widget toolkit
• GTK+ - the GIMP toolkit, a widget toolkit used by GNOME applications
• gtkmm - C++ version of GTK+
• Juce - an extensive cross-platform widget toolkit
• IUP - a multi-platform toolkit for building native graphical user interfaces
• Qt (toolkit) - an application framework used by KDE applications
• Ultimate++
• Widget toolkit
• List of widget toolkits

External links

• wxForum - official forum
• wxBlog - official blog
• wxWidgets documentation
• wxWiki - a wiki devoted to the wxWidgets project
• wxCode - code snippets and libraries related to wxWidgets
• wxPack - a complete ready-to-use wxWidgets software development kit
• wxTrac - issue tracker (for reporting bugs, submitting patches)
• Build cross-platform GUIs using wxWidgets - a quick tutorial
• wxWidgets compared to other toolkits
• Commercial applications using wxWidgets