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<head><title>Why another cross-platform development tool?</title></head>
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<H2>Why another cross-platform development tool?</H2>
<P>
wxWindows was developed to provide a cheap and flexible way to maximize
investment in GUI application development. While a number of commercial
class libraries already existed for cross-platform development,
none met all of the following criteria:<P>
<OL>
<LI> low price;
<LI> source availability;
<LI> simplicity of programming;
<LI> support for a wide range of compilers.
</OL>
<P>
Since wxWindows was started, several other free or almost-free GUI frameworks have
emerged. However, none has the range of features, flexibility, documentation and the
well-established development team that wxWindows has.<P>
As public domain software and a project open to everyone, wxWindows has
benefited from comments, ideas, bug fixes, enhancements and the sheer
enthusiasm of users, especially via the Internet. This gives wxWindows a
certain advantage over its commercial competitors (and over free libraries
without an independent development team), plus a robustness against
the transience of one individual or company. This openness and
availability of source code is especially important when the future of
thousands of lines of application code may depend upon the longevity of
the underlying class library.<P>
Version 2.0 goes much further than previous versions in terms of generality and features,
allowing applications to be produced
that are often indistinguishable from those produced using single-platform
toolkits such as Motif and MFC.<P>
The importance of using a platform-independent class library cannot be
overstated, since GUI application development is very time-consuming,
and sustained popularity of particular GUIs cannot be guaranteed.
Code can very quickly become obsolete if it addresses the wrong
platform or audience. wxWindows helps to insulate the programmer from
these winds of change. Although wxWindows may not be suitable for
every application (such as an OLE-intensive program), it provides access to most of the functionality a
GUI program normally requires, plus some extras such as network programming
and PostScript output, and can of course be extended as needs dictate. As a bonus, it provides
a cleaner programming interface than the native
APIs. Programmers may find it worthwhile to use wxWindows even if they
are developing on only one platform.<P>
It is impossible to sum up the functionality of wxWindows in a few paragraphs, but
here are some of the benefits:<P>
<UL>
<LI> Low cost (free, in fact!)
<LI> You get the source.
<LI> Available on a variety of popular platforms.
<LI> Works with almost all popular C++ compilers.
<LI> Several example programs.
<LI> Over 900 pages of printable and on-line documentation.
<LI> Includes Tex2RTF, to allow you to produce your own documentation
in Windows Help, HTML and Word RTF formats.
<LI> Simple-to-use, object-oriented API.
<LI> Flexible event system.
<LI> Graphics calls include lines, rounded rectangles, splines, polylines, etc.
<LI> Constraint-based layout option.
<LI> Print/preview and document/view architectures.
<LI> Toolbar, notebook, tree control, advanced list control classes.
<LI> PostScript generation under Unix, normal MS Windows printing on the
PC.
<LI> MDI (Multiple Document Interface) support.
<LI> Can be used to create DLLs under Windows, dynamic libraries on Unix.
<LI> Common dialogs for file browsing, printing, colour selection, etc.
<LI> Under MS Windows, support for creating metafiles and copying
them to the clipboard.
<LI> An API for invoking help from applications.
<LI> Dialog Editor for building dialogs.
<LI> Network support via a family of socket and protocol classes.
</UL>
<P>
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