NAME:

wxWindows, v1.60

 

VENDOR:

Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute

University of Edinburgh

80 South Bridge Edinburgh Scotland EH1 1HN

031 650 2746 (voice)

Email: J.Smart@ed.ac.uk

WWW: http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~jacs/wxwin.html

 

SOFTWARE CONFIGURATION:

This is a (free-of-charge) C++ library with source (there's also a version for the Python language). For a GUI builder, you can use wxBuilder (which is available under MS-Windows or Motif), another program they have to translate the output of DevGuide (Sun's XView GUI builder) into wxWindows format, or yet another one to allow one to use Liant's class browser with the library. This package includes hypertext help, printer support (this is better than some packages you have to pay for), and some nifty graphics capabilities including splines, polylines, and rounded rectangles. It includes the standard menu bars, toolbars, pens, brushes, etc. In addition to all of that, it includes IPC features that includes DDE support under MS-Windows *AND* Unix. A CURSES version is in alpha. In addition, wxWindows includes timers, filesystem portability features, as well as PROLOGIO which allows the user to create (apparently, with some limitations) object-oriented, Prolog- compatible data files.

 

COMMENTS:

To get this software, anonymous ftp it from ftp.aiai.ed.ac.uk; it's under /pub/packages. This is free software, so one should expect that it has a couple of warts relative to the packages for which one would pay. It (according to the author) doesn't stick too closely to the style guides of the individual platforms, but "most people won't know the difference [... the software has] a long way to go before I've used all the features [of the various GUIs]". Still, the price is right. . .

 

FUTURE PLANS:

Widget management (similar to Motif), automated GUI testing facilities, their own GUI builder, and a MS-Windows .rc-to-wxWindows converter. They have a partial Mac port completed.