Is WxWidgets for me?

[Vadim Zeitlin]

On Sun, 4 May 2008 06:24:52 -0700 (PDT) scholz.lothar at gmail.com wrote:

> a) To handle a system that uses a lot of text and is pure UTF-8
> internally.

 If you use UTF-8 internally you may find it easier to work with the new
API in the trunk where, first, wxString uses UTF-8 representation
internally too (which avoids the unnecessary conversions if you already
work with UTF-8) and, second, the API is "char *" friendly. The only
problem is that svn trunk is, of course, work in progress -- but if you
don't plan to release your application immediately it might still be a
better choice.

>     How is Unicode handled at the moment?

 In 2.8 wx has a Windows-inspired approach of having 2 compilation modes,
ANSI and Unicode. You should use Unicode build which does allow you to do
everything you may need but at the "price" of having to work with wchar_t*
strings.

> b) Writing layout managers. Some would come from FOX some from TK
>     some very unique self written. Does WxWidgets support the idea that
>     "packers", "matrix" and other layout elements are not widgets itself
>     and layout information is not stored in the widgets itself.

 Yes, wxSizer is not a widget and layout is handled by sizers, not widgets.

> c) Support for client drawn list, tree items, multicolumn list items.

 You can reuse the generic (that is, implement in wx itself as opposed to
using the native controls) versions of wxList/TreeCtrl in your code. But
the official API of these controls doesn't support much in the way of being
client drawn (other than being able to set fonts/colours/icons for the
items) because it does have to accommodate the native controls which
typically don't support this neither.

 If you need more you should also look at the new wxDataViewCtrl which is
more flexible. But it's, also, has been significantly improved in svn trunk
so you might prefer to look there.

> d) Does anybody know how speed is compared to FOX? Especially
>     when you have an app that needs to build lists/trees with lots of
>     items?

 If you use a lot of items you should use virtual wxListCtrl (or
wxDataViewCtrl), then there are no performance problems at all. Trying to
put more than a few thousands items in a non-virtual control is probably a
bad idea OTOH.

> e) How stable is the Webkit port?

 Do you mean wxWebKit? It's not really a port...

> f)  How stable and well is the MacOSX Cocoa port.

 It's still lacking quite a few things compared to wxMac (Carbon-based)
port. OTOH nothing prevents you from starting to use wxMac now and
switching to wxCocoa in the future. Of course, testing and feedback about
wxCocoa is appreciated.

 Regards,
VZ

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