Re: wxWidgets versus gtkmm

[Micha Feigin <michf@post.tau.ac.il>]

On Fri, 18 Aug 2006 22:13:29 -0400
Matej Cepl <ceplm@seznam.cz> wrote:

> Roberto C. Sanchez wrote:
> > If you want the "best" cross platform library, then I would argue that
> > it is wxWidgets.  It has bindings for C++, Python, Java, Ruby and
> > probably other languages as well.  It has the advantage of supporting
> > something like a dozen different GUI toolkits and you get the native
> > widgets of the target system.  It is also extremely well documented (at
> > least the C++ interface is).
> 
> There was no requirement that it has to be Gnome-based -- then I would
> humbly suggest Qt -- many many programmers claim that it is the most
> convenient development library period. And of course its support of C++ is
> excellent (of course, you can use also Java, Python, Ruby, JavaScript if
> you wish).
> 
> Matěj
> 

qt has license issues (which is an issue if you want to use it for proprietary
software now or later). With wxwidgets you pay only if you want direct support
(other than the forum which is more then you need for most people).

Also, AFAIK qt draws all it's own widgets (buttons, lists, etc.) itself while
wxwidgets uses local ones (which is gtk under linux, native everywhere else).
wxwidgets on the other hand has the limitations that it can only due the common
stuff due to this.

wxwidgets also has extensions for more then just widgets (networks, file
system, etc.) and can work with opengl and there is a driver for plplot for
doing plots.

qt also needs to be preprocessed or something similar with the same result but a
different name.

Lastly, wxwidgets is freely available on many more platforms (AFAIK qt has a
gpl licensed version for linux, and a windows version which has been
problematic in terms of versions and availability for a long time, don't know
if that has be solved. You need to pay for mac and embeded). wx is available
lgpl for linux, windows, mac, palm and possibly others (don't remember now).

Under linux, qt integrates better with kde while wx integrates better with
gnome.