Widget toolkit
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In computer programming, widget toolkits (or GUI toolkits) are sets of basic building elements for graphical user interfaces. They are often implemented as a library, or application framework.
See widget (computing) for a list of widgets.
Popular widget toolkits
- Low-level widget toolkits:
- Integrated in the operating system:
- The Mac OS toolbox, or Macintosh APIs, formerly located in ROM, but in "new world" Macs, on disk.
- The Windows API used in Microsoft Windows
- As a separate layer on top of the operating system:
- The X Window System contains primitive building blocks, but they are almost always accessed using either Motif, GTK+ or Qt.
- Integrated in the operating system:
- High-level widget toolkits:
- On Macintosh:
- On Microsoft Windows:
- The Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC), used by Microsoft for its own programs (e.g. Microsoft Office) and by most developers on the Microsoft Windows platform
- The Object Windows Library is sort of Borland's alternative to MFC
- The Visual Component Library (VCL) is Borland's toolkit used in its C++ Builder and Delphi products
- The Windows Forms is .NET's set of classes that handle GUI controls
- On Unix, under the X Window System:
- Xaw, the Project Athena widget set for the X Window System
- Motif used in the Common Desktop Environment
- Lesstif, an open source (LGPL) version of Motif
- Cross-platform, based on SVG:
- airWRX is an application framework that runs from a USB flash drive, and turns its PC host and other nearby PCs into a multi-screen, web-like work environment.
- Cross-platform, based on the Java programming language:
- The Abstract Windowing Toolkit is used in Java applications. It typically uses another toolkit on the selected platform in turn.
- Swing is Sun Microsystems's replacement for AWT in newer Java versions.
- The Standard Widget Toolkit is a native widget toolkit for Java that was invented as part of the Eclipse project. SWT will use the running platforms widget toolkit (such as Windows API or GTK+) underneath.
- Cross-platform, based on the programming languages C or C++, often with bindings to other languages:
- Tk, a widget set accessed from Tcl and other high-level script languages.
- GTK+, open source (LGPL), primarily for the X Window System, ported to and emulated under other platforms; used in the GNOME desktop environment
- Qt, open source (GPL) available under Unix/Linux (with X Window), MS Windows, Mac OS X and embedded systems; also available in commercial versions under these platforms; used in KDE
- wxWidgets (formerly wxWindows), open source (relaxed LGPL), abstracts toolkits across several platforms for C++, Python and Perl
- FOX toolkit, open source (LGPL), genuinely cross-platform
- FLTK, open source (LGPL), cross-platform toolkit designed to be small and fast
External links
- The GUI Toolkit, Framework Page (http://www.free-soft.org/guitool/), comparing some of the modern GUIs out there (mirror geocities (http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Vista/7184/guitool.html), other mirror (http://www.atai.org/guitool/)).
- Survey of Widget sets (http://www.efalk.org/Widgets/)
- GUI Toolkits for The X Window System (http://freshmeat.net/articles/view/928) (Leslie Polzer, freshmeat.net, 27 July, 2003)