Widget toolkit
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.
- High-level widget toolkits:
- *On Macintosh:
- **Cocoa - used in Mac OS X (see also Aqua)
- **MacApp Macintosh framework
- **MacZoop Macintosh C++ framework
- **Powerplant Macintosh framework
- *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 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) under Linux / X Window, proprietary under Mac OS and MS Windows; 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
- not yet categorized:
- *GNUstep
- *WINGs WINGs Is Not GNUstep
- *MetaCard
External links - A GUI Toolkit Framework Page
- Survey of Widget sets
- GUI Toolkits for The X Window System (Leslie Polzer, freshmeat.net, 27 July, 2003)
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