Widget toolkit

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)