Join the wxWidgets team

Is portable C++ programming for MacOS, Windows, Motif, GTK and perhaps other platforms of interest? Or maybe you'd just like to program on one platform using an alternative framework with open source code and a friendly, team spirit?

The portable C++ GUI framework wxWidgets has been going for several years, with a respectable following in companies, universities and government organisations. Version 2 is an API overhaul with major improvements for slick GUI programming, and it also happens to be easier to port than version 1.

So far we have MS Windows and GTK (Unix) ports of wxWidgets 2 available in a very-nearly-finished state, and a Motif port rapidly taking shape (with support from a former Moasic coder, and an SGI employee). Mac and BeOS ports are also being started, with a Qt port under consideration. We'd like to see further ports.

We have a secret weapon for speeding up new ports, called wxStubs. This is a 'blank port', the complete API ready to be filled in for any particular platform. In fact, the files that need to be changed represent less than half of the code base anyway, since much code is completely generic.

The wxWidgets team is quite excited about wxWidgets 2, because we believe we really have a challenger to MFC for many projects, and also with Linux becoming ever more popular, the port to GTK is good news both for Linux and for wxWidgets users. Mac, Motif, Qt, BeOS and Windows CE ports would make wxWidgets ideal for many people and present a credible alternative to costly alternatives.

So, if you'd like to join us and help make wxWidgets a freeware mega-success, please do contact me and/or join the wxwin-developers mailing list. We have a CVS repository for the source code and a dynamic team of volunteers -- it's a lot of fun! See the Community area for more details.

I will send a free wxWidgets CD-ROM to anyone seriously interested in contributing to a port.

Thanks for listening.

Julian Smart
julian@wxwidgets.org

Further information about working on new ports