Home > Widget toolkit

See widget (computing) for a list of widgets.

1 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 AquaAqua is a trade name for the GUI appearance of Apple Computer's Mac OS X operating system. Aqua, as its name suggests, is based around the theme of water, with droplet-like buttons and other elements, and liberal use of transparency and reflection effects)
    • MacApp Macintosh framework
    • MacZoopMacZoop is a popular application framework for the Apple Macintosh, based on Carbon. Written exclusively in C++, it was designed as a much smaller and manageable alternative to the popular, but now defunct Think Class Library (TCL) from Symantec, and late Macintosh C++ framework
    • Powerplant Macintosh framework
  • On MS Windows:
    • The Microsoft Foundation ClassesMicrosoft Foundation Classes or MFC is a Microsoft library that wraps portions of the Windows API in C++ classes, forming an application framework. Classes are defined for many of the handle-managed Windows objects and also for predefined windows and comm (MFC), used by Microsoft for its own programs (Office, ...) and by most developers on the MS Windows platform
    • The Object Windows LibraryThe Object Windows Library (OWL) was a Borland library, which was an object-oriented wrapper around the Win16 API. It was used in Turbo Pascal for Windows, Borland Pascal and their C++ package. It was deprecated in favour of Visual Component Library (VCL) is sort of Borland'sBorland Software Corporation (formerly Borland International, Inc. is a software company (NASDAQ NM: BORL), located in Scotts Valley, California, best known for its Turbo Pascal programming tool that has evolved into today's Delphi programming language. alternative to MFC
    • The Visual Component LibraryIn computing, VCL (Visual Component Library) is a visual component-based framework for developing Microsoft Windows applications, developed by Borland for use in its Delphi and C++Builder software development environment. A cross-platform equivalent of VC (VCL) is Borland'sBorland Software Corporation (formerly Borland International, Inc. is a software company (NASDAQ NM: BORL), located in Scotts Valley, California, best known for its Turbo Pascal programming tool that has evolved into today's Delphi programming language. toolkit used in its C++ Builder and Delphi products.
  • On UnixUNIX (or Unix is a portable, multi-task and multi-user computer operating system originally developed by a group of AT&T Bell Labs employees including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Douglas McIlroy. Unices The term Unices includes Unix and Unix-like ope, under the X Window System:
    • Xaw , the Project AthenaProject Athena was joint project of MIT, Digital Equipment Corporation, and IBM which sought to provide easy access to computing resources for all MIT students. The project spawned many technologies that are widely used today, such as Kerberos and the X W 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 programming language Java:
    • The Abstract Windowing Toolkit is used in Java applications. It will typically use another toolkit on the selected platform in turn.
    • Swing is Sun's replacement for AWT in newer Java versions
  • 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 X Window, ported to / emulated under other platforms; used in the GNOME desktop
    • 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

• not yet categorized:
  • GNUstep
  • WINGs WINGs Is Not GNUstep
  • MetaCard
  • Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT) is Eclipse.org's toolkit used to build Eclipse, Websphere and other products