AppendixB.Building Your Own wxWidgets Applications

Appendix B. Building Your Own wxWidgets Applications

This appendix shows you how to use Visual Studio for Windows, KDevelop for Linux, and Xcode for Mac OS X to create your own projects in an IDE. There is also a basic discussion of makefiles that applies to any compiler on any platform, a description of the Bakefile makefile-generation system, information on using the wx-config command, and a list of wxWidgets preprocessor symbols you will find useful when writing your applications.

If you're new to wxWidgets, we recommend that you initially skip this chapter and use DialogBlocks to get started with compiling your own application, as detailed in Appendix C, "Creating Applications with DialogBlocks."

If your favorite compiler or IDE is not detailed here, or if you just want the quick overview, there are essentially three major sets of files required to build a project using wxWidgets:

1. Include files. The wxWidgets headers must be available to the compiler when compiling your project; otherwise, none of the wxWidgets classes are declared.

2. Library files. The wxWidgets compiled library must be available to link with your compiled program.

3. System files. Whatever system libraries are needed to link for the platform must be linked in with your program.

Important: You must have compiled and built at least one configuration of the wxWidgets library, as covered in Appendix A, "Installing wxWidgets," prior to proceeding with creating your own wxWidgets projects.