Widget toolkit

In computer programming, widget toolkits (or GUI toolkits) are sets of basic building elements for Graphical User Interfaces.

Typical Widgets

• Windows
• Menus[?]
• Buttons[?]
• Combo boxes[?]
• Radio boxes[?]
• Icons[?]

Popular Widget Toolkits

• High-level widget toolkits
  • The Abstract Windowing Toolkit is used in Java applications. It will typically use another toolkit on the selected platform in turn.
  • Cocoa - used in MacOS X
  • GNUstep
  • GTK used in GNOME
  • MetaCard[?]
  • The Microsoft Foundation Classes[?] (MFC) contain several useful widgets
  • Motif used in the Common Desktop Environment
  • 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.
  • Qt used in KDE
  • Swing[?] is Sun's replacement for AWT in newer Java versions
  • Tk a widget set accessed from Tcl
  • WINGs[?] WINGs Is Not GNUstep
  • wxWindows[?] abstracts toolkits across several platforms for C++ and Python
• Low-level widget toolkits
  • The Windows API used in Microsoft Windows
  • The X Window System contains primitive building blocks, but they are almost always accessed using either Motif, GTK or Qt.
  • (what does macintosh use?)

External Links

• A GUI Toolkit Framework Page (http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Vista/7184/guitool.html)