wxWidgets/docs/doxygen/mainpages/platdetails.h

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// Name:        platdetails.h
// Purpose:     Platform details page of the Doxygen manual
// Author:      wxWidgets team
// Licence:     wxWindows licence
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


/**

@page page_port Platform Details

@tableofcontents

wxWidgets defines a common API across platforms, but uses the native graphical
user interface (GUI) on each platform, so your program will take on the native
look and feel that users are familiar with. Unfortunately native toolkits and
hardware do not always support the functionality that the wxWidgets API
requires. This chapter collects notes about differences among supported
platforms and ports.



@section page_port_wxgtk wxGTK

wxGTK is a port of wxWidgets using the GTK+ library. It makes use of GTK+'s
native widgets wherever possible and uses wxWidgets' generic controls when
needed. GTK+ itself has been ported to a number of systems, but so far only the
original X11 version is supported. Support for other GTK+ backends is planned,
such as the new DirectFB backend.

All work is being done on GTK+ version 2.0 and above. Support for GTK+ 1.2 will
be deprecated in a later release.

You will need GTK+ 2.6 or higher which is available from:

http://www.gtk.org

The newer version of GTK+ you use, the more native widgets and features will be
utilized. We have gone to great lengths to allow compiling wxWidgets
applications with the latest version of GTK+, with the resulting binary working
on systems even with a much earlier version of GTK+. You will have to ensure
that the application is launched with lazy symbol binding for that.

In order to configure wxWidgets to compile wxGTK you will need use the
@c --with-gtk argument to the @c configure script. This is the default for many
systems.

GTK+ 1.2 can still be used, albeit discouraged. For that you can pass
@c --with-gtk=1 to the @c configure script.

Support for GTK+ 3 is available starting with wxWidgets 2.9.4, use @c configure
option @c --with-gtk=3 to enable it.

For further information, please see the files in @c docs/gtk in the
distribution.



@section page_port_wxosx wxOSX

@subsection page_port_wxosx_cocoa wxOSX/Cocoa

wxOSX/Cocoa is the currently recommended port of wxWidgets for the Macintosh OS
platform. It requires OS X 10.7 or later and, unlike wxOSX/Carbon, fully
supports 64 bit builds.

This is the default port when building wxOSX, but in order to select it
explicitly you can use

@verbatim configure --with-osx_cocoa @endverbatim

For further information, please see the files in @c docs/osx in the
distribution.


@subsection page_port_wxosx_carbon wxOSX/Carbon

wxOSX/Carbon is an older port of wxWidgets for the Macintosh OS platform. Currently
OS X 10.5 or higher are supported. wxOSX/Carbon can be compiled both using
Apple's command line developer tools as well as Apple's Xcode IDE. wxOSX/Carbon
supports Intel and PowerPC architectures and can be used to produce
"universal binaries" in order create application which can run both
architecture. Unfortunately, wxOSX/Carbon does not support any 64-bit
architecture since Apple decided not to port its Carbon API entirely to 64-bit.

@note Carbon has been deprecated by Apple as of OS X 10.5 and will likely be
removed entirely in a future OS version. It's recommended you look into
switching your app over to wxOSX/Cocoa as soon as possible.

To build wxWidgets using wxOSX/Carbon you need to do

@verbatim configure --with-osx_carbon @endverbatim

For further information, please see the files in @c docs/osx in the
distribution.




@section page_port_wxx11 wxX11

wxX11 is a port of wxWidgets using X11 (The X Window System) as the underlying
graphics backend. wxX11 draws its widgets using the wxUniversal widget set
which is now part of wxWidgets. wxX11 is well-suited for a number of special
applications such as those running on systems with few resources (PDAs) or for
applications which need to use a special themed look.

In order to configure wxWidgets to compile wxX11 you will need to type:

@verbatim configure --with-x11 --with-universal @endverbatim

For further information, please see the files in @c docs/x11 in the
distribution. There is also a page on the use of wxWidgets for embedded
applications on the wxWidgets web site.



@section page_port_wxmotif wxMotif

wxMotif is a port of wxWidgets for X11 systems using Motif libraries. Motif
libraries provide a clean and fast user interface at the expense of the beauty
and candy of newer interfaces like GTK.

For further information, please see the files in @c docs/motif in the
distribution.



@section page_port_wxmsw wxMSW

wxMSW is a port of wxWidgets for the Windows platforms (Windows XP and later
are supported). wxMSW provides native look and feel for each Windows version.
This port can be compiled with several compilers including Microsoft Studio
VC++ 2003 or later, Borland 5.5, MinGW32, Cygwin as well as cross-compilation
with a Linux-hosted MinGW32 tool chain.

For further information, please see the files in docs/msw in the distribution.

@subsection page_port_wxmsw_resources Resources and Application Icon

All applications using wxMSW should have a Windows resource file (@c .rc
extension) and this file should include @c include/wx/msw/wx.rc file which
defines resources used by wxWidgets itself.

Among other things, @c wx.rc defines some standard icons, all of which have
names starting with the "wx" prefix. This normally ensures that any icons
defined in the application's own resource file come before them in alphabetical
order which is important because Explorer (Windows shell) selects the first
icon in alphabetical order to use as the application icon which is displayed
when viewing its file in the file manager. So if all the icons defined in your
application start with "x", "y" or "z", they won't be used by Explorer. To
avoid this, ensure that the icon which is meant to be used as the main
application icon has a name preceding "wxICON" in alphabetical order.


@subsection page_port_wxmsw_themedborders Themed Borders

Starting with wxWidgets 2.8.5, you can specify the @c wxBORDER_THEME style to
have wxWidgets use a themed border. Using the default XP theme, this is a thin
1-pixel blue border, with an extra 1-pixel border in the window client
background colour (usually white) to separate the client area's scrollbars from
the border.

If you don't specify a border style for a wxTextCtrl in rich edit mode,
wxWidgets now gives the control themed borders automatically, where previously
they would take the Windows 95-style sunken border. Other native controls such
as wxTextCtrl in non-rich edit mode, and wxComboBox already paint themed
borders where appropriate. To use themed borders on other windows, such as
wxPanel, pass the @c wxBORDER_THEME style, or (apart from wxPanel) pass no
border style.

In general, specifying @c wxBORDER_THEME will cause a border of some kind to be
used, chosen by the platform and control class. To leave the border decision
entirely to wxWidgets, pass @c wxBORDER_DEFAULT. This is not to be confused
with specifying @c wxBORDER_NONE, which says that there should definitely be
@e no border.

@subsubsection page_port_wxmsw_themedborders_details Internal Border Implementation

The way that wxMSW decides whether to apply a themed border is as follows. The
theming code calls wxWindow::GetBorder() to obtain a border. If no border style
has been passed to the window constructor, GetBorder() calls GetDefaultBorder()
for this window. If wxBORDER_THEME was passed to the window constructor,
GetBorder() calls GetDefaultBorderForControl().

The implementation of wxWindow::GetDefaultBorder() on wxMSW calls
wxWindow::CanApplyThemeBorder() which is a virtual function that tells
wxWidgets whether a control can have a theme applied explicitly (some native
controls already paint a theme in which case we should not apply it ourselves).
Note that wxPanel is an exception to this rule because in many cases we wish to
create a window with no border (for example, notebook pages). So wxPanel
overrides GetDefaultBorder() in order to call the generic
wxWindowBase::GetDefaultBorder(), returning wxBORDER_NONE.

@subsection page_port_wxmsw_wince wxWinCE

wxWinCE is the name given to wxMSW when compiled on Windows CE devices; most of
wxMSW is common to Win32 and Windows CE but there are some simplifications,
enhancements, and differences in behaviour.

For building instructions, see docs/msw/wince in the distribution, also the
section about Visual Studio 2005 project files below. The rest of this section
documents issues you need to be aware of when programming for Windows CE
devices.

@subsubsection page_port_wxmsw_wince_ General Issues for wxWinCE

Mobile applications generally have fewer features and simpler user interfaces.
Simply omit whole sizers, static lines and controls in your dialogs, and use
comboboxes instead of listboxes where appropriate. You also need to reduce the
amount of spacing used by sizers, for which you can use a macro such as this:

@code
#if defined(__WXWINCE__)
    #define wxLARGESMALL(large,small) small
#else
    #define wxLARGESMALL(large,small) large
#endif

// Usage
topsizer->Add( CreateTextSizer( message ), 0, wxALL, wxLARGESMALL(10,0) );
@endcode

There is only ever one instance of a Windows CE application running, and
wxWidgets will take care of showing the current instance and shutting down the
second instance if necessary.

You can test the return value of wxSystemSettings::GetScreenType() for a
qualitative assessment of what kind of display is available, or use
wxGetDisplaySize() if you need more information.

You can also use wxGetOsVersion to test for a version of Windows CE at run-time
(see the next section). However, because different builds are currently
required to target different kinds of device, these values are hard-wired
according to the build, and you cannot dynamically adapt the same executable
for different major Windows CE platforms. This would require a different
approach to the way wxWidgets adapts its behaviour (such as for menubars) to
suit the style of device.

See the "Life!" example (demos/life) for an example of an application that has
been tailored for PocketPC and Smartphone use.

@note Don't forget to have this line in your .rc file,
      as for desktop Windows applications:

@verbatim #include "wx/msw/wx.rc" @endverbatim

@subsubsection page_port_wxmsw_wince_sdk Testing for WinCE SDKs

Use these preprocessor symbols to test for the different types of devices:

@li @b __SMARTPHONE__ Generic mobile devices with phone buttons and a small display
@li @b __PDA__ Generic mobile devices with no phone
@li @b __HANDHELDPC__ Generic mobile device with a keyboard
@li @b __WXWINCE__ Microsoft-powered Windows CE devices, whether PocketPC, Smartphone or Standard SDK
@li @b WIN32_PLATFORM_WFSP Microsoft-powered smartphone
@li @b __POCKETPC__ Microsoft-powered PocketPC devices with touch-screen
@li @b __WINCE_STANDARDSDK__ Microsoft-powered Windows CE devices, for generic Windows CE applications
@li @b __WINCE_NET__ Microsoft-powered Windows CE .NET devices (_WIN32_WCE is 400 or greater)

wxGetOsVersion() will return these values:

@li @b wxWINDOWS_POCKETPC The application is running under PocketPC.
@li @b wxWINDOWS_SMARTPHONE The application is running under Smartphone.
@li @b wxWINDOWS_CE The application is running under Windows CE (built with the Standard SDK).

@subsubsection page_port_wxmsw_wince_sizing Window sizing in wxWinCE

Top level windows (dialogs, frames) are created always full-screen. Fit() of
sizers will not rescale top level windows but instead will scale window
content.

If the screen orientation changes, the windows will automatically be resized so
no further action needs to be taken (unless you want to change the layout
according to the orientation, which you could detect in idle time, for
example). When input panel (SIP) is shown, top level windows (frames and
dialogs) resize accordingly (see wxTopLevelWindow::HandleSettingChange()).

@subsubsection page_port_wxmsw_wince_toplevel Closing Top-level Windows in wxWinCE

You won't get a wxCloseEvent when the user clicks on the X in the titlebar on
Smartphone and PocketPC; the window is simply hidden instead. However the
system may send the event to force the application to close down.

@subsubsection page_port_wxmsw_wince_hibernation Hibernation in wxWinCE

Smartphone and PocketPC will send a @c wxEVT_HIBERNATE to the application
object in low memory conditions. Your application should release memory and
close dialogs, and wake up again when the next @c wxEVT_ACTIVATE or
@c wxEVT_ACTIVATE_APP message is received. (@c wxEVT_ACTIVATE_APP is generated
whenever a @c wxEVT_ACTIVATE event is received in Smartphone and PocketPC,
since these platforms do not support @c WM_ACTIVATEAPP.)

@subsubsection page_port_wxmsw_wince_hwbutt Hardware Buttons in wxWinCE

Special hardware buttons are sent to a window via the @c wxEVT_HOTKEY event
under Smartphone and PocketPC. You should first register each required button
with wxWindow::RegisterHotKey(), and unregister the button when you're done
with it. For example:

@code
win->RegisterHotKey(0, wxMOD_WIN, WXK_SPECIAL1);
win->UnregisterHotKey(0);
@endcode

You may have to register the buttons in a @c wxEVT_ACTIVATE event handler since
other applications will grab the buttons.

There is currently no method of finding out the names of the special buttons or
how many there are.

@subsubsection page_port_wxmsw_wince_dialogs Dialogs in wxWinCE

PocketPC dialogs have an OK button on the caption, and so you should generally
not repeat an OK button on the dialog. You can add a Cancel button if
necessary, but some dialogs simply don't offer you the choice (the guidelines
recommend you offer an Undo facility to make up for it). When the user clicks
on the OK button, your dialog will receive a @c wxID_OK event by default. If
you wish to change this, call wxDialog::SetAffirmativeId() with the required
identifier to be used. Or, override wxDialog::DoOK() (return @false to have
wxWidgets simply call Close to dismiss the dialog).

Smartphone dialogs do @e not have an OK button on the caption, and are closed
using one of the two menu buttons. You need to assign these using
wxTopLevelWindow::SetLeftMenu and wxTopLevelWindow::SetRightMenu(), for
example:

@code
#ifdef __SMARTPHONE__
    SetLeftMenu(wxID_OK);
    SetRightMenu(wxID_CANCEL, _("Cancel"));
#elif defined(__POCKETPC__)
    // No OK/Cancel buttons on PocketPC, OK on caption will close
#else
    topsizer->Add( CreateButtonSizer( wxOK|wxCANCEL ), 0, wxEXPAND | wxALL, 10 );
#endif
@endcode

For implementing property sheets (flat tabs), use a wxNotebook with
@c wxNB_FLAT|wxNB_BOTTOM and have the notebook left, top and right sides
overlap the dialog by about 3 pixels to eliminate spurious borders. You can do
this by using a negative spacing in your sizer Add() call. The cross-platform
property sheet dialog wxPropertySheetDialog is provided, to show settings in
the correct style on PocketPC and on other platforms.

Notifications (bubble HTML text with optional buttons and links) will also be
implemented in the future for PocketPC.

Modeless dialogs probably don't make sense for PocketPC and Smartphone, since
frames and dialogs are normally full-screen, and a modeless dialog is normally
intended to co-exist with the main application frame.

@subsubsection page_port_wxmsw_wince_ppc Menubars and Toolbars in PocketPC

On PocketPC, a frame must always have a menubar, even if it's empty. An empty
menubar/toolbar is automatically provided for dialogs, to hide any existing
menubar for the duration of the dialog.

Menubars and toolbars are implemented using a combined control, but you can use
essentially the usual wxWidgets API; wxWidgets will combine the menubar and
toolbar. However, there are some restrictions:

@li You must create the frame's primary toolbar with wxFrame::CreateToolBar(),
    because this uses the special wxToolMenuBar class (derived from wxToolBar)
    to implement the combined toolbar and menubar. Otherwise, you can create
    and manage toolbars using the wxToolBar class as usual, for example to
    implement an optional formatting toolbar above the menubar as Pocket Word
    does. But don't assign a wxToolBar to a frame using SetToolBar - you should
    always use CreateToolBar for the main frame toolbar.
@li Deleting and adding tools to wxToolMenuBar after Realize is called is not
    supported.
@li For speed, colours are not remapped to the system colours as they are in
    wxMSW. Provide the tool bitmaps either with the correct system button
    background, or with transparency (for example, using XPMs).
@li Adding controls to wxToolMenuBar is not supported. However, wxToolBar
    supports controls.

Unlike in all other ports, a wxDialog has a wxToolBar automatically created for
you. You may either leave it blank, or access it with wxDialog::GetToolBar()
and add buttons, then calling wxToolBar::Realize(). You cannot set or recreate
the toolbar.

@subsubsection page_port_wxmsw_wince_smart Menubars and Toolbars in Smartphone

On Smartphone, there are only two menu buttons, so a menubar is simulated using
a nested menu on the right menu button. Any toolbars are simply ignored on
Smartphone.

@subsubsection page_port_wxmsw_wince_closing Closing Windows in wxWinCE

The guidelines state that applications should not have a Quit menu item, since
the user should not have to know whether an application is in memory or not.
The close button on a window does not call the window's close handler; it
simply hides the window. However, the guidelines say that the Ctrl+Q
accelerator can be used to quit the application, so wxWidgets defines this
accelerator by default and if your application handles wxID_EXIT, it will do
the right thing.

@subsubsection page_port_wxmsw_wince_ctx Context Menus in wxWinCE

To enable context menus in PocketPC, you currently need to call
wxWindow::EnableContextMenu(), a wxWinCE-only function. Otherwise the context
menu event (wxContextMenuEvent) will never be sent. This API is subject to
change.

Context menus are not supported in Smartphone.

@subsubsection page_port_wxmsw_wince_ctrl Control Differences on wxWinCE

These controls and styles are specific to wxWinCE:

@li wxTextCtrl The @c wxTE_CAPITALIZE style causes a CAPEDIT control to be
created, which capitalizes the first letter.

These controls are missing from wxWinCE:

@li MDI classes MDI is not supported under Windows CE.
@li wxMiniFrame Not supported under Windows CE.

Tooltips are not currently supported for controls, since on PocketPC controls
with tooltips are distinct controls, and it will be hard to add dynamic tooltip
support.

Control borders on PocketPC and Smartphone should normally be specified with
@c wxBORDER_SIMPLE instead of @c wxBORDER_SUNKEN. Controls will usually adapt
appropriately by virtue of their GetDefaultBorder() function, but if you wish
to specify a style explicitly you can use @c wxDEFAULT_CONTROL_BORDER which
will give a simple border on PocketPC and Smartphone, and the sunken border on
other platforms.

@subsubsection page_port_wxmsw_wince_help Online Help in wxWinCE

You can use the help controller wxWinceHelpController which controls simple
@c .htm files, usually installed in the Windows directory. See the Windows CE
reference for how to format the HTML files.

@subsubsection page_port_wxmsw_wince_install Installing your PocketPC and Smartphone Applications

To install your application, you need to build a CAB file using the parameters
defined in a special .inf file. The CabWiz program in your SDK will compile the
CAB file from the .inf file and files that it specifies.

For delivery, you can simply ask the user to copy the CAB file to the device
and execute the CAB file using File Explorer. Or, you can write a program for
the desktop PC that will find the ActiveSync Application Manager and install
the CAB file on the device, which is obviously much easier for the user.

Here are some links that may help.

@li A setup builder that takes CABs and builds a setup program is at
    http://www.eskimo.com/~scottlu/win/index.html.
@li Sample installation files can be found in
    <tt>Windows CE Tools/wce420/POCKET PC 2003/Samples/Win32/AppInst</tt>.
@li An installer generator using wxPython can be found at
    http://ppcquicksoft.iespana.es/ppcquicksoft/myinstall.html.
@li Miscellaneous Windows CE resources can be found at
    http://www.orbworks.com/pcce/resources.html.
@li Installer creation instructions with a setup.exe for installing to PPC can be found at
    http://www.pocketpcdn.com/articles/creatingsetup.html.
@li Microsoft instructions are at
    http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnce30/html/appinstall30.asp?frame=true
@li Troubleshooting WinCE application installations:
    http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;q181007

You may also check out <tt>demos/life/setup/wince</tt> which contains scripts
to create a PocketPC installation for ARM-based devices. In particular,
@c build.bat builds the distribution and copies it to a directory called
@c Deliver.

@subsubsection page_port_wxmsw_wince_filedlg wxFileDialog in PocketPC

Allowing the user to access files on memory cards, or on arbitrary parts of the
filesystem, is a pain; the standard file dialog only shows folders under My
Documents or folders on memory cards (not the system or card root directory,
for example). This is a known problem for PocketPC developers.

If you need a file dialog that allows access to all folders, you can use
wxGenericFileDialog instead. You will need to include @c wx/generic/filedlgg.h.

@subsubsection page_port_wxmsw_wince_evc Embedded Visual C++ Issues

<b>Run-time type information</b>

If you wish to use runtime type information (RTTI) with eVC++ 4, you need to
download an extra library, @c ccrtrtti.lib, and link with it. At the time of
writing you can get it from here:

@verbatim
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/830482/en-us
@endverbatim

Otherwise you will get linker errors similar to this:

@verbatim
wxwince26d.lib(control.obj) : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol "const type_info::`vftable'" (??_7type_info@@6B@)
@endverbatim

<b>Windows Mobile 5.0 emulator</b>

Note that there is no separate emulator configuration for Windows Mobile 5.0:
the emulator runs the ARM code directly.

<b>Visual Studio 2005 project files</b>

Unfortunately, Visual Studio 2005, required to build Windows Mobile 5.0
applications, doesn't do a perfect job of converting the project files from
eVC++ format.

When you have converted the wxWidgets workspace, edit the configuration
properties for each configuration and in the Librarian, add a relative path

@verbatim ..\..\lib @endverbatim

to each library path. For example:

@verbatim ..\$(PlatformName)\$(ConfigurationName)\wx_mono.lib @endverbatim

Then, for a sample you want to compile, edit the configuration properties
and make sure

@verbatim ..\..\lib\$(PlatformName)\$(ConfigurationName) @endverbatim

is in the Linker/General/Additional Library Directories property. Also change
the Linker/Input/Additional Dependencies property to something like

@verbatim
coredll.lib wx_mono.lib wx_wxjpeg.lib wx_wxpng.lib wx_wxzlib.lib wx_wxexpat.lib commctrl.lib winsock.lib wininet.lib
@endverbatim

since the library names in the wxWidgets workspace were changed by VS 2005.

Alternately, you could edit all the names to be identical to the original eVC++
names, but this will probably be more fiddly.

@subsubsection page_port_wxmsw_wince_issues Remaining Issues

These are some of the remaining problems to be sorted out, and features
to be supported.

@li <b>Windows Mobile 5 issues.</b> It is not possible to get the HMENU for
the command bar on Mobile 5, so the menubar functions need to be rewritten
to get the individual menus without use of a menubar handle. Also the
new Mobile 5 convention of using only two menus (and no bitmap buttons) needs to be
considered.
@li <b>Sizer speed.</b> Particularly for dialogs containing notebooks,
layout seems slow. Some analysis is required.
@li <b>Notification boxes.</b> The balloon-like notification messages, and their
icons, should be implemented. This will be quite straightforward.
@li <b>SIP size.</b> We need to be able to get the area taken up by the SIP (input panel),
and the remaining area, by calling SHSipInfo. We also may need to be able to show and hide
the SIP programmatically, with SHSipPreference. See also the <em>Input Dialogs</em> topic in
the <em>Programming Windows CE</em> guide for more on this, and how to have dialogs
show the SIP automatically using the @c WC_SIPREF control.
@li <b>wxStaticBitmap.</b> The About box in the "Life!" demo shows a bitmap that is
the correct size on the emulator, but too small on a VGA Pocket Loox device.
@li <b>wxStaticLine.</b> Lines don't show up, and the documentation suggests that
missing styles are implemented with @c WM_PAINT.
@li <b>HTML control.</b> PocketPC has its own HTML control which can be used for showing
local pages or navigating the web. We should create a version of wxHtmlWindow that uses this
control, or have a separately-named control (wxHtmlCtrl), with a syntax as close as possible
to wxHtmlWindow.
@li <b>Tooltip control.</b> PocketPC uses special TTBUTTON and TTSTATIC controls for adding
tooltips, with the tooltip separated from the label with a double tilde. We need to support
this using SetToolTip.(Unfortunately it does not seem possible to dynamically remove the tooltip,
so an extra style may be required.)
@li <b>Focus.</b> In the wxPropertySheetDialog demo on Smartphone, it's not possible to navigate
between controls. The focus handling in wxWidgets needs investigation. See in particular
src/common/containr.cpp, and note that the default OnActivate handler in src/msw/toplevel.cpp
sets the focus to the first child of the dialog.
@li <b>OK button.</b> We should allow the OK button on a dialog to be optional, perhaps
by using @c wxCLOSE_BOX to indicate when the OK button should be displayed.
@li <b>Dynamic adaptation.</b> We should probably be using run-time tests more
than preprocessor tests, so that the same WinCE application can run on different
versions of the operating system.
@li <b>Modeless dialogs.</b> When a modeless dialog is hidden with the OK button, it doesn't restore the
frame's menubar. See for example the find dialog in the dialogs sample. However, the menubar is restored
if pressing Cancel (the window is closed). This reflects the fact that modeless dialogs are
not very useful on Windows CE; however, we could perhaps destroy/restore a modeless dialog's menubar
on deactivation and activation.
@li <b>Home screen plugins.</b> Figure out how to make home screen plugins for use with wxWidgets
applications (see http://www.codeproject.com/ce/CTodayWindow.asp for inspiration).
Although we can't use wxWidgets to create the plugin (too large), we could perhaps write
a generic plugin that takes registry information from a given application, with
options to display information in a particular way using icons and text from
a specified location.
@li <b>Further abstraction.</b> We should be able to abstract away more of the differences
between desktop and mobile applications, in particular for sizer layout.
@li <b>Dialog captions.</b> The blue, bold captions on dialogs - with optional help button -
should be catered for, either by hard-wiring the capability into all dialogs and panels,
or by providing a standard component and sizer.



@section page_port_nativedocs Native Toolkit Documentation

It's sometimes useful to interface directly with the underlying toolkit
used by wxWidgets to e.g. use toolkit-specific features.
In such case (or when you want to e.g. write a port-specific patch) it can be
necessary to use the underlying toolkit API directly:

- wxMSW port uses win32 API: see MSDN docs at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms649779.aspx
- wxGTK port uses GTK+ and other lower-level libraries; see 
  - GTK+ docs at http://library.gnome.org/devel/gtk/unstable/
  - GDK docs at http://library.gnome.org/devel/gdk/unstable/
  - GLib docs at http://library.gnome.org/devel/glib/unstable/
  - GObject docs at http://library.gnome.org/devel/gobject/unstable/
  - Pango docs at http://library.gnome.org/devel/pango/unstable/
- wxMac port uses the Carbon API: see Carbon docs at http://developer.apple.com/carbon
- wxCocoa port uses the Cocoa API: see Cocoa docs at http://developer.apple.com/cocoa

*/