List of widget toolkits
This article provides a list of widget toolkits, organized by their relationships with various operating systems.
Low-level widget toolkits
Integrated in the operating system
- OS X uses Cocoa. Mac OS9 and OS X use Carbon for 32-bit applications.
- The Windows API used in Microsoft Windows. Microsoft had the graphics functions integrated in the kernel until 2006[1]
- The Haiku operating system uses an extended and modernised version of the Be API that was used by its spiritual predecessor BeOS. Haiku Inc. is expected to drop binary and source compatibility with the BeOS at some point in the future, which will result in its own Haiku API.
As a separate layer on top of the operating system
- The X Window System contains primitive building blocks, called Xt or "Intrinsics", but they are used only by Motif and Xaw. Most other toolkits, such as GTK+ or Qt, bypass them and use Xlib.
- The Amiga OS Intuition was formerly present in the Amiga Kickstart ROM and integrated itself with a medium-high level widget library which invoked the Workbench Amiga native GUI. Since Amiga OS 2.0, Intuition.library became disk based and object oriented. Also Workbench.library and Icon.library became disk based, and could be replaced with similar third-party solutions.
- Since 2005, Microsoft has taken the graphics system out of Windows' kernel.[2]
High-level widget toolkits
| Toolkit name | Windows | OS X | Unix-like | Programming language | License |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Qt | Yes | Yes | Yes | C++ | LGPL, commercial |
| MFC | Yes | No | No | C++ | Proprietary |
| OWL (superseded by VCL) | Yes | No | No | C++ (Borland C++) | Proprietary |
| VCL (supersedes OWL) | Yes | No | No | Object Pascal (Delphi) | Proprietary |
| WTL | Yes | No | No | C++ | Microsoft Public License |
| LCL | Yes | Yes | Yes | Object Pascal (Free Pascal) | LGPL |
| LessTif | No | No | Yes | C | LGPL |
| GTK+ | Yes | Yes | Yes | C | LGPL |
| FLTK | Yes | Yes | Yes | C++ | LGPL |
| Fox toolkit | Yes | No | Yes | C++ | LGPL |
| Nana C++ | Yes | No | Yes | C++ | Boost license |
| wxWidgets | Yes | Yes | Yes | C++ | WxWindows license |
| SmartWin++ | Yes | No | No | C++ | BSD |
| TnFOX | Yes | Yes | Yes | C++ | LGPL |
| Ultimate++ | Yes | No | Yes | C++ | BSD |
| Rogue Wave Views | Yes | No | Yes | C++ | proprietary |
| CEGUI | Yes | Yes | Yes | C++ | MIT |
| Game-GUI | Yes | No | No | C++ | MIT |
| IUP | Yes | Yes | Yes | C | MIT |
| Shoes (GUI toolkit) | cross-platform | Ruby | MIT | ||
| AWT | cross-platform | Java | |||
| Swing | cross-platform | Java | |||
| Pivot (WTK) | cross-platform | Java | Apache License | ||
| GNUstep | Yes | Yes | Yes | Objective-C | LGPL |
| Juce | Yes | Yes | Yes | C++ | GPL, commercial |
| Cocoa | No | Yes | No | Objective-C | Proprietary |
OS dependent
On Amiga
- BOOPSI (Basic Object Oriented Programming System for Intuition) was introduced with OS 2.0 and enhanced Intuition with a system of classes in which every class represents a single widget or describes an interface event. This led to an evolution in which third-party developers each realised their own personal systems of classes.
- MUI: object-oriented GUI toolkit and the official toolkit for MorphOS.
- Zune (GUI toolkit) is an open source clone of MUI and the official toolkit for AROS.
On Macintosh
- Cocoa - used in OS X (see also Aqua).
- MacApp Macintosh framework.
- MacZoop Macintosh C++ framework.
- PowerPlant Macintosh framework.
On Microsoft Windows
- The Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC), a C++ wrapper around the Windows API.
- The Windows Template Library (WTL), a template-based extension to ATL and a replacement of MFC
- SmartWin++, an MFC/WTL replacement using templates based on STL and Boost
- The Object Windows Library, Borland's alternative to MFC.
- The Visual Component Library (VCL) is Borland's toolkit used in its C++ Builder and Delphi products.
- Windows Forms is .NET's set of classes that handle GUI controls. In the cross-platform Mono implementation, it is an independent toolkit, implemented entirely in managed code (not wrapping the Windows API, which doesn't exist on other platforms).[3]
- The Windows Presentation Foundation is the graphical subsystem of the .NET Framework 3.0. User interfaces can be created in WPF using any of the CLR languages (e.g. C#) or with the XML-based language XAML. Microsoft Expression Blend is a visual GUI builder for WPF.
On Unix, under the X Window System
Note that the X Window System was originally primarily for Unix-like operating systems, but it now runs on Microsoft Windows as well using, for example, Cygwin, so some or all of these toolkits can also be used under Windows.
- InterViews, a toolkit written in C++.
- Lesstif, an open source (LGPL) version of Motif.
- Motif used in the Common Desktop Environment.
- Xaw, the Project Athena widget set for the X Window System.
Cross-platform
Based on C (including bindings to other languages)
- Elementary, open source (LGPL), a part of the Enlightenment Foundation Libraries, a fast, stable, and scalable library that can be used to create both rich and fast applications that can be used on anything from every day desktop computers to small PDA's and set-top boxes.
- GTK+, open source (LGPL), primarily for the X Window System, ported to and emulated under other platforms; used in the GNOME, Rox, LXDE and Xfce desktop environments. The Windows port has support for native widgets.
- IUP, open source (MIT), a minimalist GUI toolkit in ANSI C for Windows, UNIX and Linux.
- Tk, open source (BSD-style), a widget set accessed from Tcl and other high-level script languages (interfaced in Python as Tkinter).
- XForms, the Forms Library for X
- XVT, Extensible Virtual Toolkit
Based on C++ (including bindings to other languages)
- CEGUI, open source (MIT License), cross-platform widget toolkit designed for game development, but also usable for applications and tool development. Supports multiple renderers and optional libraries.
- FLTK, open source (LGPL), cross-platform toolkit designed to be small and fast.
- FOX toolkit, open source (LGPL), cross-platform toolkit.
- GLUI, a very small toolkit written with the GLUT library.
- gtkmm, C++ version of GTK+
- Juce provides GUI and widget set with the same look and feel in Microsoft Windows, X Window Systems, OS X and Android. Rendering can be based on OpenGL.
- Nana C++, open source (Boost license), a cross-platform toolkit designed to enable modern C++ GUI programming
- Qt, commercial and open source (GPL, LGPL) available under Unix and Linux (with X11 or Wayland), MS Windows (Desktop, CE and Phone 8), OS X, iOS, Android, BlackBerry 10 and embedded Linux; used in the KDE desktop environment.
- Rogue Wave Views (formerly ILOG Views) provides GUI and graphic library for Windows and the main X11 platforms.
- TnFOX, open source (LGPL), a portability toolkit.
- Ultimate++ is a free Win32/X11 application framework bundled with an IDE (BSD license)
- The Visual Component Framework (VCF) is an open source (BSD license) C++ framework project.
- wxWidgets (formerly wxWindows), open source (relaxed LGPL), abstracts toolkits across several platforms for C++, Python, Perl, Ruby and Haskell.
- YAAF, open source (YAAF Open Source License), designed to facilitate creating cross-platform applications.
- Zinc Application Framework, cross-platform widget toolkit.
Based on OpenGL
- GLUI (LGPL) is a GLUT-based C++ user interface library which provides controls such as buttons, checkboxes, radio buttons, and spinners to OpenGL applications.
- Clutter (LGPL) (in C) is an open source software library for creating fast, visually rich and animated graphical user interfaces.
- TouchWidgets GL is an Objective C, OpenGL and GLUT based UI library that offers animation.
Based on Flash
- Adobe Flash allows creating widgets running in most web browsers and in several mobile phones.
- Adobe Flex provides high-level widgets for building web user interfaces. Flash widgets can be used in Flex.
- Flash and Flex widgets will run without a web browser in the Adobe AIR runtime environment.
- Independent software vendors propose to embed the flash application into an executable: MDM Zinc, mProjector and more. Those solutions are cross-platform (depending on the vendors solution).
Based on XML
- GladeXML with GTK+
- XAML with Silverlight or Moonlight
- XML User Interface A Java and XML toolkit for building rich Internet applications.
- XUL
Based on JavaScript
Main article: JavaScript library
General
- Acid.JS
- AJAX Calendar.NET developer control
- Backbase Enterprise Ajax Framework
- Cappuccino
- jQuery UI
- MooTools
- Qooxdoo Could be understood as Qt for the Web
- Script.aculo.us
- Adobe AIR
- DHTMLX
- Dojo Toolkit
- Sencha (formerly Ext JS)
- Telerik Kendo UI
- TIBCO General Interface, a rich set of GUI components that include vector charts and is now also available through an open source BSD license
- Webix
- WinJS
Full-stack framework
- Echo3
- SmartClient
- SproutCore
- Telerik UI for ASP/PHP/JSP/Silverlight
- UIZE JavaScript Framework
- Vaadin - Java
- ZK - A Java Web framework for building rich Ajax and mobile applications
Resource-based
- Google Web Toolkit
- Pyjamas
- FBML －Facebook Markup Language
- Web Application Markup Language
No longer developed
- Ample SDK
- Cooee
- Rialto Toolkit
- YUI (Yahoo! User Interface Library)
Based on SVG
- Raphaël is a JavaScript toolkit for SVG interfaces and animations
Based on .NET
- Gtk#, C# wrappers around the underlying GTK+ and GNOME libraries, written in C and available on Linux, MacOS and Windows.
- Windows Forms. There is an original Microsoft's implementation that is a wrapper around the Windows API and runs on windows, and Mono's alternative implementation that is cross platform.
- Xwt, a Mono's toolkit that maps API calls to native platform calls of the underlying platform. In this way it exposes one unified API across different platforms and makes possible for the graphical user interfaces to have native look and feel on different platforms. Runs on Linux, MacOS and Windows.
- MonoMac, allows access to MacOS X APIs from C#, including the AppKit GUI APIs.
- QtSharp, a C# wrapper around Qt.
Based on Java
- The Abstract Window Toolkit (AWT) is Sun Microsystems' original widget toolkit for Java applications. It typically uses another toolkit on each platform on which it runs.
- Swing is a richer widget toolkit supported since J2SE 1.2 as a replacement for AWT widgets. Swing is a lightweight toolkit, meaning it does not rely on native widgets.
- Apache Pivot is an open-source platform for building rich web applications in Java or any JVM-compatible language, and relies on the WTK widget toolkit.
- JavaFX
- The Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT) is a native widget toolkit for Java that was developed as part of the Eclipse project. SWT uses a standard toolkit for the running platform (such as the Windows API, OS X Cocoa, or GTK+) underneath.
- Qt Jambi, the official Java binding to Qt from Trolltech. The commercial support and development has stopped[4]
Based on Object Pascal
- IP Pascal uses a graphics library built on top of standard language constructs. Also unusual for being a procedural toolkit that is cross-platform (no callbacks or other tricks), and is completely upward compatible with standard serial input and output paradigms. Completely standard programs with serial output can be run and extended with graphical constructs.
- Lazarus LCL (for Pascal, Object Pascal and Delphi via Free Pascal compiler), a class library wrapping GTK+ 1.2, Gtk+ 2.x and the Windows API (Carbon, Windows CE and Qt4 support are all in development).
- fpGUI is created with the Free Pascal compiler. It doesn't rely on any large 3rdParty libraries and currently runs on Linux, Windows and Windows CE. A Carbon (OS X) port is underway.
- CLX (Component Library for Cross-platform), used with Borland's Delphi, C++ Builder, and Kylix, for producing cross-platform applications. It is based on Qt, wrapped in such a way that its programming interface is similar to that of the VCL toolkit.
Based on Ada
- RAPID is the Rapid Ada Portable Interface Design tool. Current implementations utilize the TASH binding to Tcl/Tk, the GNAT to JVM compiler, the Microsoft .NET Framework, or GtkAda.
- GWindows is a GUI framework that mostly supports Windows development, but also has incomplete implementations for OS X and Linux.
- QtAda, the official Ada binding to Qt.
Based on Objective-C
- GNUstep
- Cocoa
- newSTEP
- TouchWidgets
Based on Eiffel
- EiffelVision is a cross-platform, object-oriented framework for graphical user interface development.
Based on Ruby
- Shoes (GUI toolkit) is a cross platform framework for graphical user interface development.
Not yet categorised
Comparison of widget toolkits
| Toolkit | Initial release | Latest release | Main language | Bindings | Tools | License | Pros | Cons | Back-end |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agar [5] | 2005 | 2011 | C | BSD | portable, unique across platforms, fast, low-level | no property grid | |||
| Xaw, Athena | 1983 | C | |||||||
| AWT | 1995 | Java | portable | ||||||
| CEGUI | December 2004 | 0.8.5 (March 12, 2016) [±][6] | C++ | Python,[7] Lua (using tolua++)[8] | CEED[9] | MIT License | Free license, fast, cross-platform, portable, free GUI editing tool | ||
| Clutter | 2006 | C | Perl, Python, C#, C++, Vala, Ruby | LGPL | GTK+ and WebKit embedding | ||||
| Elementary | 2007 (EFL: 2001) | 2011 | C | JavaScript, Python, Vala, C++ | editje, edje | LGPL | Portable, stable, fast, finger-friendly | ||
| FLTK | 1998 | C++ | Python (pyFLTK), Perl (FLTK.pm), Ruby (Ruby/FLTK), Tcl (Tcl Fltk), Guile (guile-fltk), Eiffel (IFLTK) | FLUID (Fast Light UI Designer) | LGPL (with an exception that allows static linking) | fast, small enough to static link | limited widget selection | ||
| FOX | 1997 | C++ | Ruby (FXRuby), Python (FXPy), Eiffel (EiffelFox) | consistent across platforms | non-native look and feel | ||||
| GLUI | C++ | ||||||||
| GNUstep | 1994 | 2010 | Objective-C | Java, Ruby, Scheme | Gorm (computing) | GPL for the apps, LGPL for the libs | X11 | ||
| GTK+ | 1997 | 3.20.2 (March 31, 2016) [±] | C | C++ (gtkmm), Perl (Gtk2-perl), Ruby (ruby-gtk2), Python (PyGTK), Haskell (Gtk2Hs), Java (java-gnome) (not available for Microsoft Windows), C# (Gtk#), PHP (PHP-GTK), Ada (GTKAda), D (gtkD), FreeBasic (GladeToBac), Go (go-gtk), OCaml (lablgtk), JavaScript (Gjs, Seed), Fortran (gtk-fortran), Lua (lua-lgi), R (RGtk2) and others via GTK-server | Glade | LGPL | Portable, stable API, free license | Partly native only.[10][11] | |
| IUP | 1992 | 2011[12] | C | Lua (IupLua)[13] | LEDC: a compiler for LED | MIT | Portable, lightweight, use the native API, native look&feel, free licence | Non‑Unicode (only plain ASCII) [14] | |
| KWWidgets | C++ | Tcl/Tk, Python | VisualStudio, gcc | BSD | portable | ||||
| Motif, Lesstif | 1980s | C | BX Pro | ||||||
| MWT Multi-Platform Widget Toolkit | 2000-11-15 | 2009-10-20 | C/C++ | Ruby, Perl, Python, Java, Objective Caml | WideStudio Application Builder, Eclipse/NAB | MIT License | very portable, many language bindings (incl. embedded systems) | ||
| Nana C++ | 2007 | 1.2.2 (December 8, 2015) [±][15] | C++ | VisualStudio, Dev-C++, Code::Blocks, GCC | portable, lightweight, modern C++ style | ||||
| NTK | 2012 | 2012 | C++ | LGPL | Free license, portable, stable, fast | ||||
| Qt | 1991 | 5.6 (March 16, 2016) [±][16] | C++ | Ruby (QtRuby), Python (PyQt, PySide, PythonQt), Ada (QtAda), c# ( Qyoto), Java (Qt Jambi), Pascal ( FreePascal Qt4 ), Perl (Perl Qt4), PHP(PHP-Qt), Haskell (Qt Haskell), Lua (lqt, QtLua), Dao ( DaoQt), Tcl ( qtcl ), Common Lisp (CommonQt), D (QtD), Harbour (hbqt) | Qt Designer, Qt Creator | GPL, LGPL.[17] | Portable, rich widget set, GUI builder, free license, stable API | Partially native only.[18][19] | |
| Shoes (GUI toolkit) | 2007 | 2010 | Ruby | MIT license/Open source | Simplicity, ease of use | ||||
| SWT | Java | D (DWT) | Eclipse | portable | |||||
| Swing | 1996 | Java | Eclipse, NetBeans | GPL for OpenJDK | Portable (Java), advanced widgets, GUI builders | ||||
| Tk | 1991 | 2015 | C, Tcl | Ruby (RubyTk), Python (Tkinter), Perl (Perl/Tk), Ada (TASH), Common Lisp (LTk), Erlang (etk), ... | | BSD | very portable, many language bindings | |||
| TouchWidgets | 2015 | Objective-C | LGPL for the library | OpenGL | |||||
| Ultimate++ | 2004 | C++ | TheIDE | BSD | portable, NTL, free license | ||||
| Rogue Wave Views | 1993 | 2014 (5.8) | C++ | ivfstudio | proprietary | portable (Windows, Unix-like), good support | commercial | ||
| VCF | C++ | BSD | free license | ||||||
| Windows Forms | CLI languages | CLI languages | Expression, Visual Studio | portability issues, no MVC | |||||
| WPF, XAML, Silverlight | 2007 | CLI languages | CLI languages | Expression, Visual Studio | Portability issues | ||||
| MFC, WinAPI | 1992 | C++ | Visual Studio | not portable (but Wine implements it for X Window) | |||||
| ATL, WTL | 2004 | C++ | Visual Studio | not portable | |||||
| wxWidgets | 1992 | 3.1.0 (29 February 2016) [±][20] | C++ | C++ (native), Ruby (wxRuby), Python (wxPython), Perl (wxPerl), Java (wxJava, jwx!), Lua (wxLua), Tcl(wxTCL), JavaScript (GLUEscript), Smalltalk (wxSqueak), Erlang (wxErlang), Haskell (wxHaskell), C (wxC), D (wxD), .NET Framework (wxNet), Common Lisp (wxCL), Basic (wxBasic), BlitzMax (wxMax), Euphoria (wxEuphoria), Ada (wxAda), Pike (wxPike) | VisualWx, Boa Constructor, PythonCard, Spe, XRCed, wxGlade, wxFormBuilder, DialogBlocks ($), wxDesigner ($), Philasmicos Entwickler Studio | wxWindows License | Portable, rich widget set, free licence, semantic similarities to MFC make migration easy. | ||
| XUL | XML, JavaScript | portable | |||||||
| YAAF | C++ | ||||||||
| SmartWin++ | C++ | ||||||||
| Juce | 2004 | C++ | Jucer | GPL, commercial | Cross-platform, with additional audio plug-in wrapping tools (VST, RTAS, AAX etc.) | ||||
| XVT | 1989 | 2010 | C and C++ | Design for C and architect for C++ | Proprietary | Cross-platform, rich widget set, C and C++ GUI builders, very stable | |||
| NUI | C++ | Yapuka | GPL and proprietary | ||||||
| CLX | C++ | ||||||||
| InterViews | C++ | ||||||||
| VCL | Delphi | ||||||||
| tekUI | C, Lua | ||||||||
| Toolkit | Initial release | Latest release | Main language | Bindings | Tools | License | Pros | Cons | Back-end |
See also
References
- ↑ Microsoft: MS Windows NT Kernel-mode User
- ↑ Techworld: Microsoft to move graphics outside OS kernel
- ↑ This version provides the core API of the .NET Framework 2.0, but its implementation of this API is still incomplete.
- ↑ Qt Software to discontinue Qt Jambi after 4.5 release
- ↑ http://libagar.org/
- ↑ http://cegui.org.uk/download/cegui-085
- ↑ http://cegui.org.uk/wiki/PyCEGUI
- ↑ http://cegui.org.uk/wiki/Extending_your_Lua_Interface
- ↑ http://cegui.org.uk/wiki/CEED
- ↑ Migrating to client-side windows: “GDK looks for the GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS environment variable and makes all windows native if it is set. It also tries to be more compatible with the way prior versions worked in some other ways.”
- ↑ Coding Horror: Non-Native UI Sucks: “[…] has a cross-platform UI based on GTK, which produces predictably bland, least-common-denominator results:”
- ↑ http://sourceforge.net/projects/iup/files/3.5/
- ↑ http://www.tecgraf.puc-rio.br/iup/
- ↑ Comparing IUP with Other Interface Toolkits: “[…] it does not have support for Unicode characters.”
- ↑ http://www.nanapro.org/en-us/
- ↑ Knoll, Lars (2016-03-16). "Qt 5.6 released". Qt Blog. The Qt Company. Retrieved 2016-03-17.
- ↑ Nyström, Sebastian (14 January 2009). "Nokia to license Qt under LGPL". Retrieved 5 December 2013.
- ↑ WxWidgets Compared To Other Toolkits: “Qt doesn't have true native ports like wxWidgets does. Qt does not use system provided widgets, but emulates it with themes. What we mean by this is that even though Qt draws them quite realistically, Qt draws its own widgets on each platform.”
- ↑ "Library". Digia. Retrieved 2015-04-10.
Qt uses the native graphics APIs of each platform it supports, taking full advantage of system resources and ensuring that applications have native look and feel.
- ↑ "wxWidgets releases". 1 March 2016. Retrieved 1 March 2016.
External links
- The GUI Toolkit, Framework Page, comparing some of the modern GUIs out there.
- Survey of Widget sets (for the X Window System) (Edward Falk)
- GUI Toolkits for The X Window System (Leslie Polzer, freshmeat.net, 27 July 2003)
- Overview of Microsoft Windows GUI libraries
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