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

As a separate layer on top of the operating system

High-level widget toolkits

Widget toolkit comparison table
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OWL (superseded by VCL)Yes No No C++ (Borland C++) Proprietary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

On Macintosh

On Microsoft Windows

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.

Cross-platform

Based on C (including bindings to other languages)

Based on C++ (including bindings to other languages)

Based on OpenGL

Based on Flash

Based on XML

Based on JavaScript

Main article: JavaScript library

General

RIAs

Full-stack framework

Resource-based

No longer developed

Based on SVG

Based on .NET

Based on Java

Based on Object Pascal

Based on Ada

Based on Objective-C

Based on Eiffel

Based on Ruby

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 (2016-03-12)) [±][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 (2016-03-31)) [±] 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 (2015-12-08)) [±][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 (2016-03-16)) [±][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 (2016-02-29)) [±][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

  1. Microsoft: MS Windows NT Kernel-mode User
  2. Techworld: Microsoft to move graphics outside OS kernel
  3. This version provides the core API of the .NET Framework 2.0, but its implementation of this API is still incomplete.
  4. Qt Software to discontinue Qt Jambi after 4.5 release
  5. http://libagar.org/
  6. http://cegui.org.uk/download/cegui-085
  7. http://cegui.org.uk/wiki/PyCEGUI
  8. http://cegui.org.uk/wiki/Extending_your_Lua_Interface
  9. http://cegui.org.uk/wiki/CEED
  10. 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.”
  11. Coding Horror: Non-Native UI Sucks: “[…] has a cross-platform UI based on GTK, which produces predictably bland, least-common-denominator results:”
  12. http://sourceforge.net/projects/iup/files/3.5/
  13. http://www.tecgraf.puc-rio.br/iup/
  14. Comparing IUP with Other Interface Toolkits: “[…] it does not have support for Unicode characters.”
  15. http://www.nanapro.org/en-us/
  16. Knoll, Lars (2016-03-16). "Qt 5.6 released". Qt Blog. The Qt Company. Retrieved 2016-03-17.
  17. Nyström, Sebastian (14 January 2009). "Nokia to license Qt under LGPL". Retrieved 5 December 2013.
  18. 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.”
  19. "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.
  20. "wxWidgets releases". 1 March 2016. Retrieved 1 March 2016.

External links

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