TwinForms: A WxWidgets Form Designer in C++ Builder

[mouser]

Just saw this new tool (commercial but cheap, $30), which looks very cool.  It basically adds a wxwidgets form designer into your C++ Builder and attempts to help you build cross-platform code from C++ Builder.

There are a couple of screencasts on the site which look pretty nice.  There are other wxwidgets form designers, and some IDE's for windows (like CodeBlocks) that will ensure that your C++ code is cross-platform compatible, but this may be a nice solution for people who really like C++ Builder and want to experiment with wxwidgets stuff in a more comfortable setting.

wxForms is an integrated form designer plugin for Borland C++ Builder that helps you to create cross platform applications for Windows, Mac OSX , Linux (gtk) using single source base. The wxForms code from C++ builder can be compiled in Mac OSX, Linux and Windows Mobile without much change using GNU GCC toolchain (in Windows, Linux, Mac OSX), VC++ , eMbedded VC++ (for Windows CE), Digital Mars and other compilers supported by wxWidgets Framework.

wxForms allows you to use all the C++ builder's powerful Form Designer/ Editor features (Form Alignment, Object inspector, Component Palette etc ) to quickly create Cross platform applications. Components can be easily customized by modifying their properties in the object inspector.

Unlike other wxWidgets Form designers, wxForms allows you to do form designing, code editing and debugging in one single place.

http://www.twinforms...com/wxforms-home.htm

[Gothi[c]]

... are those wx controls on a vcl form ?!

[SkyIDE]

Hmm they must be, the tool kit has wx in front of each widget.

This looks pretty cool! I might give it a spin.

Thanks for the heads-up mouser. It looks pretty amazing.

[gururamnath]

... are those wx controls on a vcl form ?!

-Gothi[c] (June 15, 2007, 10:15 PM)

The form and the components are specific to wxWidgets. Just for the designer usage the controls are derived from VCL components, Corresponding wxWidgets source code is generated in the background when you make a change to a particular component. Each wx Specific BCB components have the corresponding properties of the wxWidgets components instead of the VCL components. If you add a VCL component to the wxForm, it wont compile.

Let me know if you find any problem or question about wxForms.
-regards,
Guru Kathiresan
wxForms Support
http://www.twinforms.com

[Gothi[c]]

Welcome, gururamnath,

Thanks for the response! That indeed makes it very useful. Very interesting project.

[SkyIDE]

If TScintilla plays nice with this and depending how much it depends on Win32 API, I might be able to port SkyIDE on Linux otherwise there is QT Scintilla wrapper. I wonder if QT can be used in conjunction with wxWidgets?

[Gothi[c]]

wxWidgets uses native controls (on linux it will use GTK, motif or even xlib) on windows it uses the win32 api, etc,...
QT draws it's own controls, and thus doesn't look integrated into the OS.
I don't really see no reason to use qt when you've got these wx controls working in bcb...

I think, for portable code, instead of using TScintella, you shoud look into using wxscintilla
. It should probably work fine with bcb.
http://sourceforge.n...rojects/wxscintilla/

There is a wonderfull cross platform example of wxWidgets + scintella in the open source Code::Blocks IDE. (http://www.codeblocks.org/)

[SkyIDE]

Oh I like the sound of that! Thanks Gothi[c] and yes I've heard of CodeBlocks but I have never used it. If I go with this, there will be a separate version of SkyIDE which will be 100% open source, well I don't think I will have a choice but anyway I support Open Source 100%. SkyIDE isn't open source for personal reasons.

I just finished setting up my newly restored hard disk image and I just installed BDS2006.

[Gothi[c]]

hehe, don't worry, i just mentioned codeblocks is open source so you could look at it's source code to see how they integrated scintilla and wxWidgets. (since code::blocks uses both)

you DO have a choice, the wxWidgets library is licensed under L-GPL with an exception stating that derived works in binary form may be distributed on the user's own terms. See http://www.wxwidgets...g/about/newlicen.htm for details.

[SkyIDE]

Ohh I see, I thought it was pure GPL, thanks

[gururamnath]

If TScintilla plays nice with this and depending how much it depends on Win32 API, I might be able to port SkyIDE on Linux otherwise there is QT Scintilla wrapper. I wonder if QT can be used in conjunction with wxWidgets?

-SkyIDE (June 18, 2007, 02:10 AM)

Hi,
Yes We can create similar Designer for QT. Since BDS2006 doesnt even compile QT 4 source, I'm not sure it will be helpful to create a designer for QT at this point of time.

-regards,
Guru Kathiresan
wxForms Support
http://www.twinforms.com

[gururamnath]

Hello,
We have released a new version of wxForms. Please visit http://www.twinforms.com for more details.

-regards,
Guru Kathiresan
wxForms Support
http://www.twinforms.com