Dr. Robert Roebling of the wxEmbedded project reports progress toward bringing wxWidgets to Familiar, a Linux distribution mainly for the HP/Compaq iPAQ PDA. wxWidgets, formerly wxWindows, is an open source framework for multi-platform user interface development that relies on each platform's native widget set, preserving a native look and feel.

Roebling has released a toolchain that enables X11 and GTK+ 2.2 based applications to be cross-compiled for Linux/ARM, after which they can be run on most iPAQ models supported by the Familiar distribution. The toolchain is being distributed with several sample applications, and is available for download from Roebling's homepage.

According to Roebling, both the wxX11 and wxGTK+2.2 ports of wxWidgets can be used with Familiar, although the majority of development work is currently being done on the wxGTK wxWidgets port, targeting the building of applications for use with the GPE Palmtop Environment (GPE).

Roebling adds, “We have also made progress on supporting Pocket PC as another target platform. There are still some details missing (e.g. image and socket support), but most things are working. You'll soon be able
to [build] Pocket PC and GPE apps from a single source [tree].”

For more information on the wxEmbedded Project, don't miss this project introduction from Dr. Roebling. The wxEmbedded homepage can be found here.

 
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