wxWidgets is a C++ library that lets developers create applications for Windows, OS X, Linux and UNIX on 32-bit and 64-bit architectures as well as several mobile platforms including Windows Mobile, iPhone SDK and embedded GTK+. It has popular language bindings for Python, Perl, Ruby and many other languages. Unlike other cross-platform toolkits, wxWidgets gives its applications a truly native look and feel because it uses the platform's native API rather than emulating the GUI. It's also extensive, free, open-source and mature.
Implementation
The wxWidgets library is implemented in C++, with bindings available for many commonly used programming languages, among them, Python (wxPython), Erlang (wxErlang), Haskell (wxHaskell), Tcl (wxTCL), Lua (wxLua), Perl (wxPerl), Ruby (wxRuby), Smalltalk (wxSqueak), Common Lisp (wxCL), Basic (wxBasic), C (wxC), D (wxD), Euphoria (wxEuphoria), .NET Framework (wx.NET), Java (wx4j) and even JavaScript (wxJavaScript / GLUEScript). For a complete list, with links to the respective project sites, see the external references at the end of this article. There is also PLT Scheme, which uses an incompatible branch of wxWindows (version 1), created in 1995. The toolkit is deeply integrated with the language run-time (garbage collection, resource administration) unlike in other languages, which simply provide a library binding.
wxWidgets is best described as a native mode toolkit as it provides a thin abstraction to a platform's native widgets, contrary to emulating the display of widgets using graphic primitives. Calling a native widget on the target platform results in a more native looking interface than toolkits such as Swing (for Java), as well as offering performance and other benefits.
The toolkit is also not restricted to GUI development, having an inter-process communication layer, socket networking functionality, and more.
