Windows Template Library
The Windows Template Library ( WTL ) is an object-oriented C ++ - program library for the Windows API . It was developed by Microsoft employee Nenad Stefanovic as a slim alternative to the Microsoft Foundation Classes , which are very extensive. Originally the development was only intended for in-house purposes, but later it was made available to the public as an unofficial extension to the Visual Studio package. The WTL is based on the Active Template Library, also from Microsoft-Library. Since there is no official documentation for the project, an attempt was made to provide unofficial documentation on an external website.
overview
The WTL offers support for a variety of GUI elements, MDI , Common Controls and many GDI objects. The main focus in the development was on fast and efficient code that offers the programmer an interface that is easier to use than direct access to the Win32 API. For this reason, most of the function calls of the WTL are similar to those of the original API, so that no major changes in use are necessary.
The first public version of the WTL was released under a license very similar to that of the MFC, but did not contain any restrictions on use or distribution. Microsoft published the complete source code under the Common Public License in 2004 . The project can be found today at sourceforge.net. From version 7.5 onwards, users can choose from another license, the Microsoft Permissive License, now known as Shared Source .
Web links
- The SourceForge WTL project
- Official Microsoft website for downloading the WTL 8.0 (English)
- WTL Documentation - An Effort to Create Documentation for the WTL Programming Library.