In computer programming, an application framework consists of a

software framework In computer programming, a software framework is an abstraction in which software, providing generic functionality, can be selectively changed by additional user-written code, thus providing application-specific software. It provides a standard ...

used by

software developer Software development is the process of conceiving, specifying, designing, Computer programming, programming, software documentation, documenting, software testing, testing, and Software bugs, bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applic ...

s to implement the standard structure of application software. Application frameworks became popular with the rise of graphical user interfaces (GUIs), since these tended to promote a standard structure for applications. Programmers find it much simpler to create automatic GUI creation tools when using a standard framework, since this defines the underlying code structure of the application in advance. Developers usually use object-oriented programming (OOP) techniques to implement frameworks such that the unique parts of an application can simply inherit from classes extant in the framework.

Examples

Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company b ...

developed one of the first commercial application frameworks, MacApp (first release 1985), for the Macintosh. Originally written in an extended (object-oriented) version of

Pascal Pascal, Pascal's or PASCAL may refer to: People and fictional characters * Pascal (given name), including a list of people with the name * Pascal (surname), including a list of people and fictional characters with the name ** Blaise Pascal, Fren ...

termed Object Pascal, it was later rewritten in C++. Another notable framework for the Mac is Metrowerks' PowerPlant, based on Carbon.

Cocoa Cocoa may refer to: Chocolate * Chocolate * ''Theobroma cacao'', the cocoa tree * Cocoa bean, seed of ''Theobroma cacao'' * Chocolate liquor, or cocoa liquor, pure, liquid chocolate extracted from the cocoa bean, including both cocoa butter and ...

for macOS offers a different approach to an application framework, based on the OpenStep framework developed at NeXT.

Free and open-source software Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

frameworks exist as part of the Mozilla, LibreOffice,

GNOME A gnome is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, first introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and later adopted by more recent authors including those of modern fantasy literature. Its characte ...

KDE KDE is an international Free software movement, free software community that develops free and open-source software. As a central development hub, it provides tools and resources that allow collaborative work on this kind of software. Well-know ...

, NetBeans, and

Eclipse An eclipse is an astronomical event that occurs when an astronomical object or spacecraft is temporarily obscured, by passing into the shadow of another body or by having another body pass between it and the viewer. This alignment of three ce ...

projects. Microsoft markets a framework for developing Windows applications in C++ called the Microsoft Foundation Class Library, and a similar framework for developing applications with Visual Basic or C#, named

.NET Framework The .NET Framework (pronounced as "''dot net"'') is a proprietary software framework developed by Microsoft that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. It was the predominant implementation of the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) until bein ...

. Several frameworks can build cross-platform applications for Linux, Macintosh, and Windows from common source code, such as Qt, the widget toolkits wxWidgets, Fox toolkit, or Eclipse Rich Client Platform (RCP).

Oracle Application Development Framework In computing, Oracle Application Development Framework, usually called Oracle ADF, provides a Java framework for building enterprise applications. It provides visual and declarative approaches to Java EE development. It supports rapid application ...

(Oracle ADF) aids in producing Java-oriented systems. Silicon Laboratories offers an embedded application framework for developing wireless applications on its series of wireless chips. MARTHA is a proprietary software Java framework that all of the RealObjects software is built on.

References

{{Reflist Programming tools Proprietary software