XForms is a GUI toolkit based on
Xlib
Xlib (also known as libX11) is an X Window System protocol client library (computer science), library written in the C (programming language), C programming language. It contains subroutine, functions for interacting with an X Server (computi ...
for the
X Window System
The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems.
X originated as part of Project Athena at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1984. The X protocol has been at ...
. It features a rich set of objects, such as buttons, scrollbars, and menus etc. In addition, the library is extensible and new objects can easily be created and added to the library. It also includes the
fdesign tool as a
graphical user interface builder
A graphical user interface builder (or GUI builder), also known as GUI designer or sometimes RAD IDE, is a software development tool that simplifies the creation of GUIs by allowing the designer to arrange graphical control elements (often cal ...
.
Distributed under the
GNU Lesser General Public License
The GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) is a free-software license published by the Free Software Foundation (FSF). The license allows developers and companies to use and integrate a software component released under the LGPL into their own ...
,
XForms is
free software
Free software, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed open-source license, under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, distribut ...
.
XForms was based on the
Forms Library by
Mark Overmars, converted from
IRIS GL (a precursor to
OpenGL
OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a Language-independent specification, cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D computer graphics, 2D and 3D computer graphics, 3D vector graphics. The API is typic ...
that also included calls to create windows and manage events) to
X11. A similar conversion was used to make the first versions of
FLTK, so all these toolkits are distantly related.
The toolkit was originally used by the
Xfce
Xfce or XFCE (pronounced as four individual letters, ) is a Free and open-source software, free and open-source desktop environment for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems.
Xfce aims to be fast and Lightweight software, lightweight whil ...
desktop environment before the switch to the
GTK
GTK (formerly GIMP ToolKit and GTK+) is a free software cross-platform widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs). It is licensed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License, allowing both Free software, free and ...
toolkit in 1999.
References
External links
*
Project Page
Application programming interfaces
Free computer libraries
{{compu-library-stub