Fsys Software Jan van Wijk DFSee Home
DFSee   |   Photos, Combined galleries   |   Videos   |   Contact
(products)

TXWIN, windowing UI library

This is the complete multi-platform windowing library developed for the DFSee program, offered in a ZIP-file distribution that contains all sources, makefiles and several sample programs with source, to demonstrate some of the library features.

Licensing

As of version 7, TxWin is covered by the fairly liberal MIT open source license .

Library Download

Developed with OpenWatcom TxWin 5.xx download TXWin library ZIP TxWin multiplatform text mode windowing library (11 Mb)

TXTest sample program

Multiplatform availability

The library download includes support for the following five target platforms:

The macOS version can be compiled with either GCC 4.2 (32-bit) or the later LLVM/Clang compilers (64-bit target) that come with the standard Apple Xcode development environment (needs commandline tools). Corresponding makefiles are included with the library and sample program sources.

It consists of a single statically linked library file (libtx*.a) either as a 'release' or a 'debug' version and supports full source-level debugging using the Xcode environment

All others are compiled with the OpenWatcom compiler (stable 1.9 version, or newer 2.0 one) and the compiler configuration scripts as well as some build scripts are included. Building the library has been tested on OS/2 and Windows only, but may work with some build-modifications on other platforms supporting OpenWatcom, like FreeDOS and Linux.

On these platforms the library consists of a single statically linked library file (tx*.lib) either as a 'release' or a 'debug' version for source-level debugging with the OpenWatcom debugger.

The included 'TXT' sample program is a test program that shows a lot of what the library can do, see the first screenshot. Pre-compiled binaries for each platform are included in the distribution ZIP, so you can see how it behaves without needing to have the build environment working.
SAM7 view window

Library windowing features

The library supports a windowing environment modelled after the familiar OS/2 PM and Windows message based window-systems, including a single message-queue and familiar messages like WM_CREATE, WM_PAINT, WM_COMMAND, WM_CHAR and many more. Created windows/dialogs can have their own message-handling-procedures (WinProc) to implement specific behaviour on top of the existing library functionality. In contrast to those GUI environments, the display output is text-based, using plain ASCII characters, it is not a graphical interface (GUI)

The interface is operated by both keyboard and mouse on all platforms, and also integrates with the OS clipboard

The most important user interface elements supported are:

The 'TXT' sample program is a test program that shows a lot of what the library can do, see screenshot


SAM8 help window

Library generic features

Apart from the windowing specific features, the library also has a lot generic features:

The library includes several sample programs to demonstrate the features, but probably the best way of seeing what the library can do is evaluate the full DFSee program ...

User feedback and support

Feedback on the library is much appreciated, and you can get some help in using it (on a best effort basis) by contacting me at: jvw@dfsee.com

Of course contributions in the form of bug fixes or new functionality are welcome as well.

Presentations on TxWin, including PDF downloads

Textmode windowing Textmode windowing using the TxWin library

Textmode windowing
View/download as PDF

TxWin programming and user guide TxWin library, programming and user guide

TxWin programming and user guide
View/download as PDF

TxWin Script TXscript, native scripting

A block-structured scripting language aimed at executing commands to automate program operations

TxWin Script
View/download as PDF

TxWin distribution and samples TxWin library, distribution and sample programs

TxWin distribution and samples
View/download as PDF

Cross platform Open Watcom Cross-platform text-mode programming using OpenWatcom

Cross platform Open Watcom
View/download as PDF

DFSee   |   Photos, Combined galleries   |   Videos   |   Contact
(products page) TXWIN, windowing UI library
Views: 5366 Viewable with Any Browser Created by Jan van Wijk:   May 2005, last update:   2021-March-1 Valid HTML 4.01 Transitional