Windows Template Library: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 01:55, 28 April 2005

Revision as of 13:04, 28 April 2005

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The '''Windows Template Library''' ('''WTL''') is a [[Object-oriented programming|object-oriented]] [[Win32]] encapsulation [[C Plus Plus|C++]] [[Library (computer science)|library]] by [[Microsoft]]. The WTL supports an [[Application programming interface|API]] for use by [[programmer]]s. It was developed as a light-weight alternative to [[Microsoft Foundation Classes]]. WTL extends Microsoft's [[Active Template Library|ATL]], another lightweight API for using [[Component Object Model|COM]] and for creating [[ActiveX]] controls. Though created by Microsoft, it is unsupported.

In an uncharacteristic move by Microsoft—an outspoken critic of [[open source]] software—they made the [[source code]] of WTL freely available. Releasing it under the open-source [[Common Public License]], Microsoft posted the source on [[SourceForge]], an [[Internetinternet]] open-source repository. The SourceForge version is 7.1.

Being an unsupported library, WTL has little formal documentation. However, most of the API is a direct mirror of the standard Win32 calls, so the interface is familiar to most Windows programmers.