My 2c. I have been using WTL since 2000 and recently completed a large project
using it but have now switched to using Qt for new C++ development as it is now
LGPL and the cross-platform aspect is becoming more important to our business
(Mac more than Linux at the moment). As far as I can see MFC is dead, despite
the addition of the BCG UI library, and the Qt framework is *much* more
polished.

WTL is great for lightweight Windows apps but I do fear for it's future. The
traffic on this forum peaked years ago and begs the question of whether there is
enough impetus to keep moving WTL forward.

--- In wtl@yahoogroups.com, "Anna-Jayne Metcalfe" <yahoo@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Philip,
>
> > Now the latest version of WTL is 8.1. Comparing with 8.0, it is just bug
fixing.
>
> > In my opinion, MFC is still under developing. Vista's new UI features are
support by the latest MFC version. If you want to used lots UI Controls provided
in .NET. Managed C++ is a choice.
>
> MFC is still moving forwards, but only after a long period of stagnation and
with the assimilation of third party components for ribbon support. MS never
wrote that themselves as the version in Office was too closely coupled to the
internal Office frameworks to make it worthwhile to port to an MFC version ....
>
> Then of course you get all of the MFC party quirks and oddities from previous
versions. They're very hot on backward compatibility (generally a good thing)
but unfortunately with it being a circa-1990 framework that means you're wedded
to a monolithic design with many compromises (try making sense of/customising
the way frame windows work and you'll rapidly get the idea).
>
> There is always going to be a tradeoff between completeness/bloat (MFC) and
flexibility (WTL).
>
> As a result of our experiences with both frameworks we've now moved all of our
core projects from MFC to WTL in order to get the latter, and so far it's paying
off handsomely - despite some extra work filling in gaps WTL doesn't handle "out
of the box".
>
> > There are many other open source C++ UI Framework, like GTK+, wxWidget...
>
> That's always the case in the C++ world - the same is true of unit test
frameworks, for example.
>
> Incidentally, if you're looking for a cross-platform framework, Jim Crafton's
VCF is worth a look at.
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> Anna x
>
> http://www.riverblade.co.uk
> Twitterings: http://twitter.com/annajayne
> Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jalapenokitten/
>