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Building wxWidgets from Source

Windows

CodeLite uses MSYS2 to provide the compiler and related tools.

  1. Open an MSYS2 shell and install all prerequisites as described in the linked guide.
  2. Clone the wxWidgets repository and initialize its sub‑modules:
git clone https://github.com/wxWidgets/wxWidgets
cd wxWidgets
git submodule update --init

Release build

mkdir .build-release
cd .build-release
cmake .. -G"MinGW Makefiles" -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
         -DwxBUILD_DEBUG_LEVEL=0 \
         -DwxBUILD_MONOLITHIC=1 -DwxBUILD_SAMPLES=ALL -DwxUSE_STL=1 \
         -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=$HOME/root
mingw32-make -j$(nproc) install

Debug build

mkdir .build-debug
cd .build-debug
cmake .. -G"MinGW Makefiles" -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug -DwxBUILD_DEBUG_LEVEL=1 \
         -DwxBUILD_SAMPLES=ALL -DwxBUILD_MONOLITHIC=1 -DwxUSE_STL=1 \
         -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=$HOME/root
mingw32-make -j$(nproc) install

Linux

To build wxWidgets on Linux you need the following packages:

  • GTK development libraries
  • libgtk2.0-dev for GTK 2
  • libgtk-3-dev for GTK 3
  • pkg-config (usually included with the GTK development package)
  • Build essentials (g++, make, etc.)
  • git
  • cmake

Install the prerequisites on Ubuntu with:

sudo apt-get install libgtk-3-dev \
                     pkg-config \
                     build-essential \
                     git \
                     cmake \
                     libsqlite3-dev \
                     libssh-dev \
                     libedit-dev \
                     libhunspell-dev \
                     xterm

Build sequence

mkdir -p $HOME/devl
cd $HOME/devl

git clone https://github.com/wxWidgets/wxWidgets
cd wxWidgets
git submodule update --init

mkdir -p .build-release
cd .build-release

../configure --disable-debug_flag --with-gtk=3 --enable-stl
make -j$(nproc) && sudo make install

macOS

Prerequisites

  1. Install Homebrew – https://brew.sh/
  2. Run brew install cmake git
  3. Download the latest Xcode from the App Store
  4. In Xcode, open Preferences → Downloads and install the Command Line Tools (adds clang/clang++ to /usr/bin)

Building with CMake

mkdir -p $HOME/devl
cd $HOME/devl
git clone https://github.com/wxWidgets/wxWidgets.git
cd wxWidgets
git submodule update --init

mkdir .build-release
cd .build-release
cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
         -DwxBUILD_DEBUG_LEVEL=0 \
         -DwxBUILD_MONOLITHIC=1 \
         -DwxBUILD_SAMPLES=ALL
make -j$(sysctl -n hw.physicalcpu)
sudo make install
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