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the Windows Template Library (WTL).

[ Note: Sep 2004, My work has moved over to using the Qt toolkit and KDE, so there is no further development on these pages. I'll leave them up, either until I need the space, or they become totally irrelevant.
See the WTL-Docs pages for the tar/zip files]

The Windows Template Library (WTL) is an unsupported C++ library available from Microsoft. It is based on the ATL library (and requires it). The WTL extends the ATL by providing a rich set of classes that wrap the user interface part of the W32 API. Classes to create buttons, list boxes, combo boxes and so on, and adding a few useful utility classes.

An application built with the WTL is typically smaller and faster than one built with MFC and yet has the same functionality, As the WTL (and ATL) are a set of template classes, there is no library file that needs to be supplied for the application to function, the code is compiled in with your application.

One of the major shortcomings of the WTL is the lack of any documentation for it. As it is an unsupported library from Microsoft, it doesn't feature in the MSDN, the header files themselves are pretty sparse with their comments and on the web there are not so many sites that deal with it. These pages are an attempt to rectify that shortcoming. To skip to the documentation itself, go to the WTL-Docs pages, otherwise, read on.

When I mentioned the idea on the WTL mailing list a couple of people responded that there were already two WTL documentation projects, and there was no need to reinvent the wheel, so I thought I would just give my reasons for starting up a third documentation site. The two documentation projects are the Code Project one, which has not had an update for two years, and Bryan Resslers WTL Quick Reference, which is excellent, but not easily updated as it is generated by hand.
What I wanted to try was an automatic generation of documentation from the code with the possibility of annotating it. The solution I came up with was to run it through DOxygen and include a documentation file. The documentation file includes all the annotations, and DOxygen automagically inserts it into the correct place! Go to the WTL-Docs pages for more details on how it works, and to view the results.

Links

There are a few sites with some documentation and information on the WTL, as follows:

If you hear of any more, let me know and I'll add them here.