1. Download and install MinGW if you don’t already have it. Add MinGW’s bin subdirectory to your PATH environment variable. Note that if you use Vista, you must override GCC’s utilities with their corresponding Vista builds;
2. Download and install MSYS – you will need it to compile wxWidgets. Add its bin subdirectory to PATH as you did with MinGW;
3. Open the MSYS console and navigate to the directory where you extracted wxWidgets (or where the installation put the files from wxWidgets);
4. Create a directory for your build (mkdir build-static-debug) and navigate to it. You may want to use other names;
5. Run configure with your preferred options, which may include
   • --enable-debug – enable debugging info
   • --enable-optimise – create optimised code
   • --disable-shared – create static libraries (use this unless you want to distribute wxWidgets dlls with your application)
   • --enable-unicode – compile wxWidgets with unicode support

   When you are done choosing, enter the configure command. In my build, I used ../configure --enable-debug --disable-shared --enable-unicode. After configure is done, it will output the basic options of your build

6. Run make to build wxWidgets. As this may take quite a while, you may consider doing 100 push-ups to burn the calories of that burrito you’ve just eaten while following this guide;
7. Remove object files with rm *.o (you’re not going to need them);
8. Run make install to install wxWidgets;

This is it for compiling wxWidgets. Now you need to setup a C/C++ project on NetBeans to use what you’ve just compiled:

1. First of all, make sure NetBeans recognizes your MinGW + MSYS setup. Go to Tools --> Options, then select C/C++. Check if MinGW and MSYS bin subdirectories are listed on the current path list. Add them if they aren’t. make should be found inside MSYS while gcc, g++ and gdb should be found inside MinGW;
2. Now that NetBeans recognizes your MinGW + MSYS setup, it’s time to create a new wxWidgets project. Go to File --> New Project... and select C/C++ application;
3. With your project open, enter the project properties dialog;
4. Select C/C++ --> C++ Compiler --> General options;
5. Open the MSYS console and navigate to the directory where you’ve made your wxWidgets build (e.g. build-static-debug) and enter wx-config --cxxflags. wx-config will output the compiler flags for your project. On my machine wx-config --cxxflags outputs -I/c/wxWidgets-2.8.7/msw-debug/lib/wx/include/msw-uni
code-debug-static-2.8 -I/c/wxWidgets-2.8.7/include -I/c/wxWidgets-2.8.7/contrib/include -D__WXDEBUG__ -D__WXMSW__ -mthreads. Remember to leave this console open;
6. Add all directories preppended with -I from wx-config output to the include directories of your project;
7. Select Command line and put the remaining flags from wx-config there;
8. Now select Linker --> General options;
9. Back on the MSYS console, type wx-config --libs. wx-config will output the linker flags for your project. On my machine wx-config --libs outputs -L/c/wxWidgets-2.8.7/msw-debug/lib -mthreads -Wl,--subsystem,windows -mwindows /c/wxWidgets-2.8.7/msw-debug/lib/libwx_mswud_richtext-2.8.a /c/wxWidgets-2.8.7/msw-debug/lib/libwx_mswud_aui-2.8.a /c/wxWidgets-2.8.7/msw-debug/lib/libwx_mswud_xrc-2.8.a /c/wxWidgets-2.8.7/msw-debug/lib/libwx_mswud_qa-2.8.a /c/wxWidgets-2.8.7/msw-debug/lib/libwx_mswud_html-2.8.a /c/wxWidgets-2.8.7/msw-debug/lib/libwx_mswud_adv-2.8.a /c/wxWidgets-2.8.7/msw-debug/lib/libwx_mswud_core-2.8.a /c/wxWidgets-2.8.7/msw-debug/lib/libwx_baseud_xml-2.8.a /c/wxWidgets-2.8.7/msw-debug/lib/libwx_baseud_net-2.8.a /c/wxWidgets-2.8.7/msw-debug/lib/libwx_baseud-2.8.a -lwxregexud-2.8 -lwxexpatd-2.8 -lwxtiffd-2.8 -lwxjpegd-2.8 -lwxpngd-2.8 -lwxzlibd-2.8 -lrpcrt4 -loleaut32 -lole32 -luuid -lwinspool -lwinmm -lshell32 -lcomctl32 -lcomdlg32 -lctl3d32 -ladvapi32 -lwsock32 -lgdi3;
10. Add the directory preppended with -L to the Additional library directories inside General options and click OK to close this dialog;
11. Now select Linker --> Libraries --> Add option... --> Other option...;
12. Back on the MSYS console, copy the remaining linker flags;
13. Paste the remaining flags from wx-config --libs on your notepad and replace all occurrences of /c/ by C\:/ (this letter may vary depending on where you installed wxWidgets), then paste the result on that field. Remember: replacing /c/ by C\:/ is utterly necessary if you don’t want to see ugly linker errors!;
14. Create a simple wx program and build it;

That’s a lot of work for a first application, but for your next applications all you will have to do is to repeat the compiler and linker options. Now you can use your favorite IDE to make wxWidgets applications on Windows.

PS: A wxWidgets plugin for NetBeans (wxMatisse?) would be great.

• Editor – code font and colors are not always updated when I change settings on the Font & Color dialog. For example: if I change the field color, I have to reopen the code to see the changes. Font & Color settings weren’t imported from my NB 5.5 settings, even though I’ve chosen to do so when I first opened NB 6.0. This is a minor issue that should be fixed soon;
• MUCH better CSS support – clicking on a CSS rule updates a “Style Builder” form where you can change font, background, border and other settings plus a window where you can preview the style. That means much less dependency on tools like Dreamweaver;
• Javascript support – in NB 5.5 I had to use a plugin for Javascript code completion, which is now native to NB 6.0. To make things even better, you can see the minimum DOM version to use every function. With the widespread use of Javascript libraries like Prototype and Scriptaculous, I would like NB to parse all the Javascript files in my project just like it’s currently done with Java files. That would yield a better code completion support for Javascript;
• Easier encoding configuration – if you ever moved your code across different OSes and saw your “é” become a “?”, you know encoding is something you have to care about. It would be easy to write an entire project in NB 5.5 and forget that because the encoding option is so well hidden within the advanced options inside the options dialog. Now you can easily set the encoding for the project in a more intuitive manner by simply choosing a value in a combo box that is inside the very first page of the project options dialog;
• Cool Code insertion – I remember I was once bashed in a forum for requesting method delegate facilities in the Java language. Maybe we’re not quite there yet, but NB 6.0 now features a code insertion facility that makes it easy to proxify methods of objects that your class contains. Just press Alt + Insert and choose “Delegate method…”

Fig. 1. Improved CSS support now shows a preview of the rule

Fig. 2. Javascript code completion is now native to NB 6.0

Fig. 3. Encoding configuration is now on the very first page of the project configuration dialog

What I really like about this new version of NB is that things have either become easier or as easy as they were before. All these features are integrated, making NB worth the Integrated Development Environment title. Everyone who download it will benefit from these changes and there is no need to know which NB branch will match your needs. If you downloaded the RC versions of NB 6.0 and you were disappointed by editor problems, you can make your upgrade now since most of those issues were solved. If you were waiting to upgrate to NB 6.0, the time is now!