Reference Implementation

The GTK Client is the reference implementation of the NTW client. It compiles and runs on FreeBSD, Linux, and Windows, and likely other Unix variants also. You'll need the GTK+ toolkit installed to run the client, and the GTK+ development headers to compile it.

The NTW source code also includes a server reference implementation (written in C) and a sample server application. The "server" is really a C library with functions that create and send ntw widget data. The bindings can be used in much the same way as any other GUI toolkit. See the file "ntwtest.c" for the example application. It's been tested on FreeBSD, Linux, and Windows XP. The server library should compile and run on most systems with a C compiler and support for Unix style sockets, without the need for any additional libraries.

The protocol is defined by the C header file, protocol.h. This is a C header files that describe exactly the byte layout for each of the widgets and all of the opcodes and events that can be sent.

Note: Although the reference implementation is coded in GTK, the NTW protocol is designed to be independent of any particular widget toolkit. GTK was picked due to favorable design features and a favorable license. A QT version of the client has been started, but currently has nobody working on it.