The ZooLib C++ Cross-Platform
Application Framework

ZooLib allows you build native applications for a variety of platforms and processors from a single code base, with little need for platform-specific source.

In the rare event non-portable code becomes necessary, it is simple and easy to include it inline via conditional compilation, using one of the provided preprocessor symbols.

It was released as Open Source software under the MIT License in the Fall of 2000.

ZooLib was originally developed as a proprietary library starting in 1990 by Andrew Green of The Electric Magic Company and Learning in Motion, with the help of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto.

What is ZooLib?

You don't need to link in everything to write a ZooLib application; only the mutex, threads, and reference counted smart pointers (ZRef template) are required to make a minimal ZooLib application. For example, you could use only the networking classes to make a network daemon with no UI, or maybe a database server if you also included the database classes.

• ZooLib applications are multithreaded, with platform-independent thread and mutex classes.
• It provides a graphical user interface toolbox with a uniquely flexible layout method.
• The GUI widgets are drawn by platform-specific renderers, so Mac apps look like native Mac apps, and similarly for Windows. There is even a switchable renderer that calls through to the real ones so you can change look and feel at runtime for testing and demonstration. On the Macintosh, the Appearance Manager is used to render widgets if it is available.
• It provides useful classes such as thread-safe reference counted smart pointers.
• There is a lightweight database file format, in which the databases are completely contained in single files so they can serve as end-user documents, for example to allow a user to email a database file to a friend who can then double-click it to open it in an editor.
• It provides file access - file open and save dialogs that filter according to platform style (three letter extension on Windows, file type on Mac OS X), file references and classes for accessing open files.
• Streams which may be linked to various data sources and sinks (files, the network, memory, etc.) and to each other to create filters.
• It provides TCP networking.
• It has extensive debugging support - debugging functions and macros, assertions in frequently used core components, and a debugging memory allocator.
• The ZooLib header files define several handy preprocessor macros that allow you to easily use the C preprocessor to break out to OS-specific code in the rare instances it is necessary, or when you're using an API whose functionality is not provided directly within ZooLib. In a few cases where it makes sense, certain classes are only provided for one platform, or variants with different names or different signatures are provided for the different platforms.

ZooLib requires only very basic support from the underlying operating system and user interface layer. Because of this, and because the platform-specific layer in ZooLib is so well architected, an expert programmer could bind ZooLib to a totally new platform in a few weeks once he or she was familiar with ZooLib internals.

Supported Platforms and Instruction Set Architectures

ZooLib requires only very basic support from its host operating system. It's best if threading and atomic arithmetic are available, but ZooLib provides fallbacks for the cases where they aren't.

• Apple Macintosh
  • Mac OS X
    • PowerPC
    • Intel
    • Carbon
    • Cocoa
  • Classic Mac OS
    • System 7 through 9.2.2
    • PowerPC
    • 680x0
• Apple iPhone
• Research in Motion BlackBerry
• Microsoft Windows for Intel x86
  • Windows 95
  • Windows 98
  • Windows Millenium Edition (ME)
  • Windows NT 4
  • Windows 2000
  • Windows XP
  • Windows Vista
• POSIX with X11
  • GNU/Linux.
  • Sun Microsystems Solaris
  • FreeBSD
  • NetBSD
  • OpenBSD
• Haiku for Intel x86
• Beos
  • Intel x86
  • PowerPC