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In computer programming, an application framework or application development framework consists of a software framework used by software developers to implement the standard structure of an application for a specific development environment (such as an operating system or a web application).

Application frameworks became popular with the rise of graphical user interfaces (GUIs), since these tended to promote a standard structure for applications. Programmers find it much simpler to create automatic GUI creation tools when using a standard framework, since this defines the underlying code structure of the application in advance. Developers usually use object-oriented programming techniques to implement frameworks such that the unique parts of an application can simply inherit from pre-existing classes in the framework.^{[citation needed]}

Contents 1 Examples 2 See also 3 External links 4 References

[edit] Examples

Apple Computer developed one of the first commercial application frameworks, MacApp, for the Macintosh. Originally written in an extended (object-oriented) version of Pascal, it later appeared rewritten in C++. Other popular frameworks for the Mac include Metrowerks' PowerPlant and MacZoop (both based on Carbon). Cocoa for Mac OS X offers a different approach to an application framework.

Free software frameworks exist as part of the Mozilla, OpenOffice.org, GNOME and KDE projects.

Qt (pronounced like "cute") offers a cross-platform application framework. Using Qt, one can develop applications and user interfaces once, and deploy them across many desktop and embedded operating systems without rewriting the source code.

Microsoft created a similar product for Windows called the Microsoft Foundation Classes or MFC.

A number of frameworks will create identical applications for Linux, Macintosh, and Windows from the same source code, such as the widget toolkits wxWidgets or FOX toolkit.

Oracle Application Development Framework (Oracle ADF) aids in producing Java-oriented systems.

[edit] See also

• Software framework
• Widget toolkit
• Optimization (Infrastructure & Application Platform)

[edit] External links

• RAS metadata repository based framework for reusable software assets
• XAF application framework from DevExpress
• MX-Frame Business Application Framework
• LightHouse Business Application Framework

[edit] References