History
In the early 1990s, Borland dominated the C++ market. In 1991 Borland introduced Borland C++ 3.0 with 'Application Frameworks' which included Turbo Vision for developing DOS applications and OWL for the Windows platform. C++ was just beginning to replace C for development of commercial specially with the rising of Windows platform (and the complexity that involves) this allowed to OWL to gain some popularity.
The first version implemented a proprietary extension called Dynamic Dispatch Virtual Tables (DDVT), this allowed objects to bind 'events' (windows messages) with 'methods' (functions). This mechanism avoided saturating the OO virtual function system with one function for each window message. In the next version of OWL, DDVT was replaced with a RESPONSE_TABLE, a macro based mechanism, which is maintained today. A conversion tool (OWLCVT) was included to migrate code from OWL1.0 to OWL2.0.
In 1992, Microsoft launched MFC. A DOS version of MFC was short lived. The Windows version was simply a wrapper around Windows API, and was criticized for not being truly object oriented.
In 1993, Borland launched Borland C++ 2.0 for OS/2 which included a version of OWL 2.0. OWL 2.0 used BIDS, the newer template library for 'container' or 'class library'.
In April 1993, Borland and Novell settled an agreement to port OWL to Novell AppWare Foundation. AppWare Foundation was an API designed by Novell to be cross-platform, allowing deploy apps in Mac, Windows and Unix clients and with several Networks services. The main tools for developing in AppWare were OWL and AppBuilder (a visual tool to link Application Loadable Modules through an 'Application Bus').
In January 1994, Borland launched Borland C++ 4.0 for Windows which also included OWL 2.0. It added Doc/View support, VBX controls, OLE. Win16, Win32s and Win32 was supported (Windows 95, the Win32 successor of Windows 3.x appeared in August 1995).
Late in 1994, Novell CEO Raymond Noorda resigned. Novell expansion plans were reconsidered, AppWare development was stopped and so was OWL for AppWare. In 1995 a group of original team members bought AppBuilder. In the same year, Software UNO (www.uno.com) offered a commercial port for OWL 2.0, to several platforms: AIX 3.2.5, DEC OSF/1 AXP, HP-UX 9.03, Linux 1.2, Solaris 2.x, Sun OS 4.1.x, and SVR4 fox x86, it was called WM_MOTIF.
Early in 1995, Borland C++ 4.5 with OWL 2.5 was launched. As it was launched before Win95, Borland promised a free upgrade for any incompatibility present in the final Windows 95 (when available). Versions 4.51 and 4.52 followed. OWL 2.5 also included the Object Component Framework (OCF) to ease OLE development.
In August 1995, Microsoft released Windows 95 and Visual Studio 4.0. Contrary to popular belief, the inclusion of the MFC40.DLL with Windows 95 did not have a huge impact on the adoption of MFC. By 1995, Visual Studio 1.5 had already eclipsed Borland C++ in shipments, due partly to the volume and quality of documentation included with Visual Studio. The nearly seamless transition of MFC projects from Visual Studio 1.5 and Visual Studio 4.0 also contributed to its popularity. The instability of the original Borland C++ 4.5 and quirky treatment of OWL also persuaded many developers to drop Borland C++ and OWL in favor of Visual C++ and MFC.
In 1996, Borland launched Borland C++ 5 for Windows, which included OWL 5, which was a major revamp of the library. In August 1997, Borland C++ 5.02 was introduced with slightly updated a version of OWL 5. A Japanese edition was also available. Additionally, the Borland C++ Builder has included OWL in the 'companion CD'. After that Borland concentrated development in the VCL framework which has been evolving alongside OWL since Delphi 1.0 launched two years before. VCL continues to be the main framework of Borland (now Codegear) for Windows and .NET platforms. Examples on how linkage OWL apps with VCL Forms (Dialogs) were included in the last version of Borland C++. Borland stopped selling Borland C++ 5.02 and OWL in late 1999.
After Borland deprecated OWL, development was taken over by group and is called OWLNext which consists of patches to the original OWL source code. It was included in the partner discs of Borland C++ Builder 2007 and Borland C++ Builder XE.
Read more about this topic: Object Windows Library
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