Wxmp3gain is from more than 8 years ago, and (it seems) you're basing your judgment on a screenshot, which is not a very solid ground. Using a modern, live, application would be a good test (keeping in mind, that some widgets may not exist in a given O/S).
Regardless, since you're accusing a very old and widespread project of lying ("it uses the platform's native API rather than emulating the GUI" on their front page, versus "I submit that Wx implements its own non-native widgets."), you should directly ask on an official channel, and have an authoritative answer.
I mentioned look and feel, and testing out the absence of context menus. This should tell you that I am not judging on a screenshot, but from live applications. I made that screenshot yesterday, and the applications depend on 3.0.4 which is from 2018.
> since you're accusing a very old and widespread project of lying
But anyway, let them defend themselves; veritas liberabit vos. FWIW I don't think malicious or intentional lies are involved, although a mighty good explanation is required to square their claim against the evidence that it is plain to see.
It would have been more productive to spend the time to find a technical answer, rather than arguing for the sake of arguing. I did search, and the answer is at the bottom.
Note that one of the posters you've been arguing with ("VZ"; argument here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24259040), turned out to be the WxWidgets maintainer. According to the comment though, mentioning this constitutes a cheap trick <rolling eyes>.
Regardless, there is a very interesting concept in the explanation: using native widgets through WxWidgets (and possibly, widget toolkits in general) requires following specific guidelines. Failing to do so will make the widgets look bad, even if they're native.
First of all: The "VZ" who wrote in the thread you linked, is Vadim Zeitlin, the
core maintainer of wxWidgets. His word is the highest authority in the wxWidget
s world.
My 2 cents:
are all the widgets provided by WxWidgets native?
No. But if a native implementation of a control exists on a specific platform, i
t will be used (i can't think of any exceptions right now, but it's possible the
re are a few).
Most widgets are native on all platforms, e.g. wxButton, wxTextCtrl, etc.
Then there are widgets that are only native on some platforms. E.g. wxDataViewCt
rl. Is has native implementations on OSX and GTK, but as no such control exists
under Windows, a generic implementation is used there.
Then there are widgets that have no native implementations at all, e.g. wxGrid.
In general, wxWidgets just gives you the toolset to develop crossplatform GUIs.
That doesn't guarantee it that they'll look good everywhere out of the box. This
also requires "good" behavior of the developer. E.g. they should not use absolu
te values of controls sizes and positions, but use wxSizers (the wxWidgets layou
t system) instead. Lately they must also be prepared for high-dpi screens, good
support for that is only available in wxWidgets for a few weeks now.
Also, many open source developers only develop on one platform and hardly ever o
r never test on other platforms. Often they just don't want to invest more time
to make their application look good everywhere.
Regarding https://imgur.com/LjDhPOv
wxHexEditor uses wxAUI, this is not native anywhere. The window with the hexdisp
lay could be custom drawn, there is no control that does this out of the box. Or
it might be a wxGrid, hard to say.
wxMP3gain looks fine to me
easyMP3Gain seems to be one of the case where the developer just didn't care to
make it look good.
Regardless, since you're accusing a very old and widespread project of lying ("it uses the platform's native API rather than emulating the GUI" on their front page, versus "I submit that Wx implements its own non-native widgets."), you should directly ask on an official channel, and have an authoritative answer.