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No one will force you to use GTK+ themes for your QT apps. This is a nice announcement because now when I run QT applications (which is rare), I can use the current theme of my preferred professional toolkit, GTK+.
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Um, I'm sure you're aware of this, but being able to translate an application's strings without access to the source is not heavy magic. It is, for instance, a standard feature of GNU gettext, the library most often used when translating Linux (and other open source) applications. And since modern toolkits (such as GTK+) doesn't do layout based on pixel coordinates, reflowing is automatic.

The definition of "emulator" has a slippery slope: NES virtual machines emulate the NES binary interface. Java virtual machines emulate the Java binary interface. Linux emulates the UNIX® source interface (most of POSIX® and much of the Single UNIX Spec). XFree86 "emulates" the X11 source interface. GTK+ emulates the GTK+ source interface. So you're saying an emulator is any program that exposes APIs, that all libraries are emulators?

> He's latched on to some features that Motif has that haven't been fully realized in Qt or GTK+ and makes it seem as if these are the only ones that matter.

That is, of course, standard rhetorical practice in arguments over whose software is best. (And lots of fun if you can watch the argument evolve over time as the "inferior" software picks up those missing features, and the standard of comparison is perforce redefined.)

> It makes no sense to use Motif when GTK+ apps will work better on Linux and be fully portable.

To get a feel for the rate of GTK+ application development, visit the GTK+ news page.

Granted, many of the entries are just new versions of existing applications, so it doesn't necessarily mean that we're averaging 1.7 entirely new GTK+ applications per day.

I presume the behavior of Qt is similar.

We seem to be in a positive feedback loop. Linux and *BSD prosper because GTK+ and Qt are feeding in new applications, and new applications are being created because Linux and *BSD are prospering. I think I have seen an acceleration even in the short time that I have been watching.

> Pango, for example, addresses the internationalization issues and is real software. It's not finished, but it's far from being vapour.

I don't know what the actual status is, but I have read a post on a mailing list by a developer who was shown a preview (prototype?) of a GTK+ 1.4 text widget displaying multilingual text, including the so-called "bidirectional languages", displayed together in a single widget. The post was 4-6 weeks ago.

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• Java 1.2. Technically, I think this is by far the best choice: easy to program, robust, extensive built-in APIs, etc. But you need to somehow get a Java 1.2 runtime onto your clients machines, and it still isn't efficient enough for number crunching (if that's part of your application).
• FLTK Small, cross-platform (Linux, Windows, ...), straightforward C++ GUI toolkit. You can link your applications statically and they are still small enough to distribute. It includes a GUI builder. Good OpenGL support. Has its on look-and-feel. Versions 1.x still lack drag-and-drop and dynamic widget layout support.
• wxWindows Very complete C++ GUI toolkit, cross platform between Linux, Windows, MacOS. Lots of widgets. Drag-and-drop support and dynamic layout. Uses platform look-and-feel. Very MFC-like, including the use of event tables for event routing. Steeper learning curve. GUI builder doesn't seem to be quite ready yet.
• Qt Commercial toolkit. Pretty good quality. But you need an expensive, per-developer license unless you do open source. I don't think it's worth the money or hassle compared to wxWindows.
• Willows Supoprts genuine Windows programming on Linux, in an open source environment. (I haven't looked much into how complete it is because I don't actually like genuine Windows programming :-)
• GTK There is a Windows port as well as C++ bindings. I don't think the Windows port is far enough along yet for deployment, though.
• Tcl/Tk The Tk toolkit comes with a scripting language you may not want, and, out of the box, it has a fairly limited widget set by modern standards. No drag-and-drop support. Multiple GUI builders. Great canvas class. Exceptionally easy to get started with, great for prototyping.
• Fox Toolkit In may ways like FLTK. Has drag-and-drop support, but cross platform is still a promise.

Altogether, if you can deploy Java 1.2 and it's efficient enough for your needs (for most applications, it is), I'd go with that. If you need something in C++, I'd stick with wxWindows, FLTK, or Tcl/Tk, depending on your specific needs and preferences. I think you may also want to reconsider whether you really want an IDE and GUI builder; I find writing GUIs by hand in toolkits that are set up for it is ultimately faster and easier.

Gtk+ is very nice to use and is totally free (GPL) across multiple platforms (Win32/BeOS/*Nix). In spite of the fact that it is written in Object Oriented C, it is quite easy and nice to use with C++. Also, Gtk-- is a C++ wrapper that is supposed to be very nice as well, and they have a Win32 port going on right now. When you add Glade (visual gui builder) into the mix, you get a very slick and powerful package. Definitely look into it.

As an aside, another C++ portable library that i hear is quite tasty is WxWindows.

There's also BEAST/BSE. I've got to say Buzz Tracker is one of the few applications I keep W*****s on my system for, and can't wait to see how these turn out.
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I believe he was referring to glib, the low-level portability library for GTK (and gimp), not the GNU libc libraries.

From what I understand, it is a very nice, generalized, portability layer. (IANAC ;)

Hmm.. platform independencem, ease of poring... QT.. Another nail in the GTK casket.

Perhaps you're not aware, but GTK is platform independent as well. It has already been ported to the Win32 platform. And as long as we're flinging FUD around, I might point out that GTK is also language independent, while Qt is limited to C++.

logan

http://beast.gtk.org, also heard good things about SLab but haven't used it myself.

Maybee its just me but that stack of icons at the bottom of the screen reminds me alot of the panels in gnome or kde. And as far as anti alias support its coming along fine in the opensource world. And as far as high color icons and widgets that isn't an apple innovation, thats a tigert/mosfet/gtk/raster innovation. Not to mention all of the fine work of the creators and users of themes.org

Xfree86 has full support for Wacom input devices, because Wacom is one of the sponsors of the XFree86 project.

With the foundation in place, XInput support for the Gimp is in progress -- for more info, check out this and this. One thing to remember-- if the tablet has control over the core pointer in X, you can still use it to draw without the pressure sensitivity. Which is still a thousand times better than drawing with a mouse.

Primarily for use in C, but bindings exist for numerous other languages, too.

Qt's restrictive license, while technically "Open Source", has very much hampered its growth, and led to the rise of serious competition in the form of GTK (which is safely GPL'd).

According to its web site, GTK+ is LGPL'ed.

This is important, because it means you can write proprietary software for GTK+/GNOME.

I'm having the same problems. The only thing keeping me back from running Linux 24/7 is a good resuming ftp client and Blizzard's Diablo.

Anyway, I was attempting to upgrade my distro (RH5.2) and was looking for a gtk+ upgrade. I noticed gFTP on the gtk site at the time. I suppose it's kinda like BulletProof FTP (which I use in Windows), but I don't know. I couldn't compile it because my libraries are so dated.

Hope it helps to break your bad habit.



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--Jamin Philip Gray
jamin@DoLinux.org

GTK+ and Fltk both work cross-platform. Both are under very usable licenses for both proprietary and open sourced projects (unlike Qt...) and are easy to use.

GTK+ is available at http://www.gtk.org.
Fltk is available at http://www.fltk.org.

Go check them out. I think you might find what you're looking for there- I know I have.

Read the QPL icense in question yourself and figure out what's going on if you code QT apps.

I prefer GTK+, which is free (LGPL) on all platforms.

• Is free with development libs
• Commonly available on any Linux box
• full-featured

The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.

There is the GTK+ reference documentation project for documentation on the underlying GUI toolkit, and you can go to the GNOME website for documentation on GNOME. There is a revamped GNOME developer web site in development, so this resource will also be available soon.

Try these sites:

www.gnome.org

www.gtk.org

GTK is the free toolkit of the GNOME project.
www.gtk.org

subject says it all--for those of you concerned about 1.1.x stability issues...found it at gtk.org.

Gtk 1.2 is out.