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If either the Mozilla or Trolltech pages had been updated in the last year, I might agree that this is old news. As it is, two developers with a lot of experience with KHTML seem interested in making this a viable port. It also seems that their approach may be more sustainable, such that Qt/KDE can be a fully supported peer of GTK+ as a Mozilla front end.

I could never get used to Windows Forms. It still amazes me that the layout manager concept isn't considered a standard part of the UI toolkit design process now.

Er, Windows Forms has layout management.

It's not as powerful as e.g. Qt's but it's easy enough to handle from the form designer and simple enough to understand.

Rik

Dude if this is offtopic sorry - but you should check out qt, thats a pretty solid toolkit right there

Use the Qt Commercial License to:
-Build commercial software.
-Build software whose source code you wish to keep private.

A few suggestion that aren't exactly free as in beer - as the development environments are commercial. But they'll let you put together a nice, freely redistributable interface to a good, solid backend RDBMS such as PostgreSQL and the effort you'll likely save will be worth more than the sub-$1000 price tags

WebObjects will let you generate most of the view, edit, insert, delete functionality you need with minimal effort. It can be used to generate a standalone java application or a web-based interface. It'll talk to anything with JDBC - including PostgreSQL.

There are a few open-source workalikes of WebObjects too, that you may want to look at.

Another option is Qt. It has a fairly easy RAD environment for developing cross-platform apps in C++, and pretty solid SQL support, including database connected widgets for fairly easy quick-and-dirty view, insert, edit, delete functionality. Free for GPL code on Mac, Linux etc. Commercial, but reasonably priced, for Windows.

Report generation sucks. If you don't want to write your own, and can't live with the generally poor level of open source reporting engines, look at Crystal Reports - which sucks too, but sorta works. I've looked at most of the open source / free reporting engines. They may be usable if your standards are very low, but they're pretty nasty.

Have you seen the
qtopia
Qtopia is Trolltech's comprehensive application platform for embedded Linux based PDAs, mobile phones, web pads, and other mobile computing devices

Looking pretty cool.

Oh, sure it's got an explicit full-on syntax, but I'm comfortable with that. What I was most impressed with was there was a vast amount of standard data types and APIs available to accomplish a very huge amount of stuff. Looking at C++ and the like, the APIs are anything but cross-platform. (Any helpful links to a good C++ API (not GUI toolkits) which is both POSIX and Windows might make me use that some more.)

Try Qt. In its current version (v3.x), the GUI and non-GUI APIs are somewhat merged, but v4 (currently in progress, due out soon) is supposed to have full separation between the two. Even now, it still works. It's write-once, compile-anywhere (Linux, Windows, Mac), GPLed if you're writing GPLed code for Linux or Mac, and has an OO library and design that is simply gorgeous. It's like C++ done by people who worship Java but hate Swing. :-)

KDE, Opera, and various others use Qt, so you HAVE seen it in action.

For the type of code I was writing at the time (oddly enough, server side stuff behind a web front-end, no GUI) I found I could always find a standard routine to do what in the past I've had to implement from scratch.

If you're doing web apps, definitely look at PHP. I use it for all of my web work, and love it. The new PHP5 has a reworked object model that is very Java-ish, but also has a lot of other features that make life simpler. I've also started using their Smarty template engine, which is a godsend (a web front end IS a GUI, just a different kind of GUI), and there's a huge online archive of code you can use in the PEAR archive.

Doubtful. Stripping things out is easy. Writing new stuff that works is hard. X is already moving in the direction Gosling mentioned. Both GTK+ 2.8 and Qt 4 will support rendering via OpenGL. Once you're rendering with OpenGL, you're 90% to wher eGosling is going. At that point, the X-server (actually, the DRI), becomes mostly a manager of window contexts, and doesn't lie at all in the hot-path from application to GPU. Sure, the X servers unused features will take up some space (not too much, though, the X server is only 1.7MB on my system, much smaller than the OpenGL library!) but that's not a huge price to pay for backwards compatibility.

My Anonymous Friend... The salutations are appreciated. It has been a challenge for our team to develop and to share the GPSTk. I hope you discover its benefits, and I hope they outweigh the distastefulness of Perforce and Jam.

Please allow me to briefly explain why Jam was deliberately chosen over the GNU autoconf toolchain as the build process for GPSTk.

Jam addresses a larger set of users than GNU autoconf. Does configure work using the Borland free compiler? With MS .NET or MSVCC? No. We did not want to ignore that important community, not did we desire to support multiple build processes. Can make resolve library dependencies dynamically (upon invocation)? No. These are practical examples of why Jam was chosen over the autoconf/configure/make toolchain for the GPSTk.

Jam is not just a "hack" as one reply claims but a serious contender for the replacement for the make/configure/autoconf toolchain. If autoconf/make is such the obvious choice for all projects--then why are there so many alternatives? Other make variations or replacements include ant, cmake, qmake, and confix.

However I will be the first to admit Jam has flaws. Poor documentation is perhaps the greatest. Lack of familiarity is a runner up IMHO. Despite its flaws, Jam was chosen for its simplicity.

Perhaps the above sounds too defensive. I don't want to make the impression that the GPS Toolkit team would not consider switching to, say, CMake or autoconf. We have chosen the Open Source route for this project. The "many eyes" principle is founded upon challenge--we should accept this challenge to our build process. And we know we are asking for challenge by not following the autoconf convention. But the effort to switch build processes would only be considered if (1) the new build process broadened the user base or (2) it addressed technical inability in the current build process. Otherwise, the choice of build tool is arbitrary and if so, our choice is Jam.

Just to clear something up:
So Qt can currently use native (or pseudo-native, in the OS X case)

Pseudo-native? It is native. Emulating it would be too cumbersome.

Given some incentive though, I think the chaps at Trolltech could smooth out the wrinkles.

Well, if you could hook your phone up to a full screen display and a keyboard & mouse, and you would have all the software you liked, would you still not want to use your phone as a computer? How long till handhelds have enough firepower to run things like KDE? Of course you might not be able to run Doom3, but even that might one day be feasable. Things like the PSP show 3D graphics can be put into mobile devices.

You would of course have KDE mode going for full screen displays, and something like QTopia when using the phone display.

You say you just want a phone that can make calls. Well guess what, that's not how most other people feel. Convergence of devices is inevitable. I don't want to carry around my laptop, ipod, phone, PDA, digital camera, gameboy etc around with me all the time. If a company can provide all these features in one device, they've got me as a customer!

Do one thing and do it well is someting we hear all the time these days on slashdot. However, the PC as we know it is the most clear example of a multi-purpose device! You just want to run Make, emacs and ical. Other people use it for totally different purposes.

The PC will probably be with us for a while yet, but eventually I do see smartphones replacing them. It's just a matter of time.

Skype's GUI is QT + they already have a linux version. So I'm pretty confident they will have an OS X version... if they had enough money to buy the QT TrioPack license, that is!

TEMPLATE=app
TARGET=foobar
HEADERS=foobar.h
SOU RCES=foobar.cpp

I had a look at Maven's project description file, and I definitely won't use it any time soon even if I get a Java project to work on. It will cost me and other developers way too much time to learn it. I say, this may be OK for some CMM Level 999 compliance (such as overmanaged beyond belief), where each code line requires 1000 approvals from 2000 unrelated departments (and it costs $1,000,000 per line too.) But until you come up with a check that large I won't be even looking in that direction.

While not completely free, a book written by two trolls is available here and sold through Amazon.com for $31.49. That book includes a non-commercial version of Qt 3.2 for Windows.

Bite the bullet and buy the book. Or consider it $32 for the license and get a free book...

Come on people....

While not completely free, a book written by two trolls is available here and sold through Amazon.com for $31.49. That book includes a non-commercial version of Qt 3.2 for Windows.

So, you are able to develop free apps across both Windows and Linux for a very nominal cost. Consider it a $32 license fee with a free book if you like.

While not completely free, a book written by two trolls is available here and sold through Amazon.com for $31.49. That book includes a non-commercial version of Qt 3.2 for Windows.

I've been reading a lot of posts to this article which claim that there is no free version of Qt for Windows. If so, then what's this?

I don't program on Windows, so I can't tell definitively, but that web page reads right. It sounds like there's a GPL version for Windows that lets you write non-commercial software without paying a dime to Trolltech. It's based on version 2.3, but it is Qt.

If I'm wrong here, please educate me.

Yes, it says that the Free Editions are released under the GPL and QPL. But if you'd looked on the Licensing Overview page, you'd note that there is no Free Edition for Windows.

It's not free for the Windows version

Except that it's released under GPL (among other licenses) which had no mention of cost on the windows platform last time I checked.

I just wish I could use it when developing cross-platform GPL-programs. :(

Your wish is trolltechs command.

Yes, that's why I will continue using Konqueror on Linux [for now]. BTW since Konqueror is written using QT which can be used to deploy cross-platform apps, why don't we have Konqueror for Windows?

Actually, KDE 4 will likely be based on Qt 4. Qt 4 should be faster:

Significant performance and size improvements

The combined effects of many low-level improvements already in place in Qt 4 mean that applications will have executables about 10% smaller, will start up 20% faster, and will consume about 15% less memory compared to Qt 3.

(from trolltech)

I've been using Qt at work for almost 4 years. I've been impressed with trolltech's consistent progress. I believe they are headed in the right direction full steam ahead.

They have to be quick, cause Qt4 will be released soon.

distcc is ok, until you want to add quite a few machines. Problem with distcc, is that it doesn't scale well. This is where Trolltech's teambuilder shines. Free for personal use with up to 3 machines, and available for large scale commercial compiler operations, in a variety of CPU's. Is very easy to setup and has a very cool gui monitoring system.

Precompiled headers can give more than a 50% performance improvement, though they don't work for a lot of things, but it kinda works with QT

In the real world pre-compiled headers, offset caching and all that kinda crap would be seemless, quick and easy, but in the GCC (portability) world they havn't quite made it yet.

Short answer: QT.

"Qt is GPLed, and as such, prevents FOSS developers from using any OSS licenses that are not compatible with the GPL. Ironically enough, XFree86's license is not compatible with the GPL, and hence XFree86 could not include a Qt configuration utility."

Your first statement is wrong. Should I bother reading the rest?

http://www.trolltech.com/developer/faqs/license_gp l.html#q19

http://www.trolltech.com/developer/faqs/license_gp l.html#q114

"Qt is GPLed, and as such, prevents FOSS developers from using any OSS licenses that are not compatible with the GPL. Ironically enough, XFree86's license is not compatible with the GPL, and hence XFree86 could not include a Qt configuration utility."

Your first statement is wrong. Should I bother reading the rest?

http://www.trolltech.com/developer/faqs/license_gp l.html#q19

http://www.trolltech.com/developer/faqs/license_gp l.html#q114

Qt/X11 Free Edition

There are already a few mobile phones based on Linux available. Two Linux editions dedicated to mobile phones, the one from Mizi and the other one from Trolltech are out. As well as Linux PDAs which come pre-installed with Linux. So it shouldn't take too long until a true Linux smartphone will hit the market.

Riiiight. Commercial product off of OSS.

May I direct you to a few companies/products that seem to be doing well in this regard:

• MySQL
• Trolltech (Qt)
• Apple's MacOS X
• Nokia's IPSO platform (based on FreeBSD)

I'm sure other slashdot readers can provide further examples. The trick with GPL-based OSS and generating revenue, is to provide value-add (which may be through commercial closed-source tools). Alternatively, the tried and true position is through services, which IBM and HP seem to have figured out.

not entirely sure why this got marked as a troll, but i guess that's what the meta-mod system is for. two things: firstly, it's available under some crazy dual license scheme which allows you the option of accepting either the QPL or the GPL (see here). secondly, i don't think that qmake comes even close to covering the ground auto(conf|make) does. i guess the closest relation is to automake, except crippled. as far as i know, it doesn't have any of the detection / configuration stuff that autoconf does. of course, it's been a while since i last used it, so that may have changed in newer versions.

not entirely sure why this got marked as a troll, but i guess that's what the meta-mod system is for. two things: firstly, it's available under some crazy dual license scheme which allows you the option of accepting either the QPL or the GPL (see here). secondly, i don't think that qmake comes even close to covering the ground auto(conf|make) does. i guess the closest relation is to automake, except crippled. as far as i know, it doesn't have any of the detection / configuration stuff that autoconf does. of course, it's been a while since i last used it, so that may have changed in newer versions.

I like the qt widgets from Troll Tech.

One API, many platforms. What's not to like?

One problem is that the Windows version is rather expensive :( (Well, there is a GPL Windows version, but it's an old version).

Although that makes me wonder - their argument for releasing the GPL version on MacOS but not Windows is that Apple supports the open source community. With Microsoft releasing open source now, can we look forward to the latest version of QT being released for Windows under GPL? ;)

I like the qt widgets from Troll Tech.

One API, many platforms. What's not to like?

One problem is that the Windows version is rather expensive :( (Well, there is a GPL Windows version, but it's an old version).

Although that makes me wonder - their argument for releasing the GPL version on MacOS but not Windows is that Apple supports the open source community. With Microsoft releasing open source now, can we look forward to the latest version of QT being released for Windows under GPL? ;)

...including porting it to windows. Troll Tech hasn't done that for you, of course, and why should they?

Um, they already did. They simply refuse to release it under an OSI-compliant license. That leaves anyone ambitious enough to try a port of the X11 code with the responsibility of ensuring that the port is feature complete and compatible with Trolltech's official, non-Free version. <sarcasm>Easy, right?</sarcasm>

Funny how so many Slashbots bemoan how Mono is a waste of time, because Ximian will be forever playing catch-up to the current version of the .Net Framework. But when the subject of a Free Qt for Windows comes up, the immediate, flippant response is "port it yourself!", which is exactly what Ximian is doing.

K's QT isn't truely OSS since you have to pay out the ass to use it on Windows

Just for your information, there's a thing called "Qt non-commercial edition for Microsoft Windows" which you don't have to pay anything to use on Windows. Yes it's dated, but it's free as in free beer if $$$ is the primary concern for you.

K's QT isn't truely OSS since you have to pay out the ass to use it on Windows, so I avoid it on principle.

Don't get your hopes up. Nintendo would have to license a phone/pda software platform like Symbian or (yeah sure this is likely) Windows Mobile / Smartphone. Nintendo does not have the required software to make their platform work. They could gain a head start if they were to imbrace free software, fast! QTopia on a Gameboy would be very interesting!

Qtopia recently received the LinuxUser & Developer Award in the category "Best Embedded Linux" Qtopia wins LinuxUser & Developer Award

Qtopia recently received the LinuxUser & Developer Award in the category "Best Embedded Linux" Qtopia wins LinuxUser & Developer Award

Qtopia recently received the LinuxUser & Developer Award in the category "Best Embedded Linux" Qtopia wins LinuxUser & Developer Award

Uh, only the Mac and X11 versions are GPL'd. They charge $1500 for the Windows version.... There are plenty of free solutions out there nowadays.

Uh, only the Mac and X11 versions are GPL'd. They charge $1500 for the Windows version.... There are plenty of free solutions out there nowadays.

Check out Qt (no not QuickTime). That toolkit provides an incredible amount of useful utilites and is very high quality. It runs on Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. With a little bit of care, you can build applications that recompile to any of the aforementioned OSs.

As much as I respect Cocoa and Objective-C development on OS X, the one thing Apple really needs is a high quality C++ toolkit. Even though the benefits of Obj-C are worth it, it can be quite hard to convice developers to learn a completely different language to develop in (native language, so don't tell me Java). I'd really like to see Apple partner with Trolltech and include Qt by default in OS X and eliminate or reduce the fees for developers who target Qt/OS X.

In fact, that's where Bruce Perens was wrong when said QT being GPL, its not as attractive for business as the LGPL gtk. And yes, QT development is very much tied to KDE development (some of the KDE developers also work for Trolltech). So despite now LGPL being considered more free (what a turn of events!), they have every right to claim that KDE is the most advanced Free desktop for gnu/linux and other unices. It has the same technology that the following companies choose to licence, despite the alleged 'high' cost (if they payed, it must be THAT good):

• EPA (European Space Agency)

• Volvo

• Opera

• Adobe

• Sony
• IBM
• NASA
• Boeing
• And a lot more

In fact, that's where Bruce Perens was wrong when said QT being GPL, its not as attractive for business as the LGPL gtk. And yes, QT development is very much tied to KDE development (some of the KDE developers also work for Trolltech). So despite now LGPL being considered more free (what a turn of events!), they have every right to claim that KDE is the most advanced Free desktop for gnu/linux and other unices. It has the same technology that the following companies choose to licence, despite the alleged 'high' cost (if they payed, it must be THAT good):

• EPA (European Space Agency)

• Volvo

• Opera

• Adobe

• Sony
• IBM
• NASA
• Boeing
• And a lot more

In fact, that's where Bruce Perens was wrong when said QT being GPL, its not as attractive for business as the LGPL gtk. And yes, QT development is very much tied to KDE development (some of the KDE developers also work for Trolltech). So despite now LGPL being considered more free (what a turn of events!), they have every right to claim that KDE is the most advanced Free desktop for gnu/linux and other unices. It has the same technology that the following companies choose to licence, despite the alleged 'high' cost (if they payed, it must be THAT good):

• EPA (European Space Agency)

• Volvo

• Opera

• Adobe

• Sony
• IBM
• NASA
• Boeing
• And a lot more

In fact, that's where Bruce Perens was wrong when said QT being GPL, its not as attractive for business as the LGPL gtk. And yes, QT development is very much tied to KDE development (some of the KDE developers also work for Trolltech). So despite now LGPL being considered more free (what a turn of events!), they have every right to claim that KDE is the most advanced Free desktop for gnu/linux and other unices. It has the same technology that the following companies choose to licence, despite the alleged 'high' cost (if they payed, it must be THAT good):

• EPA (European Space Agency)

• Volvo

• Opera

• Adobe

• Sony
• IBM
• NASA
• Boeing
• And a lot more