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Qt For The Console
lintux writes: "You probably know Qt as the fine toolkit for the less-fine X. Today something cool reached a stable state: Qt for the console. A Qt library port which allows you to port Qt programs to the console! Just imagine a full-featured web browser like Konqueror, on a 386 text-machine! I tried some things, and I never want to use w3m or lynx again, I can tell you that!" Update by HeUnique:While I do approve of the job these guys have done on console QT, I believe they may need to properly relicense their project under the GPL.
Would be a port of QTopia to a low end environment. QTopia seems designed for uses such a sthose to whicxh a 386 is put - PIM, mager sort of thing. No need for X, pray.
What? The Trolls have formed their own company? Oh no! :o)
Video Game cheats, hints a
Not to start a licensing flame war but... Can you relicense a derivative of an GPL library(QT) into LGPL?
I seriously considered porting a program I developed to curses because sometimes a text interface is just faster, but now it looks like I don't need to. Very cool :)
#ifdef HAVE_CONFIG_H
:)" endl;
:)
#include
#endif
#include
#include
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
cout "Hello, World! It is April Fools
return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}
April Fools!
"I won't mod you down - I feel the need to call you a twit explicitly, rather than by implication."
Let's not jump the gun.
... that's pretty funny.
One more thing for GTK+ to "catch up to."
On a side note, why was C chosen as the language for GTK+?
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
From the QT-Console home page:
"You might think we are sick or some console perverts. We do admit, we are console perverts, but consider this: why not?
As an illustration of just how sick these guys really are, I encourage
There was a similar thing done for Java's AWT toolkit a while ago (article in Dr Dobbs). And I know that aalib comes with an ASCII X server. I wonder which of these three gives the best results? Probably the Qt-console port because it is the most high-level.
A version of KDE using text-mode Qt would be very interesting to behold... or how about a 'desktop' using the aalib ASCII X server (for GTK, Motif etc. programs) plus Qt.
All we have to do now is persuade the Mozilla team to add text-mode display to their bloated 'chrome' rendering system. I'm sure they will be happy to add it as a new feature before 1.0, after all they've thrown in pretty much everything else.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
How do you make the Windows key on the keyboard do something on KDE?
but alas :(
Damn april fools....
Eddy.WriteLinux.Com
I say, let's start coding, today, 2002-04-01.
It seems to be in active development and having a fork of qt would be such a hassle.
Why is DirectX so popular....cause its got central control and no forks.
With just a little Makefile hacking I got most of KOffice to compile. Now it runs nice and fast on my older UNIX servers! I'm looking forward to the next version with a compressed protocol that will improve speed on slow terminal devices.
Links, far better than Lynx, seems to work wonders, from tables to frames to forms! An amazing text web browser!
This will make my little purple Gamecube console useful until games actually start appearing for it, right?
Right?
(sigh)
He trolls the X window system.
They have ported konsole... so the burning question is will Qt-console run correctly inside that? If so there is no longer any need for screen(1) or even window managers - konsole's screen-switching buttons can do the job of changing between windows.
Or maybe Emacs's M-x term, if anyone ported Emacs to Qt.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
This is cool, really, but Konsole? why? did they just want to create some kind of paradox?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
The license for this is quite legal. Might I suggest you look at the code?
With all due respect: Bullshit. Trolltech is the *author/owner*. Trolltech can release it under any damn license they please. YOU cannot take it, mod it, and rerelease under a different license. They can. Read the damned GPL. Good april fools joke, too.
That's the actual main.cpp from the downloadable file.
The whole thing is a joke.
Trolltech can release it under any damn license they please. YOU cannot take it, mod it, and rerelease under a different license.
This port was written by third party users (i.e. "YOU"), not Trolltech. I've fired off a friendly letter to the maintainers about the license issue.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Right on. Bullshit like this commands no respect. Don't bother. Can we get a new slashdot category: Ignorant bitching and moaning about licensing issues which we clearly don't know a fucking thing about. Qt is not fucking GPL.
No sig is worth reading.
(Porting Konsole) - They created a terminal emulator for a terminal? Whatever next?
Umm, have you looked into the page???
This is NOT an official QT release, nor any of their employees, so my point stands..
Hetz (Heunique)
Konsole? why?
As Ed Avis mentioned, you can think of it as a replacement for GNU Screen.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Well - if they RE-implemented the Qt API, why would they be subject to any Trolltech-ish licensing constraints? If they just create a bunch of Q-classes from scratch....can't they use whatever license they want? I can go and create classes that start with the letter Q without paying people money or using the GPL, can't I ?
/. acct
If however, they BASED the code off Trolltech's code..then yeah, nevermind me. Since I'm far too lazy to go check this myself on a Sunday night.....well, someone check and get back to us, OK?
-AC who's also too lazy to set up a
Download the source and look at main.cpp in the qtconsole directory.
The other poster who pasted the main.cpp wasn't kidding.
IT'S A JOKE.
THIS DOESN'T EXIST.
//FIXME: Bad
These two previous comments answer your question.
You know, that's not such a bad idea..
# make install ../admin/mkinstalldirs /usr/local/bin ../libtool --mode=install /usr/bin/install -c -p qtconsole /usr/local/bin/qtcon /usr/local/bin/qtconsole :)
Making install in qtconsole
Making install in docs
Making install in en
/bin/sh
/ bin/sh
sole
/usr/bin/install -c -p qtconsole
# qtconsole
Hello, World! It is April Fools
#
Well, I don't know about its sexual relationship with Wildebeests, but it is GPL. From the Trolltech site:
The Qt Free Edition (version 2.2 and later) is released under the Open Source license QPL, and GPL. The Qt Free Edition may be freely copied and distributed, put on ftp-sites and CD-ROMs etc. Qt Free Edition is provided with no warranty and no support.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
If this library really doesn't exist and is only an elaborate april fool's joke, the blackout begins. On April Fool's Day 2001, over 75% of the stories posted to Slashdot's front page were total crap. This year, if we get three crap stories, I'm not going to contribute PageViews for 36 hours.
Will I retire or break 10K?
That's nothing...I plan on finishing the port of Quake III to console in about 6hours.
;)
This looks really nice now, but imagine how wicked this is going to look like in svga-text mode.
I was just about to start putting Qt Nethack through this wringer but now I'm not gonna do it! Now you all just have to do with the old Nethack reviews...
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
You posted that one minute early.
Liberty in your lifetime
No shit its not an official release, its an april fools joke. I cant believe this is the kind of editorial BS we get with subscriptions and HUGE ads. I hope to God you are not one of the paid staff.
I just compiled Konqueror and pointed it to www.goatse.cx. Damned if I know how, but the QT engine rendered the image therein as clean, crisp ASCII art. /. in months passed were using a beta of QT/console.
Perhaps the trollers who posted the ascii version to
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
It has been done, and it was not an April Fool joke.
Liberty in your lifetime
On ya klerck, exposing slashcode for what is really is, a hodge-podge of shit perl scripts so riddled with bugs that a simple comment causes the entire page to fuck up on the worlds most popular browser.
It's interesting to note that this problem that NOT happen at sites like delphiforums.com, mainly because they run their web log on real software, like IIS.
Not this bug-infested shit called linux.
It's also interesting to note how long it takes the idiots at slash to fix these sorts of bugs.
HeUnique has just proven beyond a doubt that the editors here are clueless!
What, you think your spoilsport comments enhance this story? It's funnier if you have a chance to be fooled. Moderators, mod this down this humor-impaired troll.
He is. He's the one that collects the smooth, virile, young boys for Jon Katz's dungeon.
And what would be wrong with a BSD 2 clause license? Other than its not GPL.
Well, let me be perfectly clear about this having seen the source to this. Actually, they can license this under LGPL. The reason is the same reason why WINE can be licensed under LGPL and not whatever proprietary licence Microsoft uses
The reason is, having seen their code, is that they do NOT actually use code from the QT libraries at all but they purport to emulate the interface instead. Any indication to the contrary would be a misccmmunication by the authors
So basically, since the source code consists of nothing but cout , I am sure their licensing choice is just fine =)
And so it begins...
How the fuck is this offtopic? This must have been moded down by HeUnique himself in a feeble attempt to cover up his stupidity
And how many slashdotters actually read the comments? I thought so...
My bad. I though it was Trolltech. And the authors are all linux heavyweights... (kernel guys, etc...) Sigh... Good april fools joke anyway!
[Yeah I know it's an April Fools joke]
If someone is reverse-engineering the API's and writing their own code they can do whatever they want
Keep in mind that most GNU software and Linux itself are based on re-implementations of proprietary systems and aren't violating any licenses.
Neither does WINE.
So if this was real, and they just mimicked the QT library calls, they can license it however they want.
Trolls throughout history:
Jonathan Swift
Quoth the post (submitter):
> You probably know Qt as the fine toolkit for the
> less-fine X.
On the contrary, X is the most versatile, modular, extensible windowing system there is. The fact that its still used for all that it is is testamet to that. Do you know of something better that's _here and now_?
Quoth the post (editor):
> Update by HeUnique:While I do approve of the job
> these guys have done on console QT, I believe
> they may need to properly relicense their
> project under the GPL
What the hell are you talking about heunique? Its _their_ software, they can license it however the hell they want to. Obviously not everyone agrees with you as to what 'proper' licensing is.
Objective C would have been nice. The object model of GTK is similar, so it would have been more natural to use ObjC. The code would have looked pretier.
Posting the story just as the Slashdot clock passes midnight is a nice touch. Except that it kind of spoils the effect for those of us who live west of Greenwich Observatory and thus see a post time of March 31.
Posting an April Fool's on March 31? God that's lame! Couldn't they have at least waited a few hours? Yeah, I know it's April 1 in some parts of the world, but when this was posted it was March 31 in the US and most of Europe, and /. is a US site anyway.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
Although this is a big april fools hoax, a real example of a GUI that works on the console can be found over at PicoGUI. (as featured formerly on /. and elsewhere)
The display framework of PicoGUI is so extensible that it will work on everything from a text-only 2 line LCD display (or smaller) up to a fully realized 3d environment courtesy of OpenGL (needs someone to code it but the OpenGL "display" driver is already in there).
Some examples:
X-Chat/PicoGUI running using PicoGUI's ncurses driver on the console:
http://www.picogui.org/sshotdetail.php?index=47
A couple of PicoGUI apps running on a 4 line Text LCD:
http://www.picogui.org/sshotdetail.php?index=64
PicoGUI running on OpenGL:
http://www.picogui.org/sshotdetail.php?index=60
This is mostly possible because of PicoGUI's strict distinction between content and presentation (Remember the design goal of the original HTML? - Bingo.) Anyway, it's a neat project to check out; the support for this is in and working now; it runs on everything under the sun; and development continues to progress at an extremely rapid pace.
~GoRK
And so it begins again!
For the record, I don't find this funny. Sure, if all stories marked "01 April 2002" were april fools day jokes it might be a bit more acceptable. But, I rely on news sites to deliver news, and that is how they built a metric of trust.
I know Slashdot isn't exactly CNN, but surely they could do a little bit more to seperate those which are their stupid april fools day pranks from those which are not.
For those who expect to find stuff that matters at ./, try this: The founder of theKompany said in an interview with linuxandmain that theKompany will no longer use the GPL for any further projects. This might also mean that future versions of their current projects will be relicensed.
Hey mod this up! This poster is rightly p/oed at the lack of decent editorials even with subsciptions.
I wonder why the best slashdot's news appear on April 1st...
DVD Ripping, Divx, VCD, SVCD under Linux
And how many slashdotters actually read the comments? I thought so...
This is actually a sort of mean joke, taking in to mind taco's stats that got the whole blackout thing started. Since the vast majority of visitors don't read the comments, how are they to know it's a joke? I'm sure that even fewer people then read comments go straight for the download on every story...
So most people who see this will assume it's real.
So I guess the punchline is that slashdot lied to hundreds of thousands of people today? I don't have a problem with a joke, I like a joke, but it's not a joke if the majorty of the people who read it never find out it's false. Thats a lie.
And the localized date feature in slashcode (hey, all my dates× still say march, and will for another 6 hours and 45 minutes!) really doesn't help any. When newspapers do an april fools joke, it tends says April 1 at the top of the page. It's still March in the U.S.A., where most(?) slashdotters live.
The majority of the people who read it won't realize it's not true.
I guess that really is pretty funny, but it sure doesn't seem like good bussiness practice.
Or a good way to maintain credibility.
__
Choose mnemonic identifiers. If you can't remember what mnemonic means, you've got a problem. - Larry Wall
Why not have a character based X-server for the console (this would have been the real joke for April 1) ... If some open source dude could implement this in Emacs lisp, one could finally say: Now I can run all X-applications inside Emacs on a 80x25 serial terminal. Just press CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+W, N to switch to another emacs virtualized X-window. So aunt Lilly will never have to buy a 17 inch monitor to run mozilla... :-)
From your description, it seems that Microsoft is putting deliberate bugs in IE and is disclosing the specs to the IIS team to give IIS an advantage.
This is just Microsoft abusing its monopoly again. I don't think that "the idiots at slash" should pay any attention to these dirty corporate tricks.
For those who want to really run Qt apps on the console, id recomend Trolltech's QT Embedded, wich allows you to compile and run various programs in a console framebuffer, I've successfully run Konqueror on a framebuffer. If my memory servers me right, there was a story some time ago about it on /., but i cant seem to find a link for it.
Pavel Machek's "cursed-gtk" is a text mode gtk theme and some small patches to gtk where gtk pokes at X11 itself rather than going via gdk. It's far from perfect because of some of the current interactions but does work.
Posted by timothy on 0:59 Monday 01 April 2002
Wow, I'm really impressed. Finally I can use KMail both at home in GUI mode, and check from work via Telnet. Before I had to just do webmail from work, with the setting so that it didn't delete mail from the server, so I'd still get all my mail on KMail when I get home.
Gotta say, great April fools post - I almost didn't download the source after reading that, thinking the whole thing was a joke. But it works good, damn good. Although I think I'll stick to Lynx if I want to do text-mode browsing. The ASCII graphics is cool, but the actual usable interface is a bit clunky.
Good job to the coders of qtconsole - Having great fun trying all kinds of apps with it!!
didn't used to be, is now though.
What do you mean maintain? That would imply that Slashdot stories actually had some credibility...
To within half a percent, pi seconds is a nanocentury. -- Tom Duff
what is qt???
no, not a troll... but I don't use GUI much, but do get sick of X crap. Seems every good GUI window manager requires X.... can I get around this by using a X substitute or just bypassing it alltogether?
"So most people who see this will assume it's real"
Until they actually compile Qt for the console, at which point they'll figure out the joke and probably get a kick out of it.
I was trying to find documentation on how to run this program. My main question was it a library similar to aalib or was it a program I run? The site said most of it is found under the original qt docs, which I don't think it even mentions it. The the gzip had an index.html as a doc. Loaded it up, and found it just a skeleton of documentation with no real content.
No man page either.
So I thought, well it must be another typical program with poor documentation. It seems programmers these days don't even think about releasing any information until after 1.0?
So I found the qtconsole executible after 'make' so I'm off to try it. I seriously hope that the program is lacking as much as the documentation.
this is not. It's a port of Tk (the Tcl graphical toolkit) to curses, and it is truly excellent.
The free version of Qt is licensed under the GPL AND the QPL. Go read it here: http://www.trolltech.com/developer/licensing/qpl.h tml
and roll down to section 6. "You may develop application programs..." which means even ify ou develop against the free version of Qt you have to relase it under the GPL. You're also not allowed to develop under the free version and then later decided to buy the commerical version and then start charging money because you did the development with the free version.
RTFL.
~Kevin
:)
Relax. Anyone who might actually be negatively impacted by this 'misinformation' deserves to be. If Joe Dumbass, your favorite /.er wanna-be Linux guru, tries to use this blurb in one of those all-to-frequent KDE vs. GNOME pissing contests, that's his own problem. Anyone who really develops with QT or was investigating such would quickly get to the bottom of it.
Slashdot has never had any semblance of journalistic integrity; it's a highly slanted, amature-turned-pro bulletin board. The editors themselves rarely read beyond the headlines they post, I take everything here with a lake of salt.
Bottom line (not that anyone's still reading this): it's all in good fun. Relax and enjoy the community.
Don't blame me, I get all my opinions from my Ouija board.
I for one am happy that the QTconsole team took the time to make their software build on FreeBSD. However, for an April 1st release, it still leaves much to be desired.
This begs the question: just what the hell IS slashdot now?
"News for Nerds; Stuff that Matters" -- no.
Small community that's become so arrogant as to think they have a bigger voice in the world than they actually do. -- getting there.
I hope you understand that this has become nothing more than a geek political site. Geeks are supposed to be smarter than everyone else, but they get involved with possibly the stupidest game ever created. The fat white men in suits don't care what we think.
And as a feature request, I'd like to be able to place a vote within my posts as to whether they'll get moderated as troll, offtopic, or flamebait. I also think you should be able to put comments into more than one category.
Not that someone affiliated with the site will actually read this. Not that I care.
The item registered 6:59pm on Mar 31. This is too early to post for Apr Fool's Day lah.
Everybody, please see this comment: It's an April Fool's joke.
I must say, they got me good on this one. And here I was ready to start madly uninstalling X from every workstation in sight
this is stupid. do these guys actually check these things out before they post?
It's not even the right day yet, and this yearly crap has already begun. I maintain a 24/hour slashdot blackout on april fool's day, because of the overall retardedness displayed by the site in the past, but now they start a day early?
Could an april fool's policy be posted somewhere?
Something along the lines of, "Don't bother coming to the site on April 1. There'll be nothing worth reading and you won't learn anything. The humor isn't funny, either, so come at your own risk."
Or something.
You might find you'll need to hand-edit the sources provided a bit to get the results advertised in the screenshots.
--
"Everybody wants a rock to wind a piece of string around." - They Might Be Giants, "We Want a Rock"
While I agree this was pretty stupid, I'd like to offer a hint. NOT EVERYONE LIVES WHERE YOU DO!
There's actually a 24-hour rolling window of where April first starts. Crazy, huh?! Isn't it weird how that matches up with the number of hours in the day? Must be some kind of weird voodoo logic to that. Dumbass.
Does it have the following ?
1. Translucent menus
2. Antialiased text
3. Drag and drop between consoles
4. Themes
5. Tabbed windows for browsing
If not I am going to stick with mozilla on my 33MHz Pentinum.
Why do people always put down X11? X11 with FLTK is smaller than Qt/Embedded, for example. X11 is a lot more efficient and considerably smaller than Quartz, the Macintosh graphics system, while offering similar functionality (including hardware acceleration, antialiasing, and transparency). And X11 also does as well or better than Microsoft's GDI. And on top of all that, X11 gives you the ability to use whatever toolkit you like and to mix applications running on different hosts on the same screen. If X11 didn't exist (and hadn't been widly successful already for the past 20 years), it would have to be invented.
I had to move my head back an extra half a foot and cross my eyes to see the Slashdot logo correctly. I felt for a minute it might be one of those stereographs and a 3D picture of a CowboyNeal was going to appear.
X is not bad..
KDE is the problem
Lynx is second rate compared to the Links command-line web browser, which I use regularly under Linux... and I am using right now. It supports SSL, tables, and many other common web technologies. Oh, and did I mention that it uses less than 1MB of RAM? Its uber fast, and perfect for reading sites like slashdot. Navigation is a breeze... no mouse needed here. Also, since Links doesn't download the overboard graphics that many websites use, sites load far quicker than in other browsers because of the smaller download. Sure there is less eye-and-ear-candy, but the net is still full of content... and Links gives you access to that content.
I love what Hotmail says, when I log in with Links. It says that my browser won't let me use Hotmails advanced features or something... whatever...
hmm i do enjoy this, but i recall (and.. still use) some dos ansi drawing programs / mod players
and some of those change the console font to make some really nice looking guis, i would like to see somthing like that for this.
try consulting your local search engine for 'xbin' and add a slice of 'editor/viewer' for your own enjoyment
the only fact is that everything is an opinion
I don't think Links has Java Script. Maybe we could rip a portion out of mozilla and attach it to links?? btw, how is the performance of Qt for console?
Please use [ informative / summarizing ] SUBJECT LINES
Flame me here
Yeah, and the whole fucking world knows about April Fool's day. Think a little bit beyond the normal idiots. You don't seem bright enough to have even figured out my point.
Another alternative to lynx is the ARACHNE Browser for DOS and Linux. It's a fully graphical console based Internet suite (browser, email, multimedia player), and it doesn' rely on the Qt library just svgalib. It will run on a 486 with a mere 8 meg of RAM.
A full list of features and requirements can be found from the Linux Installation page of the Arachne website.
Work for Change & GET PAID!
After all, there is a textmode quake, always one of my favorites.
It's still funny, in a highly obscure kind of way.
sulli
RTFJ.
Images could indeed be funneled into an ascii converter
Qt objects could probably have ncurses analogues created.
Might be interesting to see how well one could do with the limited resolution of a text display.
Someone should start a real project.
Well, it's my birthday today and as a result I have a kinda obsession with pratical jokes and such. I guessed this was a joke at the point in time I saw Rick van Riel as one of the authors. I dont know why but it stank of falseness. =) Anyways, I am off to enjoy being 21.
chris at darkrock dot co dot uk
http colon slash slash www dot darkrock dot co dot uk
Mod up for totally wasting a great April Fools joke? Would you also shout to mod someone up as informative, if he told everyone how some great new book or movie ends?
~shiny
WILL HACK FOR $$$
The biggest trick the devil pulled was letting lawyers become politicians so they can write the laws.
It says on the page that it's LGPL! If it were GPL then it would be more limited, as it is a library after all. Sheesh.
Oh, and whatever it is you're smoking, could I have some, pleeeease??
I would imagine all that loveley free pr0n will somewhat lose it's edge in the raster to ACSII conversion, but it's been done, so I cant see why it couldnt be part of a browser of sorts, even if it's just a bastardised Lynx.
Ali
"Windows and Linux can co-exist on the same machine." - Microsoft Corporation.
I am a troll, mod me down! MOD ME DOWN!!! Three Rings for the Elven-gimps under the whip, Seven for the Gaylords in their halls of fudge, Nine for Mortal Puffs doomed to wank men, One for the Dark GayLord on his dark boyfriend In the Land of Shitstab where the Gayness lies. One Ring to wank them all, One Ring to cum them, One Ring to stab them all and in the darkness rape them In the Land of Shitstab where the Gayness lies. He paused, and then said in a deep voice, "This is the Master-Knob, the One knob to wank them all. This is the One knob lost many years ago, to the great weakening of its master's power. Now, he greatly desires to have it up the arse again, - but he must NOT have it!" www.utgib.tk
Can we get a new slashdot category: Ignorant bitching and moaning about licensing issues which we clearly don't know a fucking thing about.
Sounds like a plan!
Qt is not fucking GPL.
I hereby dub the -1 Ignorant bitching and moaning about licensing issues which we clearly don't know a fucking thing about Congratulations!
I have a product which uses Ck; there are screen shots here.
I have not recompiled the app since Qt 2.something
but I use it on my desktop all the time.
http://www.unf.edu/~kschin/qtxconsole/
Ok, a little self-promotion but I find the app of some use.
-- Phase 1: Collect under pants Phase 2: ? Phase 3: Profit
Hi,
:)
I don't know about you guys, but I really had a good day reading the responses that had been send to qtconsole@nl.linux.org
Of course we do not deny you the fun, so we have put them online at:
http://qtconsole.nl.linux.org/joke.html
Have fun reading the emails.
Cheers,
Viet Yen Nguyen, one of the Qt-Console crew
- Viet Yen Nguyen