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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.
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."
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
depends where you are in the world.
it's 01:20 here in london now...
#Pubgolf. ##it's not about drinking ###it's not about golf #it's about survival
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.
02/04/01 00:00 GMT has been and gone!
flossie
Write now. Defend liberty
This will make my little purple Gamecube console useful until games actually start appearing for it, right?
Right?
(sigh)
portability - there is a c compiler for just about every computer in existance. the same cannot be said for c++, and even if it does exist it may not be a very good one. c compilers are very mature.
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.
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?
I can't give you an official reason, but in my opinion :
C was used because it's the default language. Not just default for Unix(tm), but the first language most people think to use for a multitude of tasks. C is fast, easy to code in, and both upwards and downwards compatible (ie, I can use GTK+ with assembly code or C++/Java/Perl)
While there's nothing that C++ does that C can't do with appropriate macros, it's harder to use a C++ library in C apps. It's easy and commonplace, however, to use a C library in C++ apps.
Also, I imagine C was the language of choice for the people who started GTK+. This has a huge impact, because despite all else that I've said, there's little functional reason to pick C, C++, or any other useful language. Personal preference and the way one approaches a problem (ie, OO, functional) are big influences.
All of this seems obvious, so why would you even ask why C was chosen as the language for GTK+? You'll get the same answer for any project: C is fast, cheap and good. This is why it's used for X, the kernel, and most other large, popular applications. Mozilla is the only app I use on a regular basis that isn't written in C, and it's dog-slow. Coincidence?
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?
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
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
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
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...
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
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.
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.
I wonder why the best slashdot's news appear on April 1st...
DVD Ripping, Divx, VCD, SVCD under Linux
well your a good 12 hours behind us in new zealand where its past lunchtime, the official ending time for tricks in our culture.
does that mean I cant fool my american friends??
-------
Drink Coffee - Do Stupid Things Faster And With More Energy!
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... :-)
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!!
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???
Remember - Parrot was an April Fool's joke. Aren't they beta now?
"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.
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"
Too bad each day starts on the International Date Line which is exactly opposite the prime meridian... So April Fool's day started 12 hours before 02/04/01 00:00 GMT.
It's /. time. Which is GMT. Go figure.
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.
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.
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 find it quite ok that it is under the LGPL.
;)
This is because my programmes can still be
BSD/MIT/X.net-style licensed, while my modifi-
cations to the library itself must be LGPL, and
thus their source being provided on redistribution.
The whole stuff around the LGPL, such as renaming
from Library to Lesser and having some discussion,
is just around RMS' opinion, all software shall be
"free" as in GNU.
There are different kinds of freedom, which he
neglects. This is ok, because everyone has to draw
his own priorities, but mine are different.
I will not write bad about RMS, it's just that
many people I know of (including myself) think
the GPL is viral and even worse than using, say
shareware.
But the stuff is cool
My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And
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