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GUI Toolkits for the X Window System

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the what-about-athena dept.

TeachingMachines writes "Leslie Polzer has written a nice summary of the current state of GUI Toolkits for the X Windows System (article title of the same name). Those of you who are planning to spend hours and hours scouring the Internet for a mature cross-platform GUI toolkit may save some time and trouble by reading this summary. Leslie's review covers the pros and cons of using GTK+, Trolltech QT, FLTK, wxWindows, and the FOX Toolkit."

5 of 353 comments (clear)

  1. One thing missed by Doesn't_Comment_Code · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The one thing I don't like about toolkits (not mentioned in her list of cons) is that if you distribute the source code, whoever is compiling needs to have the toolkit.

    I've tried to compile and install programs before and spent a lot of time trying to track down the toolkit libraries.

    This is not a good reason to abondon using toolkits, but it is one negative aspect to take into consideration.

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  2. -1 Troll(tech) by CausticWindow · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This article reads like a Qt flamefest.

    I don't see how Qt's "business like homepage" should have anything to do with how good a toolkit Qt is. The "free for linux not for w32" is of course a valid point, but it's the only one.

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    How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
    1. Re:-1 Troll(tech) by LizardKing · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This article reads like a Qt flamefest.

      Certainly does. He also dislikes C, yet he programs using GTK+. I guess he must be a fan of gtkmm. Frankly, I get the impression that the articles author is a little bit inexperienced, and would be better off learning Java and its Swing API. That will give him a decent grounding in MVC architecture, while keeping him otherwise occupied so that he doesn't write any more articles :)

      Chris

  3. Making Money == Evil? by avdi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The article's biggest strike against Qt is "Very business-oriented main Web site". What the hell is that about? "I'm shocked, shocked! to find marketing going on in this business!". Clue to the author: Qt is made by a company called Trolltech. Companies exist to make money for their employees and shareholders. One of the ways they do that is by (gasp) marketing themselves on the web. That particular company has gone to great lengths to accomodate free software developers; but they still have to make money somehow. If you object to their business model, just say so. But objecting to the fact that their corporate website is "very business oriented" is like objecting to the fact that Slashdot is "very geek oriented".

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    CPAN rules. - Guido van Rossum
  4. Re:Why would you want to use anything but Swing? by truth_revealed · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why a native C/C++ GUI toolkit?

    - can distribute a statically linked 2 meg executable - quick to install
    - typically only 2 megs of resident RAM used by running program
    - virtually zero startup time
    - much more responsive GUI
    - still runs well on hardware more than 4 years old

    Why not Swing?

    - don't want the 40 meg downloadable JRE footprint
    - don't want Java version hell for your users/customers
    - don't want the 40 Meg of resident RAM required by the smallest running Swing program
    - requires the latest hardware for decent speed.