Trolltech Releases First Qt 4 Technology Preview

An anonymous reader writes "Trolltech has announced the availability of the first Qt 4 Technical Preview. Qt 4, the next major release of the popular cross-platform C++ application framework which KDE is based on, is scheduled for final release in late Q1, 2005. Download mirrors here, here and here."

Comments

I love Qt!

[Per Wigren]

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

Re:I love Qt!

[EnglishTim]

Your wish is trolltechs command.

Well, no it's not. There is no free edition of Qt for Windows. If you want to develop a program that will run on Windows, you'll need to buy it.

If you can't do Windows, it kind of throws out the whole crossplatform thing.

Re:I love Qt!

[EnglishTim]

IT'S FREE!

It's only not free if you intend to create non-free programs with it.

It's not free for the Windows version, even if you want to create a free program that will run on Windows, which is why the original poster said crossplatform.

Re:I love Qt!

[Per Wigren]

You really can't compare Qt with GTK because Qt is more like a development platform/framework than a just a GUI-library. WxWidgets is much closer to Qt than GTK will ever be (and it uses GTK for GUI-drawing on X11), but Wx is nowhere as mature as Qt at this point.

I started to use Wx for an application I'm working on, but it was impossible to even get a decent looking TreeView/CList with checkboxes which resizes in a sane way. After much frustration with Wx I switched to plain GTK in which I could great a GUI the way I wanted to, but now instead I have to look for external libraries for everything like sound playback, database connectivity, networking support, regexps, and much much more. It's like hell to support on several platforms. :P

If Qt-Free was avaiable on Windows I could stick to Qt-conventions and support the application on all platforms with just a simple recompile.

Re:I love Qt!

[arkanes]

Check out wxWidgets (formerly known as wxWindows) for an alternative. No, the support isn't as good as Qt, even if you pay. On the other hand, unlike GTK, your app won't look and run like ass on windows. And the community support via IRC and mailing list is excellent. wxWidgets is, in fact, the only toolkit I know of that is mature, cross-platform, and free. (I don't consider GTK to be mature in the cross-platform category)
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New and Improved

[UPi]

Qt has always been techically superior and rather geek-friendly. Looks like in the new release they have found PHB-friendly names for their existing components. For example, they call the QTL (Qt Template Library - their replacement for STL) "Tulip".

Seems like they have changed more classes than they usually do, and have moved a whole set of "obsolete" classes into a separate compatibility library to help the transition from Qt3 to Qt4. This probably means that developers have a few years to remove these classes from their codebase before they go from "deprecated" to "completely removed".

The press release seems to be quiet about their previous challenge to Java (they have claimed a few months ago to produce a Qt4 that will be in "direct competition" to Sun's offerings). I'm kind of happy about this.

C++

[RAMMS EIN]

Does Qt still use that layer of C++ compiler workaround cruft?

I never understood why they went and wrote their framework in a language that had such sucky implementations. I think GTK had it right - develop it in a language that works, then provide (de-uglified) bindings for other languages. gtkmm is a very clean API, IMO.

Re:C++

[alex_tibbles]

Depends how long term you plan. There are benefits as well as problem associated with using C++, you know(!). My concern would be that now that there are decent C++ implementations (G++ 3.3 is pretty adequate, 3.4 will be good when fully stable, GNU libstdc++ is fine too, then there is stlport....) that they junk the non-standard re-implementations (slowly) and migrate to using standard code (reducing bloat).

Just to sort things out...

[dbglt]

For those who are uniformed or unaware, QT is dual licensed:

Firstly, under a commercial license (which is ~$1000)

Secondly, under the GPL for non-commercial usage only

However, QT for Windows is not released under the second license, meaning that if you want to develop with QT and the Windows platform - even if you are a non-commercial entity - you must purchase a commercial license (or manage to persuade the nice folk at TT to grant you a license, as a few open source projects have managed to do).

I feel this limits the target market... as one of the reasons to even begin coding in QT (other than the WONDERFUL documentation :p), is the promise of cross platform availibility. I have heard it is possible to compile under win32 platform with cygwin and mingw - but I cannot confirm this

Anyway, as I develop primarily for *nix platforms, this is not a big issue for me, but I would like to see QT opened up for the windows platform. That way I'm not limited in the future if I decide to work with another platform.

wxWidgets

[redragon]

I've been using wxWidgets for quite a while. I must admit that it took a little getting used to, but I don't think the parent post does wx justice. Sure wx isn't as mature as Qt, but it is Open Source (which /. ers should like), it can be used in commercial apps (which people that like selling software should like), and the guys working on it put in a ton of time making a great library. The differences between wx 2.4.2 and 2.5.2 are quite impressive, and their current MacOS guy seems to be making an effort to bring wxMac along by leaps and bounds.

Resizing isn't as tough as you think, look into wxSizer objects. If you want a more robust basic tree control, take a look at wxTreeMultiCtrl, or sub-class wxTreeCtrl and make your own. It's the beauty of the system. I've used tree controls in several applications without such pains.

It's always a bit of a trip learning a new GUI toolkit, but the sheer volume of great tools included in wxWidgets overshadows any pitfalls found right now.

Just MHO.

major clarification

[Ender Ryan]

# Secondly, under the GPL for non-commercial usage only

I'm not a QT "fanboy," but I have to point out that GPL != non-commercial.

With the GPLed version, you can do whatever you want, but if you distribute your program, it must also be licensed under the GPL.

The nail in the coffin release

[Qwavel]

I am a C++ developer, and I recognize that KDE/Qt are better in most ways than Gnome/GTK+, but this release is not acceptable to me.

Unfortunately, when TrollTech tries to find the right balance between it's own interests and those of its community, I think it tries to error on its side, but ends up hurting both itself and the community.

Other frameworks are migrating towards the C++ standard, but Qt seems to be migrating away from it, ensuring a lack of interopability of code and skills.

Other technologies are trying to open up to more languages, but TrollTech has decided that C++ (their own version of C++) is all that anyone needs. Even as a C++ developer, I recognize that this is a bad strategy.

Other open-source projects are moving towards cross-platform (eg. AbiWord and Gnumeric will both be available for Windows soon), but TrollTech continues to keep 90+% of the market (ie. Windows) away from open-source Qt developers and their software.

Re:The nail in the coffin release

[jd10131]

I develop commercial software with Qt

I do not see how Qt is "moving away from the C++ standard" Trolltech produces a library, standards conformance depends upon your compiler.

Trolltech does not produce their own version of C++; but their library does provide some macros that may appear to change the language. (ie: the new foreach)

You are free not to use these things, or you may use as much fancy-pants standard C++ as your compiler will let you get away with. I mix Qt and some pretty steep template metaprogramming code with (uh, relative) ease.

Furthermore, there is are excellent bindings to python, if you'd like to write something in another language. http://www.riverbankcomputing.co.uk/pyqt/

Trolltech is a company that derives revenue from Qt. Without that revenue TT, and thus Qt, would not exist. I believe the reason for not releasing a regular GPL version for windows is the entrenched culture of piracy.

There is a book available with a recent version of Qt included on CD. I am not aware of the license it is under, but I've heard the book is quite good.

Re:The nail in the coffin release

[be-fan]

Qt doesn't use "non-standard" C++. You can write Qt code in regular C++ code --- moc simply writes a lot of boiler-plate for you. What you're complaining about is not that Qt uses non-standard C++ (since it doesn't), but that it doesn't use the STL style of programming. However, given that C++ is a multiparadigm language, that's perfectly valid.

GUIs are inherently object-oriented and amenable to dynamic programming techniques. That's why people like Objective-C (Cocoa), and Smalltalk so much for GUI programming. The STL style of C++ is very anti OOP and anti dynamic programming. Indeed, the creator of the STL, Alexander Stepanov, has said OOP is a hoax. While Stepanov is entitled to his opinion, and the STL is certainly useful for a wide range of tasks, it's silly to try to shoe-horn Qt into a programming style that doesn't fit it's problem domain.

Qt Non-commercial version for Windows

[SeanAhern]

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.

Re:Qt Non-commercial version for Windows

[Brandybuck]

There is a non-commercial 3.1.2 version, but it's only available with the new Qt book (forget the title). It's much better than the 2.3 NC version. Besides being newer, it also supports many more compilers (and even comes with an older BCC).

Unfortunately, as you can see by those verions, it limits you to certain versions. How long after 4.0 is released until a NC version is available somewhere? For some people this is an insurmountable problem. For others, like me, it's merely an annoyance because Unix/Linux is my primary target platform.