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Qt 4 Beta 1 Available for Download
scc writes "Get it here. Trolltech's press release gives the details, including the projected release date: late first quarter 2005. Qt is the cross-platform GUI framework at the heart of KDE. At the same time, Trolltech released under the GPL Qtopia 2.1, an implementation of their GUI framework for Linux-based PDAs."
I think Qt is great, I use it for most of my projects, the only annoying thing is that the Windows version isn't free. There are free Linux and Mac versions released under the GPL, but no Windows version. \
The whole point of Qt is to make it easier to have software run on multiple OS's, but I can't test any of my stuff on Windows. Oh well, still kick ass software.
I'm especially happy about Arthur and the new Qt Designer, we will finally have an accelerated OpenGL? desxtop and all will be smooth due to double buffering.
My only gripe is that the performance is still not great, but that should be expected with debugging code and all.
Trolltech is doing great work.
Qt designer and assistent apparently can be embedded into kdeveloper, visual studio etc.
Other improvements include
a new paint engine
a new text rendering engine
new containers (which are lighter than the STL ones)
better support for multithreading
a new docking architecture
and last but not least better performance and smaller memory footprint.
Please login to access my lawn
So basically your saying that they shouldn't be allowed to make money off Qt, but you should be allowed to make money off your software that uses it? Nice.
Qt has done more for C++ than any other single project. Kudos to the Trolls.
It costs a lot of money to develop commercial software with Qt (and by extension KDE) because they use the full GPL license (as opposed to something more reasonable like the LGPL) for the Qt library to extort money from developers. Trolltech effectively control any possible commercial software market for KDE (or anything that uses Qt).
So what if you have to buy a licence for commercial development? If you're out to make money on your software then you deserve to pay. Show me another cross-platform development suite as flexable and powerful as Qt that's free. Go on, I'll wait right here till you get back.
But naturally, Trolltech are benign lovable types, aren't they? Sure they are... except they are part-owned by SCO and Canopy -- the Linux IP grab and sue specialists. Avoid Qt. It's poisonous to free software.
If you're going to troll, at least take the time to write something with fewer holes in it. Trolltech is partially owned by Canopy but not SCO. Big deal. If you were to discover that the Unibomber owned 5% of Nabisco, would you really avoid eating thier crackers? Qt ( and Trolltech ) are great friends to FOSS.
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.
Newbies who might not read the heading properly or actually go to the link itself http://www.trolltech.com/products/index.html might think /. was in a timewarp, circa 1997, releasing the beta for Quicktime 4!!!!
aahhh back in the days of Macromedia Director 4...just a web application developer and instructor in Toronto, ON Canada
This would not be connected to the success of the Opie Project, would it?
Web Sig: Eddy Currents
Having programmed in both Qt/C++ and Java/Swing for several years I can say that Qt kicks Swing's butt for ease of programming, speed and simply a better looking interface. The subset of C++ that Qt employs can be quickly mastered by any programmer - professional or novice. KDE is proof of that. When you are thinking about a cross-platform GUI think twice before going with Swing. It may be free - but you get exactly what you pay for.
The article at KDE.news
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
--Aristotle
Sorry, SCO owns a chunk of Trolltech ...
l
http://www.trolltech.com/newsroom/investors.htm
And Canopy (who owns SCO) has a seat on the board of Directors currently occupied by Ralph Yarro (Darl Macbride's boss).
Bzzt, thank you for trying. WxWidgets is GTK underneath, neither are up to the standard of Qt. Java and c# are languages.
If a first you don't succeed, your a programmer...
Don't be ridiculous.
The elegance of Qt far surpasses that of WxWindows, and Qt offers many more powerful classes than WxWindows does (containers, database connection, etc.).
GTK+ may be a contender, but is there a native Mac OS X version? Additionally, last I checked, which was admittedly awhile back, the documentation was terrible and the support for the Windows port was sub-par. Additionally, since much of today's programming is OO, Qt is probably a more sensible choice for many programmers.
C# may offer some powerful functionality, but from my understanding, there is no cross-platform GUI toolkit. Windows Forms for windows, GTK# for *nix, etc...
Java, IMO, is the only one that matches (and surpasses) Qt, from that list. Personally, I like both Java and Qt, and pick whichever is more appropriate for the project I'm working on.
Small capitalized "open source"? You get the source when you buy it. About "Open Source", only the Window low-level parts are not available under GPL.
*pssst* Don't feed the trolls!
QT is released under the GPL on Linux and OS X. People claim it isn't free because use to it was ONLY under the QPL, but now you can use it under either license for non-commercial use. If you want to make money off of it do the honest thing and pay them for using their product, and you will be able to license it under any license you wish.
He said "port' which is what I've been wondering about. If Qt's as modular as I think it is, what's stopping someone from adding the code to hook into the GDI layer on Windows? For me, it's lack of interest as I don't need Qt under Windows for any of my GPL licensed projects (Fltk does well enough for what I'm needing...) and my preferred platform is Linux. I'm just wondering why there's not someone out there with the needs or desire to do this act.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
In the case of the aforementioned one on here, yes, don't feed them. In the case of Troll Tech, the people who came up with Qt, one should find a way to feed these folks wherever possible (incl. buying copies of the commercial product when feasible...).
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Until its BSD licensed its not truely free.. you are still heavly restricted on its use..
Im not trying to start a bsd/gpl flame war here.. just my personal feeling. I also dont have a problem with them being 100% commercial either.. its their toolkit.. their choice..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
more powerful classes than WxWindows does (containers, database connection, etc.)
Are you using wxWidgets 1.0 or something? wxWidgets has had container and database classes for some time now.
You may want to look through the manual sometime. Scroll down.
I've been using GTK for a while and gotten to like it. I'd like to know what does QT have to offer that GTK doesn't.
Cheers,
Adolfo
Don't forget that it costs a lot of money to develop Qt with this quality.
> Anyways, Qt 4 is going to be a magnitude slower than Qt 3.
Care to explain why? Facts, not opinions or FUD please.
"If you were to discover that the Unibomber owned 5% of Nabisco" ....
mmmm Nabisco hackers
The truth about Led Zep should never be told on
I hear QT is good stuff. This isn't a slam on QT in particular.
However, I'm still waiting for the day when mainstream GUI libraries catch up to where BeOS was ten years ago, and put drawing in a separate thread from everything else.
There is absolutely no reason why GUI applications need to become sluggish when they are doing something computationally intensive. There's no reason that an application should stop posting redraws every time it makes a blocking call (like, for example, doing file i/o).
My eyes were opened to this shortcoming of "modern" GUI libraries by an entry in Bram's diary a while ago.
GTK IDE. If I read it right, there is you kdevelop 'alternative' for GTK projects. Though I believe you could do the same thing with kdevelop, so I don't know why you'd need something else, unless you wern't running KDE.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
Yeah, I'm curious about that too. I don't see why it would be much slower, and in fact, I'd expect most graphical desktops to become faster with the new thing coming in X.Org (not the fancy graphical effects, but the things like damage and others I forgot the names).
Treehugger? Treehugger... Treehugger!
As for Qt being doomed, having programmed with Qt and the alternatives I could find, I don't think so. Qt is still much, much nicer to program with than GTK, especially since you now have to implement your own confirmation dialog box. Wx is getting there but still a nightmare to install (IME of course) and working through GTK rather than natively hurts it. As for SDL, it's great for 3d renderers etc, but would you seriously want to write a word processor (for example) with SDL widgets? I'm not sure where eclipse comes in, I thought that was a java IDE, in which case Qt is still the best toolkit to use with java on linux, IME, it's much faster than swing and fits in with the most popular desktop environment.
I am trolling
If movie trailers were largely in divx instead of QT, QT would be worthless!
That's either a fairly clever joke or a sad clueless poster...
Treehugger? Treehugger... Treehugger!
> If movie trailers were largely in divx instead of QT, QT would be worthless!
lol, nice one
Ok, risking karma... Troll? Come on. Off topic possibly, but that's a stretch. Please, can we get an underrated over here for the parent?
Yes, and furthermore, the employees of TrollTech who developed Qt, one of the nicest GUI toolkits in existence, should quit their jobs, give away all of their belongings, don simple clothing made of scratchy wool, and wander about the landscape begging for scraps of food and handing out handwritten copies of the GPL.
Except that Trolltech has been TREMENDOUSLY helpful to Linux and OSS and SCO has not.
Not a big enough difference to register with you, obviously.
Treehugger? Treehugger... Treehugger!
its supposed to be 20% faster overall. Ignore the trolls.
slashdot is morse code too!! weeee! :)
That's D. With garbage collection, interfaces, etc. 'D' looks very promising. Without the overhead of JIT compiled languages, I think it's worth looking at seriously.
(Don't get me wrong here, I love Java / C / C++ and all others, but C/C++ has some deficiencies that can not be over looked -- Just remember -- The right tools for the right job.)
http://www.digitalmars.com/d/
Glibc doesn't give free software an advantage since there are plenty of equivalently functional libraries around. With Qt that's not the case.
I am trolling
based on multiple emails, web postings and a day at Qt developer camp.
Happy?
Bzzt. Academics may say that, anyone who's actually tried to program with them knows different.
I am trolling
WxWidgets is getting there, but it's not yet as powerful as Qt. I can still write a similar program ~1.2x as fast with Qt. That may just be me, but I feel I've made an equivalent effort to learn both.
I am trolling
KDE does not allow Qt into KDE either. It just uses Qt, because at the time (and arguably now) qt was the only library suitable for making a user-friendly desktop environment. It's not about money-grabbing, it's about pragmatism.
I am trolling
just try saying "D compiler" and you know it will fall appart :p
D looks nice...
but will people use it?
> Wx is getting there but still a nightmare to
> install (IME of course) and working through GTK
> rather than natively hurts it.
Whatchoo talkin' about, Willis? On Windows, you can either have wxWidgets wrap around the native Windows controls or use the wxUniversal port where wxWidgets reimplements all of the widgets itself much like how Qt does it.
I suppose you can also try getting wxGTK compiled on Windows, but why in the world would you ever want to do that?
>All that C++ needs now is garbage collection, and we can forget about Java!
The thing that is really important is called reflection. Without it tools like Hibernate, Struts, Tapestry, Spring, Hivemind, probably EJB and many more wouldn't be possible. Garbage Collection is just a nice touch.
fork a version of qt that was free for use in windows?Just curious
Qt provides full reflection.
I don't understand why I was modded as 'troll'. I made a sincere comment of how Qt is so good that it should be made a standard. Anybody have any ideas???
And dont forget that Trolltech allows developers to effortlessly port Qt app's from *nix mac for free (but NOT to windows). And of course it also allows those who have purchased a windows license to port to Mac/aqua & nix for free.
It should be noted that you cannot port from unix & mac to windows without purchasing a pricey license for the windows library. This is bad for free software, but good for linux and mac. It forces free software written for mac/linux to *stay* mac/linux (making those platforms more appealing).
As an example, for the hell of it, I ported 100k+ lines of my companies software from UNIX to MacOSX. It took about 30 minutes. The UI looked amazing in Aqua, compared to the UNIX and windows versions. Naturally the platform-specific C backend exploded when executed in OSX and rendered the software unsuable, but it still looked good. Not bad for a half hour!
There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who do not.
No, there's a very important distinction. The KDE people want KDE itself to remain LGPL - something which your (presuming you are grandparent) previous post would suggest you support. That's the reason they don't allow GPL libraries into KDE, and also why they're careful to keep KDE and Qt distinct. The idea is that propriety projects can still use KDE - they'll just have to buy a license for Qt.
I am trolling
As the other reply suggested, I'm using Linux. While wxUniversal does have an attempt at an X11 port going, it looks pretty dead. And I've had a real nightmare getting wx working via GTK.
I am trolling
Well GTK2 is slower than GTK1. Doing double buffering is potentially slower, you're doing twice the writes. The idea is that it looks better, not that double buffering is faster.
This actually depends more on the X server, video driver and your hardware. If you're doing double buffering off screen, you may actually be able to write to that memory faster than onscreen memory, and be able to offload the copy operation to the graphics processor rather than doing a looped REP MOVSx operation. On a dumb framebuffer, you'll probably see a large decrease in performance. On a modern video card, things are not so clear cut, especially in the case were double buffering allows you to avoid sending too much data over a slow bus.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
There's a wxWidgets wrapper for the CIL called wxNet, and there's work on a QT wrapper as well from the KDE people using that smoke stuff they've been working on IIRC, so they both are (or will soon be) accessable to C# and other CIL-based languages.
;)
GTK's only a UNIX toolkit. On window's it's painfully slow, and on Mac OS X it requires a X Server (and thus, IMHO, is not really available for Mac OS X). Of course, that said, thanks to portable.NET you can use System.WindowForms on UNIX-like OS, Windows and Mac OS. Obligatory link to their screenshots from all those platforms, but I believe that the Mac OS X support requires a X server as well.. =\
No, I don't have anything useful to add to the conversation, why do you ask?
Well then his post makes even less sense, you stupid anonymous jackass.
He says "working through GTK rather than natively hurts it". There is no "native" toolkit on X. Unless you're talking about raw Xlib or perhaps Athena since thats the widget set that actually comes with X. I can't imagine having wxWindows wrap Athena being any better than wrapping GTK, and if you want it to use Xlib directly theres the wxUniversal port.
The wxWidgets mailing list has always been helpful, but compiling the latest stable (2.4.2) release of wxGTK was just a simple matter of issuing a "--enable-gtk" on the configure command line for me.
No, there's a very important distinction.
Again, you are playing games with words and attempting to confuse the issue. The same thing happens whenver this comes up with KDE/Qt supporters. They try to bury the issue in bullshit and false distinctions. There is no distriction... not for a developer. The GPL spreads to any app using KDE stuff, and Qt is part of the KDE platform. Fact. Twisted logic about Qt being "separate" is just smoke and mirrors.
The KDE people want KDE itself to remain LGPL - something which your (presuming you are grandparent) previous post would suggest you support. That's the reason they don't allow GPL libraries into KDE, and also why they're careful to keep KDE and Qt distinct. The idea is that propriety projects can still use KDE - they'll just have to buy a license for Qt.
Of course the KDE people want their libraries to remain LGPL -- because it would otherwise not function as a loss leader for TrollTech, and many of the core developers for KDE are Trolltech employees. The point is that anyone making claims about "quid pro quo" or Qt being somehow "more free" (because it encourages more GPL software) than the LGPLed GTK (for example) are engaging in pure hypocrisy, nonsense and Orwellian double-think.
emerge wxgtk
gentoo# emerge -s karma Searching... [ Results for search key : karma ] [ Applications found : 0 ]
It's called a "joke". Maybe you've heard of them before?
Why bother.
Qt is truly free. It's GPL, GPL, GPL. If you're not happy with them also providing a propriety/commercial version, then you can fork the GPL version and release it only under GPL.
True, true. I think the problem many people have with its license isn't that they provide a commercial license, but rather the fact that they *don't* provide an LGPL (or similar) that allows you to freely use it in a non-GPL project.
I have been employed nearly constantly writing commercial applications in C++ for nearly 10 years. If there is a language which would be considered _MY_LANGUAGE_ it would be C++, and I will tell you again, it is an awful kludge of a language which relies entirely on its first mover advantage to keep it alive.
I see the unfortunate results of C++ every day of my life. I once whipped up a useable "prototype" in 3 weeks of Objective-C programming which 4 months of Qt/C++ coding couldn't match in terms of stability, speed, and appearance. I would have much preferred factoring the application has having a Cocoa front end on the Mac, and a Qt front end on the PC; the productivity enhancements of Cocoa are so great that we would have ended up saving time in QA and ended up with a true native Mac appearance. But the client was adamant about maximizing shared code. A decision, by the way, which because of the tight schedule nearly killed the company.
I was at another (well known) company where a team of engineers spent 4 months basically trying to add something better approximating instrospection and getting around C++'s reliance on static class declarations through the use of the PIMPLE pattern. This effort failed.
I am not a moron. I write in C++ because that is what I am hired to do, because people have a lot of legacy code to integrate. I'm sure most C++ coders are in similar situations. We muddle through.
Trolltech did not solve the lack of introspection and static compilation. They mitigated some small aspect of it, and in the process added a whole new layer of complexity via the qmake step.
And what is this "friend's friend" stuff? I had lunch with a guy on the engineering team trying to add dynamic class extension every workday for 3 months. It was not some urban legend. It was an engineering team trying to deliver small web based updates to an application with new methods added to C++ classes without having to deliver one big statically linked binary (compounded with ActiveX mumbo jumbo.) In the end, the solution added too much development complexity to be worthwhile.
And what's this whining stuff? I'm saying other tools are better at application development then C++; I'm giving the example of Objective-C as a better choice, and I gave you a handful of reasons why. You on the other have done nothing but give me the fallacy of appealing to authority. You have not given me one reason why C++ is superior to Objective-C in application development. It's as if you have no idea about the feature set of Objective-C, and yet are arguing against it.
OK, you could complain about that. But Qt is just as free as (for example) readline, to claim it is non-free is simply untrue.
I am trolling
The book "C++ GUI programming with QT3" comes with a non commercial windows edition and Borland C++ 5 (free) or Borland C++ 6 trial edition. Also has the mac os x and *nix versions. You could also use cygwin and the QT ports for it. Well worth the price for the book....
Danger Will Robinson! You are now entering a condescending Unix user zone!
Pay who? That's the critical point. I don't necessarily mind people having to pay to write commercial software, it's just that I have a problem with who the money goes towards. If an application is written for KDE then Trolltech gets the money for it - the KDE team gets nothing.
I'm uncomfortable with trolltech being the gateway for all commercial software on Linux. That's a powerful position, and I'll bet they know it.
sheesh.