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I wrote Qt C++ for 7 years as an open source contributor to KDE. This reminds me of QtWidgets’ .ui files—custom XML files following a specific schema. Later, Qt
by mnafees 1y ago
I wrote Qt C++ for 7 years as an open source contributor to KDE. This reminds me of QtWidgets’ .ui files—custom XML files following a specific schema. Later, Qt introduced QML, which I personally found unintuitive, and over time I lost interest in Qt altogether. That said, I still think XML for UI definitions makes sense, and it’s understandable that some larger environments continue to use it.
- hermitcrab 1y agoSome of us are still programming in Qt using just C++ and .ui files. Never bothered to switch to QML. I wasn't convinced there were enough advantages to make it worth the effort.
- mnafees 1y agoHah, that is awesome. How does Qt fare these days in the non-Linux world though?
- hermitcrab 1y agoGood on Windows. Pretty good on Mac, but never quite looks 100%. Not sure how well Qt is going to cope with macOS 26 style transparency though.
- dekhn 1y agoThis weekend I asked Gemini Pro to create a Python Qt app (a serial file sender- something you'd use to send g-code files to a CNC machine or laser cutter). I did most of the dev on Windows but the app will run exactly the same on all 3 main platforms. Eventually I asked Gemini to extract the UI to its own .ui file, which it did. The resulting app worked better than the previous one I had coded myself (handling some various race conditions and other challenging issues much more quickly than me). If I wanted, I coudl ask gemini to port the app to C++. (Gemini isn't the point here- that's just speeding up what I would have done on my own).
- mroche 1y agoNearly every widely-used commercial or in-house tool in the VFX and Animation sector of M&E are Qt based. The main difference compared to tradition desktop developers is the general attitude of design; the industry takes the stance of providing the same application experience across platforms, rather than trying to adhere to each platforms' UI/UX guidelines. Examples: Autodesk Maya, 3DS Max, Mudbox Foundry Nuke, Mari, Katana SideFX Houdini Substance Painter, Designer
- jdranczewski 1y agoI've been writing a UI framework for experiment automation and small tools using Qt Widgets with Python bindings (https://puzzlepiece.readthedocs.io https://puzzlepiece.readthedocs.io) and it still works pretty well! I like the API, and it being immediately cross-platform is very useful. It does lack looks on Windows a little imo, but to be honest I'm not opposed to the utilitarian way the apps end up looking.
- hermitcrab 1y agoThe 'Fusion' style on Windows looks a bit slicker than the base Windows style IMO.
- happyweasel 1y agoI always wanted to check out https://qskinny.github.io/ https://qskinny.github.io/ it looks compelling and sticks to c++
- mentos 1y agoI believe the Blizzard game launcher uses QT? Blizzard to me has always had the best execution of UI in their software/games. Curious if there are any Qt projects you’d single out as being great?
- mnafees 1y agoI didn't know Blizzard uses Qt! In terms of some good Qt apps, VirtualBox remains my favorite.
- felipefar 1y agoThe Telegram desktop app also uses Qt Widgets.
- badsectoracula 1y agoAFAIK GOG Galaxy also uses Qt. In a game dev studio i worked on a few years ago the engine's editor was also written in Qt.
- n3storm 1y agoAnd wxwidgets and glade files...
- bmn__ 1y agoXMLUI has 3%-4% of the features in designer. They have to catch up with 30 years first until it's worth a second look.