Re: KDE 2.1.1 rocks!

[Kalum / Grendel <kalum lintux cx>]

On  Thu, 26 Apr 2001, Thomas Dodd commented thusly,

> Kalum / Grendel wrote:
> > I havent tried it, but GTK does not have the professional look that qt
> > apps have does it? In fact qt is the only professional toolkit that we can
> > boast of at the moment which can match MFC.
> 
> Define "professional" please. I hat the look of Qt and MFC.

Just check the file open dialog for example, see how nice and intuitive
qt's file open dialog is with up and down directory buttons a nice sized
font, just see how more easy it is for a newbie or a pro to use it, than
the file open dialog that netscape or the GIMP has for example, netscape
and the GIMPs file open dialog is ugly and confusing, this is a artistic
issue but qt and even the windoze file open dialogs look more neat and
tidy and user friendly, than GTKs file open dialogs. 

> For a long time Motif was the "professional" look.

I dont see anything in netscape which makes it attractive to me, what I
mean is just get qtmozilla and run it and see the difference with the old
netscape/mozilla, no wonder why KDE apps look much better than GNOME ones.

> Still is to many. I prefer the look of GTK.
> Look at the themes. Sure you can get som strange looking stuff
> if you like, but the default setting are very clean.

I never liked the file open dialog in gimp, no pixmapped buttons in
it...no style IMHO.

> > > At one time I saw some C++ wrappers for other toolkits.
> > > Or try python, Red Hat uses it for their install/config apps.
> > 
> > Python is too slow for a major app, like say a email client.
> 
> email client = major app? I disagree.

They are major apps, just consider the features required in a email
client, multiple accounts, sorting to seprate folders (filtering), POP3,
IMAP4, SMTP, SSL support, PGP support, HTML support, multi threading,
LDAP,

Anything which has those features is a major app IMHO. And we dont have
any MUA which supports those features for linux do we, its the sad truth
but Outlook Express is still the best MUA I have seen, sure it uses shitty
binary formats and doesnt have keyboard accelration, but it is a decent
app and it is very said that we dont have anything to match it in the
linux world. I back my claim by saying that if Outlook express were to
appear for linux it would be a instant best seller.

> python to slow for email? I disagree again.

http://pygmy.sourceforge.net, pygmy is another GNOME MUA, written in
python and it is slow as hell.. 

> It's at least as fast as Java, and I've seen several
> java mail tools.
> And the installer for RHL. Anaconda is a major peice
> of code. It covers a lot, and works. (not that I use python)

I havent used anaconda so I cant comment on this.
 
> elsip (another interperted language) is fast enough for
> a mail tool. Try the emacs mail mode.

Emacs == single threaded and that means emacs will pause when polling for
mail, which will tend to become a PITA if the server is slow, or there is
a probem conencting. 
 
> > Sorry but Pascal sux for a C/C++ programmer like me, even in its
> 
> I don't like pascal either, but it's an option many like.
> Lots of people are writing GUI apps in BASIC too. I wouldn't.

Neither would I :)
 
> So you needed a tutorial for Qt. Try one for GTK+, gtk--, and or glade.
> Rember they were developed open source. Qt was developed by
> Troll, where people were paid to writ the documentation that
> most people don't like. It's the one problem I see with most
> open source projects.

I agree, qt's docs are much more easy, but FLTK is another C++
toolkit with good documentation.
  

> > So although GLADE tends to remove a lot of PITA features of GTK, you will
> > need a basic knowledge of GTK if you want to do anything serious with the
> > GLADE generated code, and   *aquiring* that gtk basic knwoledge is much
> > more harder than it is to acquire the basic knowledge of a OOP X toolkit
> > like qt or fltk.
> 
> I agree the documentation is missing. But it's comming.
> With Sun and HP switching to GNOME soon, the documentation will
> be there for Solaris / HP-UX programming.

I hope so too.
 
> > Just to ilustrate the power of qt, you can have a fully featured text
> > editor in only 300 lines of code, and whats more it is fully extensible
> > too very easily. I'd like to see how easy it is to design even a simple
> > text editor using a non OOP language like C for example.
> 
> For GTK+
> http://www.gtk.org/ for a tutorial API info

I have them already, just see how large the hello world program is for
gtk, just compare with the hello world for qt or fltk or another C++
toolkit and see how much more code you need to use, anyway its good that
gtk-- is there lets hope it will take the sting out of gtk.

> I'd imaging it's not too bad. The gtk_text widget would do most
> of the work (Gtk::Text in gtk--).
> Check the gedit source at http://gedit.sourceforge.net/
> It is multi-lingual and has plugin extension support
> including mail, diff, and shell interactions.
> Newest version support Drag-N-Drop too.
> It was designed using glade too, so glade isn't too buggy.
> If I took the time to read the docs/tutorial for glade I
> could probably us it, but I haven't had time yet.

Thank you for this, I will check them out.
 
> My point is still that Qt isn't the only option.

Agreed fltk is there too.

> C++ isn't the only option.

But in terms of speed, support it ranks high. 
 
> Qt/C++ isn't the best option.

Okay. My personal choice after a bit of experimenting is FLTK/C++.
 
> But I have looked at them, and I understood the gtk-- stuff
> best. I never could get MFC to do what I wanted. I don't like
> the look of Qt (or KDE, because it uses Qt).

Hmm.....yes its a personal preference, but I find that many people
including yours truly favour KDE over GNOME.
 
Best Wishes,
Grendel


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