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No you wouldn't. Google has stated that they want to offer fully native versions for each platform, and Qt, while a very good platform, is NOT native to Windows and OS X.

It's a shame that they couldn't make it look native then.

either way doesn't Qt use the native widgets in windows and osx? They could have done just the ui using qt instead of implementing their own.

Edited 2008-09-16 14:30 UTC

QT uses native widgets in Windows and OSX so QT applications feel native in those environments.

Opera doesn't. It's UI is a disaster on OS X.
QT is anything-but "native".

But opera doesn't try to be native on any platform. In linux, even using KDE it feels out of place. I refer to applications like Skype for example (although I don't know how it looks on OSX, it seems native on Windows).

Skype uses QT only on Linux, On the Mac is uses Cocoa. You can find this out by looking at the exported names from the binary, only Cocoa and standard C names are used. It does not link or use QT in any way on the Mac.
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Same with tons of other applications, such as Mathematica which uses QT on Linux, Carbon on Mac and the standard GDI functions on Windows.


A lot of people seem to think that if an app uses QT on Linux, it uses QT on all other platforms.

One of big problems with QT is that non Mac users have no idea how terrible QT applications look and behave on the Mac.

Edited 2008-09-16 16:08 UTC

"how terrible", "God awful" - what is that - technical evaluation of problem domain? :-)

I really don't know, what is so terrible with apps looking differently. In fact, with REBOL, I prefer non native widgets. I even think, it is some kind of advantage - to be different, while preserve the same app across the platforms. More so nowadays, in the internet app era, when ppl are more forgiving.

What is important imo is not look, but proper (system compatible) app behavior on certain platforms ....

You should have worked at Sun's PR. "Java Swing is ugly, but it's equally ugly on all platforms. Give us credit for consistency!"

That's funny because Opera only uses Qt on Linux, and there only in a very limited sense (mostly for stuff like printing). They actually have their own cross-platform toolkit called Swift if I remember correctly.

Actually QT doesn't really use native widgets, it sort of does, but not really. Take a look through the source code, QT handles all of its own messaging and most if its own drawing. Essentially, each widget is connected to something like a peer, kind of like Java Swing. It is horribly complex.

Thats the reason why QT applications look absolutely God awful on the Mac and usually pretty bad on Windows (especially when compared with a true native WPF app on Windows or a Cocoa app on OSX).

And yes, I know that there is a beta version of QT that uses Cocoa, but I took a look at the source, and it does the exact same thing. It still most of its own drawing, it just draws to a Cocoa window instead of a Carbon window.

There is a reason why Apple ditched the bottom end of WebKit which was QT to a very light platform abstraction layer. There is a reason why most decent cross platform applications use the real native toolkit on each platform and not some library like QT. QT is really only truly native on Unix where QT and GTK ARE the toolkits.

Edited 2008-09-16 15:56 UTC

wouldn't it be nice if QT developers learned to deligate the drawing to the native widgets?

Cross platform native apps are hard. The code to handle it will be complex. You won't find any toolkit that can do what Qt can and is any simpler.



I don't use Qt on OS X, but on Windows they are pretty much indistinguishable. Especially considering every single windows app looks slightly different, so there really is no "native" windows look. Office, WMP, Explorer, Notepad, etc all look different, and those are from the same company. I haven't received any complaints about my Qt software on windows from any clients.



If you talk to normal users (not computer geeks) you will realize that no one gives a crap about what happens under the hood. However Qt does come with a lot more features, and since Chrome was supposed to be as lightweight as possible, I suspect that google went with something customized to keep down on overhead. It's more of a tech demo anyway, I don't think anyone seriously believes that Chrome will be a major browser.

Edited 2008-09-16 18:22 UTC

Speak for yourself. Chrome is very likely to be a "major browser". Firefox garnered much of its popularity riding on the coattails (and pocketbook) of Google. Remember all those years Mozilla/Firefox sat at low single digit market share?

Yes, Firefox has finally clawed some market share from IE, after so many years and years. And Firefox has nothing but advantages over IE. Better standards support, faster, better adblocker, better safety, better extensions (mostly adblock and flashblock for the normal user), it's open source, and works on all platforms.

I can easily make the argument to switch from IE to Firefox, but to Chrome? It's open source sure, and its faster, and it has a couple nifty features.. But it's windows only (for now), it uses more RAM (by design, and this is crucial for many people who are still running $199 computers with 256MB of RAM), it doesn't have a good adblocker, and no extensions.

So why would anyone switch? Don't get me wrong, Chrome is pretty neat, I really like some parts of it, but I can't see any real advantages over Firefox for the average Joe, while Firefox has many advantages of its own. Chrome is speedy, but in real life, you won't see that much of a difference, and every browser is getting faster there too.

It's much more likely that other browsers will absorb Chrome's ideas..

Oh yes, the speed does make a difference in "real life".

The overall speed, simplicity, and responsiveness make Chrome a pleasure to use, and this is something techies often underestimate. You don't need a plethora of new features to make good software. Google has the outreach to make people give it a try, and Chrome has the quality to make them want to stick with it.

Erm... WPF is not "native" by your definition either. WPF handles all of it's own drawing, and builds it's own messaging system on top of Windows's events. Just like Qt.

Windows.Forms does this as well. So do the UI libraries used internally by Microsoft's various applications. So does Internet Explorer. So does Firefox.

QT3 used native widgets but QT4 does NOT!

That's interesting. I always thought native just meant it was compiled for that OS and now Wine type layer was in use. If not using native widgit's means it's not native doesn't that mean Google Chrome, Nero, WMP11, etc are not native either?

"Native" is one of my most hated words. The best thing is not to use it and say what you mean instead.

So what? that'll be using Xlib on Unix platforms then?

Er, yes it is. If its not native on windows, then its not native on Linux, OSX or any other OS either.

or Linux? QT is not native to Windows, OS X or Linux. From the way you use the word. Linux also qualifies. I'm not saying thats what you meant but thats what it sounds like to me. What do people mean when they say native anyway?

No, since version 4.X (X is something I don't remember) QT license has an exception for open source projects so basically, if your project is open source, then you can use QT for free and apply to your sources the license you like.

The details of that arrangement, well hidden-away, are at http://doc.trolltech.com/4.4/license-gpl-exceptions.html

There is Java and there is Lobo. And once upon a time there was HotJava. If they wnted to innovate they could sta HotGoogle. Otherwise I stay with my very native Kmeleon/Epiphany/Konqueror and Seamonkey/FFox.

It's interesting. Click the read more, and read the last line.

What are you talking about? Who's painting what as what? It's just a funny, interesting coincidence, that's all. And to make it even more interesting, the source article takes a detailed look at the code in question, and seeing quite a few of our readers are developers, this is a perfectly fine item to post.

I honestly have no idea what brought you to that conclusion. Heck, not even sbergman took it that way, and that really says it all . If I was looking for page views, I could have made the OSNews summary/headline a lot more sensationalist than this humble little text.

Seriously now, though, I think that if you try hard enough, you can see every item as looking for page views. Which would be rather idiotic, since we get nothing in return for having more page views at all.

This is a perfectly fine, normal item.

Fair enough; the community have spoken.

It is not surprising that they've chosen to use WTL since many other projects already use it. On Windows if you're using Visual C++, the choice really boils down to MFC, pure Win32 or WTL. MFC is alright but it is fairly huge and it forces you to use it's DocView architecture. Nobody really writes in pure Win32 anymore so that leaves WTL, which is actually a very nice library.

The major drawback of WTL is the lack of any decent documentation. There's nothing on MSDN, there are no books, there isn't a complete list of classes and what each method does. And this is what annoys me about Microsoft's approach to WTL.

Instead of focusing manpower on documenting and developing WTL, they've just dropped the whole thing on Sourceforge. No documentation. No official support. Nada. That makes the barrier to entry for using WTL since the only reliable documentation is the code. That also means you need to be an expert at the Win32 API, ATL and MFC.

Nevertheless, there are many commercial products that use WTL. Once you get the hang of it, nothing beats it for developing WIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN applications .

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163305.aspx

It seems pretty straightforward.

When people talk about integration, they generally mean look and feel. Screenshots can only convey the "look". You'll only get to appreciate the "feel" when you're sat down and using the software on the target platform.

I know what you mean. Qt apps on Windows and OSX feel snappier i.e. respond more quickly than native windows and especially Cocoa apps. So they feel lighter whereas Cocoa apps feel solid / heavy.

But I like Qt apps so it does not bother me.

I don't know if you're being sarcastic, or if you're serious. What applications are you using that feel so much snappier?

This has got to be a joke. Cocoa is the native toolkit, Carbon is a backwards compatibility wrapper around cocoa, and QT is a widget set that does most if its own drawing on top of carbon. So, QT on Mac is a wrapper on top of a wrapper on top of a wrapper. Plus, QT is a MASSIVE library that duplicates all of the standard c++ stuff, the libs alone are what about 15 MB, all that has to be loaded into memory. "


15M???? oh my gods, I don't know if there is enough left to open any other apps...how will a person get by with only 1019M of ram left.

Oh, the humanity

You use only one application at a time? That's good to know.

No, I use several, my point is, that 15M of ram is not a lot for an app/framework/toolkit to use. It's not 1995

I don't know if you're being sarcastic, or if you're serious. What applications are you using that feel so much snappier? "


This has got to be a joke. Cocoa is the native toolkit, Carbon is a backwards compatibility wrapper around cocoa, and QT is a widget set that does most if its own drawing on top of carbon. So, QT on Mac is a wrapper on top of a wrapper on top of a wrapper. Plus, QT is a MASSIVE library that duplicates all of the standard c++ stuff, the libs alone are what about 15 MB, all that has to be loaded into memory.