Jambi ships as a single Java library, or JAR (Java Archive) file, plus a handful of tools, including an interface layout and design tool, and an Eclipse plug-in. Trolltech uses its vaunted Qt C++ library as the GUI engine and puts Java wrappers around it. This approach uses the JNI (Java Native Interface) to call the necessary functions from Java. More here.
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Member since:2005-07-07
wxWidgets and gtkmm (and other obscure stuff like FLTK) are hardly in the same league as Qt. GTK on OS X and Windows has been the butt of many jokes. Having a C++ wrapper around isn't going to make it any better.
That leaves wxWidgets which is the most viable contender. I have tried to love wxWidgets. IMHO, it tries too hard to be MFC. Qt's signal and slots mechanism is better than wxWidgets MFC style message maps. They have introduced signals and slots in recent versions but this feels like the red headed stepchild that nobody likes. Most of the examples and documentation still deal with the message map.
Another thing that is lacking for wxWidgets is a decent GUI designer. Qt-Designer on the other hand is awesome sauce. I used it for Java(thanks to http://uic.sourceforge.net/) and I have mostly praise for it. wxWidgets lacks something like this.
The documentation for Qt, the design and the tools are better than the competition. This is what makes it so successful. The dual licensing scheme just makes things sweeter, allowing you to experiment with it for free while writing open source applications and paying for a license when going commercial. Being free (both libre and gratis) has not helped gtkmm or any of the other obscure C++ libraries. wxWidgets is more popular mainly because it provides a much more viable alternative to Qt than the others.
Member since:2006-05-25
Member since:2007-10-29
> Being free (both libre and gratis) has not helped
> gtkmm or any of the other obscure C++
> libraries. wxWidgets is more popular mainly because
> it provides a much more viable alternative to Qt
> than the others.
I wouldn't say that gtkmm is obscure, and it provides a very nice alternative to Qt. In fact, gtkmm does a better job of "feeling" C++ like than any others in my opinion.
Also being free has definitely helped Gtk in general. It's the main reason why all the commercial *nix vendors threw their support behind GNOME instead of KDE. None of them wanted to lock their commercial partners into paying huge licensing fees for Qt.
Member since:2005-07-12
I agree with everything you say. Qt is head and shoulders, as an overall GUI (and other) library, and tool set, above wxWidgets, Gtk/Gtkmm, or MFC, or anything else out there.
I think Qt is superior to Swing or SWT, as well. It looks better, it blends with the native environment better, it's faster (much faster in many cases), it's tools are better (although Swing's Matisse is pretty close to Qt Designer, I must say), and it's overall easier to develop with than either Swing or SWT.
Whether that's enough to get existing Java devs to use it in future desktop applications remains to be seen. Certainly, existing Qt/C++ programmers that want to use Java instead of C++ will want to use it.
Member since:2005-07-06
Qt-Designer on the other hand is awesome sauce. I used it for Java(thanks to http://uic.sourceforge.net/) and I have mostly praise for it. wxWidgets lacks something like this.
Wow, I had no idea that a version of Qt Designer for Swing existed! Amazing!!
Member since:
2005-07-12
"They can get away with such pricing in the C++ world because C++ lacks a viable cross platform GUI development library."
Not true.
wxWidgets
and
Gtkmm
are both free, cross platform C++ GUI toolkits. Also, Gtkmm is essentially C++ wrapper classes on top of regular Gtk, which also can be used by itself in C++ applications.
So your point that Qt has been successful in the C++ world because a lack of cross platform C++ GUI toolkits holds less weight. IMO, Qt has been successful because of it's dual licensing (free for open source projects), the fact that KDE uses it, and it's overall excellence, which makes the propietary price tag easier to swallow (look at Google Earth, Skype, and Adobe Photoshop as great proprietary Qt programs).
Nonetheless, your point is well taken. I kind of doubt that Jambi will gain much traction, simply because Java devs already have Swing (which rapidly improving these days - after years of Sun neglect), and they have SWT (the Eclipse plstform is practically a de-facto standard for tools).
That said, I do think that Qt is a superior library to Swing or SWT. I just don't think that Qt Jambi will gain much of a user base. But it is nice for Java desktop developers to have another viable choice.