Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 15th May 2008 17:59 UTC, submitted by TLZ_
There is a group of consistency freaks out there (like myself) who are not very fond of mixing Gtk+ with Qt applications. The reasons for this are not just graphical, but also behavioural; Gtk+ applications behave differently than Qt applications (menus are different, layout is different, etc.). Trolltech obviously can't tackle the behavioural side of this issue, but they can tackle the graphical one. This is exactly where QGtkStyle comes into play.
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Member since:2007-01-10
First, there is a problem with your observation:
1.) GTK+ and GNOME developer engage in the FreeDesktop project which in fact was responsible for the Portland Project. In other words, GNOME developers do help to provide better integration. To say that only KDE developers were interested in cross-desktop integration is obviously wrong.
2.) The Tango Desktop Project was started by people how previously worked with GTK+ and GNOME projects. To say that only KDE designers are interested in visual cross desktop integration is thus also obviously wrong.
You obviously never noted these because you didn't look properly. In other words: Your view is biased.
Second, there's a rather simple explanation for the remaining difference: Trolltech makes money by selling proprietary licenses to customers. Nothing wrong with that, of course. But I guess, customer requests motivated Trolltech to provide cross desktop features -- it was not an altruistic decision.
On the other hand, the GTK+ and GNOME developers make no money by selling licenses. Consequently, they might just not be interested to spend their time doing this. Why should they if noone asks for it?
Additionally, noone would stop a group volunteers from patching GTK+ to replace dialogs like the file selector so that it matches the KDE file selector more closely. Could be a great feature for any KDE-centric Linux distribution. But it seems, no volunteers appeared yet. Maybe, the visual integration into KDE is not as important for users of GTK+ apps as you would like it to be.
Member since:2005-07-06
GTK+ and GNOME developer engage in the FreeDesktop project which in fact was responsible for the Portland Project.
Well, that doesn't really answer what he's saying. It's been KDE and then Trolltech who've been responsible for better integration of GTK applications into KDE with QtGTK, and vice versa with what Trolltech are doing. Portland was mainly helped along by an (ex) KDE developer Waldo Bastian, and now seems to be pretty stillborne.
In other words, GNOME developers do help to provide better integration.
Not here they're not.
The Tango Desktop Project was started by people how previously worked with GTK+ and GNOME projects. To say that only KDE designers are interested in visual cross desktop integration is thus also obviously wrong.
I've never really seen the point of Tango. It came out after the Appeal and Oxygen KDE projects and is basically a new icon theme for Gnome. There's nothing really cross-desktop about it, apart from the fact that it uses the Freedesktop icon specification that a lot of KDE people contributed to - and which they call the Tango icon spec for some strange reason ;-).
But I guess, customer requests motivated Trolltech to provide cross desktop features -- it was not an altruistic decision.
Yer, and?
Consequently, they might just not be interested to spend their time doing this. Why should they if noone asks for it?
Judging from the number of people complaining about desktop and application consistency, I'd say a lot of people are asking for it.
Maybe, the visual integration into KDE is not as important for users of GTK+ apps as you would like it to be.
That's actually a pretty damning inditement regarding the current state of GTK applications. People still talk about desktop and application consistency being a perennial thorn, and there's certainly been demand to integrate KDE and Qt applications better in Gnome (Amarok and KDE's educational applications being the main ones). The standard response to that has been to create clones of Amarok and applications like Kalzium in GTK.....
Member since:2005-07-06
Kgtk (using KDE dialogs in gtk apps) came from the KDE side.
Kgtk is an ugly kludge.
Qt compiling against glib so KDE apps can potentially use Gnome C dialogs comes from Trolltech.
I assume you're talking about glib/Qt main loop integration. Glib cannot be easily integrated to use the Qt main loop without opening up a whole can of licensing worms.
Gtk-qt, which skins GTK apps to look like KDE apps for fitting into a KDE desktop comes from the KDE side. Now QGtkStyle, a style to let Qt apps fit into a Gnome desktop comes from Trolltech.
Ugly kludge, ugly kludge.
Why don't I ever see any Gnome/GTK names attached to these (confusingly acronymed) projects?
Gnome/GTK-developers don't enjoy spending their time on ugly kludges. Real integration is done elsewhere.
PS. You forgot to mention geramic, which was an earlier ugly kludge.
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 22:43 UTC
The Verge pointed me to a blog post by Leap Motion - which reveals how their Kinect-like motion control works with Windows 8. "From the second you plug in your Leap Motion Controller, you'll be able to browse the web and interact with your computer just by moving your hands and fingers in the air. With Leap Motion technology and Windows, you can do everything that's possible with multi-touch inputs - without actually touching anything. This also means that existing applications in Windows 7 and 8 will respond to your natural hand and finger movements. Soon, we'll show you how Leap Motion will work with Mac OS X." Quite cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 21:50 UTC
PocketNow interviews Marc Dillon, and there's an interesting note about why Jolla is keeping the display properties under wraps: "We're leaving some of those details out because we do understand that there are a lot of really big players in the market and they tend to take certain components in the market and dominate them. We created the ability to actually be able to run Sailfish on multiple hardware displays and be able to swap components, so this is part of the demand and supply planning phase. We are committed to this industrial design which is a 4.5-inch display, an 8 megapixel camera on the back and a front-facing camera at the front, and the exact specs of the display we'll provide when we're close to delivery." Something you rarely hear anything about.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:15 UTC
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:11 UTC, submitted by Drumhellar
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Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:06 UTC
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 7:37 UTC
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Linked by fran on 05/18/13 1:38 UTC
Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 23:35 UTC, submitted by kragil
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
Linked by MOS6510 on 05/17/13 22:22 UTC
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 22:15 UTC, submitted by Tom
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.More News »
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Member since:
2005-11-11
Kgtk (using KDE dialogs in gtk apps) came from the KDE side. Qt compiling against glib so KDE apps can potentially use Gnome C dialogs comes from Trolltech. Gtk-qt, which skins GTK apps to look like KDE apps for fitting into a KDE desktop comes from the KDE side. Now QGtkStyle, a style to let Qt apps fit into a Gnome desktop comes from Trolltech.
Work getting Gnome apps to look right in KDE comes from KDE users. Work getting Qt apps to look right in Gnome comes from .. Trolltech.
Why don't I ever see any Gnome/GTK names attached to these (confusingly acronymed) projects? Honest question. Too busy? Don't care? Working behind the scenes on some more wide ranging solution? Don't think there are any must have apps from the other DE that have to be finessed into Gnome (like Gimp/Firefox into KDE)? They aren't a business with motivation to get their toolkit used as widely as possible?
Leaves a slightly sour taste in my mouth, which I'm hoping is from simply not understanding everything that's going on. Enlighten me. And yes, widget visual fidelity isn't the only part of DE/Toolkit integration, but it's the part that jumps out at you