Sean (Jan 19 2018 at 18:16): Sean (Jan 19 2018 at 18:16):@Sean I'm interested in : D) developing a brand new Qt interface
but why use Qt? how native Qt Applications look?
@Naseef there's a lot of reasons for using Qt, and it's one of the most popular cross-platform toolkits that provide native platform behavior
Sean (Jan 19 2018 at 18:17):if you were designing a new application, what would you use?
Sean (Jan 19 2018 at 18:17):(or migrating a large old application, as in this case)
Naseef (Jan 19 2018 at 21:53):Qt is still new to me, I've been doing Gtk and .NET.
Naseef (Jan 19 2018 at 21:54):It'll be good to use Qt. ( I googled a bit about this).
Sean (Jan 19 2018 at 21:54):Qt is way better than Gtk and .NET is practically windows-only
Sean (Jan 19 2018 at 21:55):way better in terms of native behavior at least
Sean (Jan 19 2018 at 21:55):gtk doesn't try to do that, their model is consistent behavior
Naseef (Jan 19 2018 at 21:55):IMO Archer is already a really good program.
Naseef (Jan 19 2018 at 21:55):Which gui toolkit does it use?
Sean (Jan 19 2018 at 21:56):it's mediocre from a design perspective ... imho
Sean (Jan 19 2018 at 21:56):it uses Tk
Sean (Jan 19 2018 at 21:56):and incrTk
Naseef (Jan 19 2018 at 21:57):Should we take some widely used cad programs as inspiration?
Naseef (Jan 19 2018 at 21:57):Tk is very lightweight
Naseef (Jan 19 2018 at 21:59):We also have to make it start faster, unlike archer.
Naseef (Jan 19 2018 at 21:59):What about some customizable interface?
Sean (Jan 19 2018 at 22:00):Tk is very difficult to make behave exactly like we want, hardly anything is automatic
Naseef (Jan 19 2018 at 22:00):Well, A CAD program don't have to be lightweight.
Sean (Jan 19 2018 at 22:00):it's not "modern" by any stretch, and has been complicated over the years to maintain
Sean (Jan 19 2018 at 22:01):whether the app starts fast or slowly with a loader is on the devs, not the toolkit
Sean (Jan 19 2018 at 22:01):I'm inclined to use the gaming industry as inspiration as they adapt interfaces regularly and must have essential usability
Sean (Jan 19 2018 at 22:02):that also implies avoiding particular technologies and approaches
Naseef (Jan 19 2018 at 22:02):I like Unity3D's customizable interface.
Sean (Jan 19 2018 at 22:02):(nobody makes games with Tk)
Naseef (Jan 19 2018 at 22:03):I did! Some game in Tk when learning python!
Sean (Jan 19 2018 at 22:04):unity is not open source
Sean (Jan 19 2018 at 22:04):they have some open source libs they've released, but not the overall framework
Sean (Jan 19 2018 at 22:04):when I say "nobody" I mean no professional shops that ship commercially
Naseef (Jan 19 2018 at 22:05):I'm talking about its interface. every part of it is movable. It's just an example.
Sean (Jan 19 2018 at 22:05):Tk runs under a lot of things, so indirectly some use it (e.g., python guis often involve tk), but few directly do any more
Sean (Jan 19 2018 at 22:05):ahh, sure
Naseef (Jan 19 2018 at 22:06):We can have multiple workspaces.
Naseef (Jan 19 2018 at 22:06):some presets and customizable ones, Like in Blender.
Sean (Jan 19 2018 at 22:26):sure, that'd be great
Naseef (Jan 19 2018 at 22:34):Did you liked it because blender is open source? JK.
Naseef (Jan 19 2018 at 22:35):Have you seen a Qt program that has such interface?
Sean (Jan 19 2018 at 22:35):their approach actually predates them becoming open source
Sean (Jan 19 2018 at 22:35):blender uses a custom open gl GUI
Sean (Jan 19 2018 at 22:35):and yes, you can customize an interface like that (or do your own thing in an opengl context
Sean (Jan 19 2018 at 22:39):they're called qt style sheets: http://thesmithfam.org/blog/2009/09/10/qt-stylesheets-tutorial/
Sean (Jan 19 2018 at 22:39):another: http://discourse.techart.online/t/release-qt-dark-orange-stylesheet/2287
Sean (Jan 19 2018 at 22:39):and http://spinningcubes.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/zerobp.png
Naseef (Jan 19 2018 at 22:40):Customizing like moving views, resizing them, make them a separate window. (Like in GIMP)?
Naseef (Jan 19 2018 at 22:41):not about colors or styles, which should be native to operating system.
Sean (Jan 19 2018 at 22:41):sure you can do that -- that's just basic widget and window management
Sean (Jan 19 2018 at 22:41):dockable windows/panels
Naseef (Jan 19 2018 at 22:41):Yeah, I could find a way to say it.
Naseef (Jan 19 2018 at 22:42):multiple layouts.
Naseef (Jan 19 2018 at 22:42):with movable and re-sizable panels
Sean (Jan 19 2018 at 22:55):yeah, that's pretty fundamental stuff
Sean (Jan 19 2018 at 22:55):example: https://woboq.com/blog/qdockwidget-changes-in-56.html
Naseef (Jan 19 2018 at 23:06):That's how BRL-CAD is going to be in the future.
Jeff Sieu (Jan 20 2018 at 05:33):@Daniel Rossberg @Sean Made a small 2-line patch that changes the layout of CameraView so that it doesn't stretch when the window is vertically resized. What do you think?
qtgui.patch
before.png
after.png
Daniel Rossberg (Jan 20 2018 at 14:46):committed (revision 70638)
Last updated: Jan 10 2025 at 00:48 UTC