5 ms·

Qt 5.8 Alpha released

111 points by pyprism 10y ago

pjmlp 10y ago
> I think we need more libraries/widgets in order for us to design native looking Android/iOS apps. So still the same "do your own QML mimic of native widgets"?
- caub 10y ago
  I don't want iOS look at all
  - Longhanks 10y ago
    Most iOS users using iOS apps want, though.
    - cm3 10y ago
      Most iOS user or Android users don't know and don't care, if we're being honest. If you said "power users" or "developers", then it's a different story. I long for the days of the iOS 4.2 UI, but that's just me preferring distinctive widgets over a flat sea of mostly-white indistinguishable things.
  - drivingmenuts 10y ago
    Personally, I would rather that apps follow the paradiggem (int.) established for the platform, so that there are fewer surprises. So, if you're on OS X, look and feel like an OS X app, ditto for IOS. QT looks and feels like QT and takes a lot of it's cues from Windows (near as I can tell) so no QT app feels like it belongs on a Mac at all.
    - shaan7 10y ago
      I wasn't aware you can write apps using QuickTime ;)
- dharma1 10y ago
  They are working on providing a set with Qt Quick Controls 2 - the Android part looks more ready than iOS. https://blog.qt.io/blog/2016/06/10/qt-quick-controls-2-0-a-new-beginning/ https://blog.qt.io/blog/2016/06/10/qt-quick-controls-2-0-a-n...
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    I know that, but when I used 5.4 the experience was quite bad and I was quicker to just write the frontend in Java and glue it myself to standard C++11 than make use of Qt. So from 5.4. up to 5.8 little seems to have changed from that comment. Nowadays I just use Native OS UI language + C++ or Xamarin, both are easier for me to write portable native apps with direct support for native widgets than using QML.
    - dharma1 10y ago
      I think it's improved from 5.4 but yeah if you want native widgets then QML isn't the solution
  - cm3 10y ago
    Is it just me, or is there some overlap and possibly short-lived components one shouldn't invest time in (ala Silverlight and XAML)? I don't know why there's QML and QtQuick.
    - distances 10y ago
      QML is perhaps the best current option for cross-platform desktop application creation and for embedded devices with custom UI. For mobile apps it's debatable if QML makes as much sense.
      - lultimouomo 10y ago
        Can you tell me why do you feel QML is superior to Qt Widgets for desktop applications? I tried QtQuick 1 and was underwhelmed (so much glue code to link C++ and QML; the awkwardness of JS without the huge amount of libraries that save your day in web development). In the last couple of years I have seen a lot of renewed hype about QML but I keep wondering what it's buying you over the traditional widgets in non-embedded envs (where you might want to profit from OpenGL acceleration for performance reasons). Am I missing something? I would love to love QML, as I love Qt and I see that widgets are clearly on their way out...
cm3 10y ago
> To accommodate this, we have over the last 6 months done significant work on our build infrastructure to give our users much more fine grained control over the way how Qt is being built. This is what we called the Qt Lite Project. > [...] > From initial measurements, we expect that you will be able to reduce the size of a statically linked Qt Quick application by up to 70% compared to Qt 5.6. Does this mean they fixed static linking in 5.8? It stopped working in 5.7 for some reason in most projects. With 5.6 it was easy to use cmake scripts to create statically linked applications when your Qt installation was build statically. This still worked with qmake projects in 5.7 but not cmake. I kinda wish I could build a Qt installation that has dynamic libs and static archives, but it's not possible to select that at configure time. Stuff either doesn't build or it builds and then still looks for dynamic bits since 5.7. This was fine in 5.6 AFAIR.
- justinclift 10y ago
  With the static linking in 5.6, did that also include the image format plugins (eg jpg, bmp, etc)?
  - cm3 10y ago
    I'm not exactly sure what you mean, but I think so, since the apps it worked with did load and save images.
    - justinclift 10y ago
      No worries. :) Putting time into a project recently, and we're going through the process of migrating from Qt4/Qt5 to Qt5-only. (this is so we can start using Qt5 only features) One of the differences between Qt4 and Qt5, is that while Qt4 has all of its supported image formats inbuilt Qt5 doesn't. It keeps them in separate shared libraries, which (for non-static applications) need packaging with the rest of the application. I haven't looked into whether they get compiled in with static ones though. It sounds like they might be, which would be useful for us, as people do request static builds occasionally. :)
infinite8s 10y ago
It looks like QML/Qt Quick Controls 2 are moving becoming mobile/embedded first, and they are recommending desktop apps stick to QtWidgets for native looking UIs.
- ufo 10y ago
  What language bindings can I use to develop QtWidgets applications without having to write C++? When I look around it seems that lots of languages only have bindings for Qt <= 4 or QtQuick.
  - jdboyd 10y ago
    You can use pyside2. It isn't considered stable yet though, but I think it might be soon.
  - abdulhaq 10y ago
    PyQt is rock solid.
justinclift 10y ago
The docs for it don't seem to be on docs.qt.io. :( Created a request to add them (https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-55744 https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-55744), to make reading through details of the new modules easier for people.

111 points by pyprism 10y ago

pjmlp 10y ago

> I think we need more libraries/widgets in order for us to design native looking Android/iOS apps. So still the same "do your own QML mimic of native widgets"?

caub 10y ago
I don't want iOS look at all
- Longhanks 10y ago
  Most iOS users using iOS apps want, though.
  - cm3 10y ago
    Most iOS user or Android users don't know and don't care, if we're being honest. If you said "power users" or "developers", then it's a different story. I long for the days of the iOS 4.2 UI, but that's just me preferring distinctive widgets over a flat sea of mostly-white indistinguishable things.
- drivingmenuts 10y ago
  Personally, I would rather that apps follow the paradiggem (int.) established for the platform, so that there are fewer surprises. So, if you're on OS X, look and feel like an OS X app, ditto for IOS. QT looks and feels like QT and takes a lot of it's cues from Windows (near as I can tell) so no QT app feels like it belongs on a Mac at all.
  - shaan7 10y ago
    I wasn't aware you can write apps using QuickTime ;)
dharma1 10y ago
They are working on providing a set with Qt Quick Controls 2 - the Android part looks more ready than iOS. https://blog.qt.io/blog/2016/06/10/qt-quick-controls-2-0-a-new-beginning/ https://blog.qt.io/blog/2016/06/10/qt-quick-controls-2-0-a-n...
- pjmlp 10y ago
  I know that, but when I used 5.4 the experience was quite bad and I was quicker to just write the frontend in Java and glue it myself to standard C++11 than make use of Qt. So from 5.4. up to 5.8 little seems to have changed from that comment. Nowadays I just use Native OS UI language + C++ or Xamarin, both are easier for me to write portable native apps with direct support for native widgets than using QML.
  - dharma1 10y ago
    I think it's improved from 5.4 but yeah if you want native widgets then QML isn't the solution
- cm3 10y ago
  Is it just me, or is there some overlap and possibly short-lived components one shouldn't invest time in (ala Silverlight and XAML)? I don't know why there's QML and QtQuick.
  - distances 10y ago
    QML is perhaps the best current option for cross-platform desktop application creation and for embedded devices with custom UI. For mobile apps it's debatable if QML makes as much sense.
    - lultimouomo 10y ago
      Can you tell me why do you feel QML is superior to Qt Widgets for desktop applications? I tried QtQuick 1 and was underwhelmed (so much glue code to link C++ and QML; the awkwardness of JS without the huge amount of libraries that save your day in web development). In the last couple of years I have seen a lot of renewed hype about QML but I keep wondering what it's buying you over the traditional widgets in non-embedded envs (where you might want to profit from OpenGL acceleration for performance reasons). Am I missing something? I would love to love QML, as I love Qt and I see that widgets are clearly on their way out...

cm3 10y ago

> To accommodate this, we have over the last 6 months done significant work on our build infrastructure to give our users much more fine grained control over the way how Qt is being built. This is what we called the Qt Lite Project. > [...] > From initial measurements, we expect that you will be able to reduce the size of a statically linked Qt Quick application by up to 70% compared to Qt 5.6. Does this mean they fixed static linking in 5.8? It stopped working in 5.7 for some reason in most projects. With 5.6 it was easy to use cmake scripts to create statically linked applications when your Qt installation was build statically. This still worked with qmake projects in 5.7 but not cmake. I kinda wish I could build a Qt installation that has dynamic libs and static archives, but it's not possible to select that at configure time. Stuff either doesn't build or it builds and then still looks for dynamic bits since 5.7. This was fine in 5.6 AFAIR.

justinclift 10y ago
With the static linking in 5.6, did that also include the image format plugins (eg jpg, bmp, etc)?
- cm3 10y ago
  I'm not exactly sure what you mean, but I think so, since the apps it worked with did load and save images.
  - justinclift 10y ago
    No worries. :) Putting time into a project recently, and we're going through the process of migrating from Qt4/Qt5 to Qt5-only. (this is so we can start using Qt5 only features) One of the differences between Qt4 and Qt5, is that while Qt4 has all of its supported image formats inbuilt Qt5 doesn't. It keeps them in separate shared libraries, which (for non-static applications) need packaging with the rest of the application. I haven't looked into whether they get compiled in with static ones though. It sounds like they might be, which would be useful for us, as people do request static builds occasionally. :)

infinite8s 10y ago

It looks like QML/Qt Quick Controls 2 are moving becoming mobile/embedded first, and they are recommending desktop apps stick to QtWidgets for native looking UIs.

ufo 10y ago
What language bindings can I use to develop QtWidgets applications without having to write C++? When I look around it seems that lots of languages only have bindings for Qt <= 4 or QtQuick.
- jdboyd 10y ago
  You can use pyside2. It isn't considered stable yet though, but I think it might be soon.
- abdulhaq 10y ago
  PyQt is rock solid.

justinclift 10y ago

The docs for it don't seem to be on docs.qt.io. :( Created a request to add them (https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-55744 https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-55744), to make reading through details of the new modules easier for people.