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Every time I mention the biggest flaw of the Linux desktop people freak out and point me to Qt. I know QT but the effort of making a half decent GUI app in QT i

Every time I mention the biggest flaw of the Linux desktop people freak out and point me to Qt. I know QT but the effort of making a half decent GUI app in QT is way above the effort it takes with Cocoa. I very much remember the development and push of cocoa and the slow transition away from carbon and quickdraw. I believe NSDrawer was something that first showed up in third party code and then was adopted in Cocoa. Apple has constantly refined their toolkit by looking at well designed apps. Everything on Linux seems to be doing the exact opposite. Although GTK was developed out of Gimp it's so much easier to make a good looking photo editor on Mac than it is on any other platform. Until we sit down and design a good looking and easy to use GUI toolkit we can forget about decent Gui applications on Linux. (with a focus on easy to use)

pabloski 10y ago
Huh? Never heard of QML?
- pjmlp 10y ago
  Every time I checked Qt blogs it seems there is a new QML flavour. Not really inspiring. Also not everyone jumps of joy to use JavaScript to describe GUIs.
  - vmasto 10y ago
    This has changed a lot with React. Honestly I jump with joy every time I start a new react project.
- usernam 10y ago
  Can you point to some well designed QML interfaces? I can spot QML from the ill-fitting looks and mostly poorly though-of interaction. People think QML has magic powers, but in reality any UI designed in 5 minutes has only the value of a 5 minute interface. To me QML is the biggest mistake in Qt5.
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    > To me QML is the biggest mistake in Qt5. I think they are trying to appeal to the JavaScript hipsters as a way to stay relevant, and in the process also annoyed many C++ developers that don't see a value in it. All the other major declarative toolkits, XAML, AXML, JavaFX, Cocoa don't use a JavaScript like language for the UI descriptions.
snarfy 10y ago
Unfortunately I see those type of toolkits dying in favor of things like Electron and web rendering.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  Ironically those are the developers that contribute to make the GNU/Linux desktop irrelevant, as most are happy to have a second class experience instead of enjoying what native applications are able to offer in terms of UX. The web might run on BSD sockets, but that doesn't have any meaning on the rendering side. Any OS able to run a browser will do.
overgard 10y ago
I'm curious what you found wrong with Qt? My experience using it has been really positive, my only grumble is that configuring builds with it can be a huge pain-in-the-ass. (Both building Qt itself, and integrating Qt into your project's build). The UI designer leaves a lot to be desired, but I find UI code ends up being a lot cleaner if you avoid RAD tools anyway. Personally Apple's UI API's and toolkits are a non-starter for me since I don't want to write UI code twice, and Objective-C and XCode are a nightmare to me. YMMV of course.
- santaclaus 10y ago
  > integrating Qt into your project's build With CMake Qt is a breeze to integrate. Four lines in a CMakeLists.txt and you are off the races.
kitsunesoba 10y ago
As someone with way too many (Mac) desktop app side projects, I agree entirely. I've tried making the jump to Qt several times figuring that there's a lot of value in making my projects cross platform, but it's never stuck. By comparison Qt is frustrating to use and the end product is always lacking in platform specific details. There's just nothing like Cocoa for UI development.
- blub 10y ago
  Cross-platform will always be harder than one platform by definition. If that annoys you, you can expect to stick to Cocoa forever. :-) Or just use a cross-platform core with multiple UIs.
blub 10y ago
I used Cocoa on iOS and I agree that it's easy to build an app matching the platform UI guidelines. When using the storyboard designer it's ridiculously easy. Qt gives one a lot more freedom to screw up and look out of place if they're not careful. But when one wants to customize controls or build a customized UI Qt will win hands down. The problem with Linux UI has nothing to do with Qt per se. Qt is more than able to build high-quality UIs, but as long as Linux is lacking a UI identity (like Unity, which many hate) it will never be as good as macOS.

pabloski 10y ago

Huh? Never heard of QML?

pjmlp 10y ago
Every time I checked Qt blogs it seems there is a new QML flavour. Not really inspiring. Also not everyone jumps of joy to use JavaScript to describe GUIs.
- vmasto 10y ago
  This has changed a lot with React. Honestly I jump with joy every time I start a new react project.
usernam 10y ago
Can you point to some well designed QML interfaces? I can spot QML from the ill-fitting looks and mostly poorly though-of interaction. People think QML has magic powers, but in reality any UI designed in 5 minutes has only the value of a 5 minute interface. To me QML is the biggest mistake in Qt5.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  > To me QML is the biggest mistake in Qt5. I think they are trying to appeal to the JavaScript hipsters as a way to stay relevant, and in the process also annoyed many C++ developers that don't see a value in it. All the other major declarative toolkits, XAML, AXML, JavaFX, Cocoa don't use a JavaScript like language for the UI descriptions.

snarfy 10y ago

Unfortunately I see those type of toolkits dying in favor of things like Electron and web rendering.

pjmlp 10y ago
Ironically those are the developers that contribute to make the GNU/Linux desktop irrelevant, as most are happy to have a second class experience instead of enjoying what native applications are able to offer in terms of UX. The web might run on BSD sockets, but that doesn't have any meaning on the rendering side. Any OS able to run a browser will do.

overgard 10y ago

I'm curious what you found wrong with Qt? My experience using it has been really positive, my only grumble is that configuring builds with it can be a huge pain-in-the-ass. (Both building Qt itself, and integrating Qt into your project's build). The UI designer leaves a lot to be desired, but I find UI code ends up being a lot cleaner if you avoid RAD tools anyway. Personally Apple's UI API's and toolkits are a non-starter for me since I don't want to write UI code twice, and Objective-C and XCode are a nightmare to me. YMMV of course.

santaclaus 10y ago
> integrating Qt into your project's build With CMake Qt is a breeze to integrate. Four lines in a CMakeLists.txt and you are off the races.

kitsunesoba 10y ago

As someone with way too many (Mac) desktop app side projects, I agree entirely. I've tried making the jump to Qt several times figuring that there's a lot of value in making my projects cross platform, but it's never stuck. By comparison Qt is frustrating to use and the end product is always lacking in platform specific details. There's just nothing like Cocoa for UI development.

blub 10y ago
Cross-platform will always be harder than one platform by definition. If that annoys you, you can expect to stick to Cocoa forever. :-) Or just use a cross-platform core with multiple UIs.

blub 10y ago

I used Cocoa on iOS and I agree that it's easy to build an app matching the platform UI guidelines. When using the storyboard designer it's ridiculously easy. Qt gives one a lot more freedom to screw up and look out of place if they're not careful. But when one wants to customize controls or build a customized UI Qt will win hands down. The problem with Linux UI has nothing to do with Qt per se. Qt is more than able to build high-quality UIs, but as long as Linux is lacking a UI identity (like Unity, which many hate) it will never be as good as macOS.