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QWidgets are not under active development, and the future is QML. QWidgets will likely only receive maintenance fixes going forward. Time to join the future!

781 8y ago
QML is just a teaser. Once you taste it you'll want the real thing and you'll move to Electron.
- discreteevent 8y ago
  I had the opposite experience. Each to their own.
- justinclift 8y ago
  The browser-application-pretending-to-be-a-desktop-application things I've seen don't handle multiple windows correctly, and most of them have problems with multi-key custom keyboard+mouse actions. :( Does Electron handle those scenarios well?
Longhanks 8y ago
According to the 2019 roadmap, QWidgets is very much not dead and will get new widgets this year: https://blog.qt.io/blog/2019/02/22/qt-roadmap-2019/ https://blog.qt.io/blog/2019/02/22/qt-roadmap-2019/ My personal opinion of QML is also contradictional: QML on the desktop to me just feels like a glorified Electron, resizing windows is choppy, controls feel slightly "off", the "single page" approach just feels like it misses the platform's defining features (dialogs and multiple windows). Best example is KDE Discover. But I'd like to be proven wrong, I'd love to hear of QML desktop software that is genuinely high quality, but I haven't heard of any.
- yellow_lead 8y ago
  As someone who recently worked with QML a lot, resizing is definitely a pain point. I have yet to see a great pattern for handling this, as there's definitely no one-size-fits-all within QML. For multiple pages, you can create multiple Windows / ApplicationWindows for one app. It definitely could have more support though - as for now you have to control these via C++ Qt code.
- pfranz 8y ago
  Maybe they've done an about face? I was at a Qt panel a few years ago and they described QtWidgets as "feature complete" (i.e. not deprecated, but no longer developed). I'm not sure they knew their audience very well. This was a computer graphics conference, which has a lot of Python2 deeply integrated to this day (Python3 is a 2020 goal!). Most of the Qt written is simple windows where people type in values and move sliders. They seemed very surprised when nobody cared or had even tried QML. I gather QML was a push for mobile (which is in line with your criticisms) where QtWidgets wouldn't work at all. It happens to coincide with Electron bringing the mobile UI and web platform back to the desktop. Funny thing, a lot of the 3d apps themselves (Nuke, Maya, Houdini) have very custom UIs and have all ported to Qt. But this transitioned happened just before Qt5 so I'm pretty sure it's all heavily modified QtWidgets where QML might have been simpler to implement. However, any performance issues or drawing glitches might have been a dealbreaker. That's so important that these companies actually grouped together and forked Qt 5.6.1[1] with their own backported bug fixes and critical changes. Thankfully they've been working with The Qt Company to integrate them into mainline. [1] https://github.com/autodesk-forks/qtbase/tree/adsk-contrib/vfx/5.6.1 https://github.com/autodesk-forks/qtbase/tree/adsk-contrib/v...
  - toyg 8y ago
    > a push for mobile [...] where QtWidgets wouldn’t work at all Er, they actually worked fine on Maemo/Meego. I think even Android was supported at some point. But it has never been “cool”, and Nokia were desperate for getting cool. QML was an attempt at doing what Electron has done, but starting from the other end (i.e. desktop -> web, rather than the other way around). It was aimed squarely at “cool web people” trying to build desktop and mobile apps. I believe it was also supposed to be married with some integrated cloud service (where rendering a QML-based interface in-browser was obviously going to be much easier than reimplementing QtWidgets), but I had no interest in that sort of thing at the time, and I don’t know the current situation.
    - viraptor 8y ago
      > Er, they actually worked fine on Maemo/Meego. Maemo was basically a full Linux though. It was closer to desktop squeezed into a mobile screen than a mobile platform, so lots of things could be compiled and "just work".
- pjmlp 8y ago
  I think that is a consequence of the protests regarding QWidgets stagnation, however given the focus on Qt Design Studio, Qt 3D Studio, devices and car infotainment systems, I am not sure how what those updates will actually be like.
quoyz 8y ago
Time to join the future and rewrite the huge application I work on? I sure hope not.
happyweasel 8y ago
QML is a solution for a specific use case, it's not "the" future. QML also misses out on its widget set. It's too limited. There need to be a lot more widgets that work out of the box. Also excessive styling of elements seems to be needed. That's exactly something a developer can't do. Nice looking QWidgets were and are a simple way to empower a developer to create a useable UX quickly. Also there should be a C++-only API for creating Qt Quick widgets. It might be a good idea to leverage the c++ knowledge of your userbase, if your core userbase are c++ developers.
- shaan7 8y ago
  > Also excessive styling of elements seems to be needed Um, not really. The inbuilt Universal style looks pretty good by default.

781 8y ago

QML is just a teaser. Once you taste it you'll want the real thing and you'll move to Electron.

discreteevent 8y ago
I had the opposite experience. Each to their own.
justinclift 8y ago
The browser-application-pretending-to-be-a-desktop-application things I've seen don't handle multiple windows correctly, and most of them have problems with multi-key custom keyboard+mouse actions. :( Does Electron handle those scenarios well?

Longhanks 8y ago

According to the 2019 roadmap, QWidgets is very much not dead and will get new widgets this year: https://blog.qt.io/blog/2019/02/22/qt-roadmap-2019/ https://blog.qt.io/blog/2019/02/22/qt-roadmap-2019/ My personal opinion of QML is also contradictional: QML on the desktop to me just feels like a glorified Electron, resizing windows is choppy, controls feel slightly "off", the "single page" approach just feels like it misses the platform's defining features (dialogs and multiple windows). Best example is KDE Discover. But I'd like to be proven wrong, I'd love to hear of QML desktop software that is genuinely high quality, but I haven't heard of any.

yellow_lead 8y ago
As someone who recently worked with QML a lot, resizing is definitely a pain point. I have yet to see a great pattern for handling this, as there's definitely no one-size-fits-all within QML. For multiple pages, you can create multiple Windows / ApplicationWindows for one app. It definitely could have more support though - as for now you have to control these via C++ Qt code.
pfranz 8y ago
Maybe they've done an about face? I was at a Qt panel a few years ago and they described QtWidgets as "feature complete" (i.e. not deprecated, but no longer developed). I'm not sure they knew their audience very well. This was a computer graphics conference, which has a lot of Python2 deeply integrated to this day (Python3 is a 2020 goal!). Most of the Qt written is simple windows where people type in values and move sliders. They seemed very surprised when nobody cared or had even tried QML. I gather QML was a push for mobile (which is in line with your criticisms) where QtWidgets wouldn't work at all. It happens to coincide with Electron bringing the mobile UI and web platform back to the desktop. Funny thing, a lot of the 3d apps themselves (Nuke, Maya, Houdini) have very custom UIs and have all ported to Qt. But this transitioned happened just before Qt5 so I'm pretty sure it's all heavily modified QtWidgets where QML might have been simpler to implement. However, any performance issues or drawing glitches might have been a dealbreaker. That's so important that these companies actually grouped together and forked Qt 5.6.1[1] with their own backported bug fixes and critical changes. Thankfully they've been working with The Qt Company to integrate them into mainline. [1] https://github.com/autodesk-forks/qtbase/tree/adsk-contrib/vfx/5.6.1 https://github.com/autodesk-forks/qtbase/tree/adsk-contrib/v...
- toyg 8y ago
  > a push for mobile [...] where QtWidgets wouldn’t work at all Er, they actually worked fine on Maemo/Meego. I think even Android was supported at some point. But it has never been “cool”, and Nokia were desperate for getting cool. QML was an attempt at doing what Electron has done, but starting from the other end (i.e. desktop -> web, rather than the other way around). It was aimed squarely at “cool web people” trying to build desktop and mobile apps. I believe it was also supposed to be married with some integrated cloud service (where rendering a QML-based interface in-browser was obviously going to be much easier than reimplementing QtWidgets), but I had no interest in that sort of thing at the time, and I don’t know the current situation.
  - viraptor 8y ago
    > Er, they actually worked fine on Maemo/Meego. Maemo was basically a full Linux though. It was closer to desktop squeezed into a mobile screen than a mobile platform, so lots of things could be compiled and "just work".
pjmlp 8y ago
I think that is a consequence of the protests regarding QWidgets stagnation, however given the focus on Qt Design Studio, Qt 3D Studio, devices and car infotainment systems, I am not sure how what those updates will actually be like.

quoyz 8y ago

Time to join the future and rewrite the huge application I work on? I sure hope not.

happyweasel 8y ago

QML is a solution for a specific use case, it's not "the" future. QML also misses out on its widget set. It's too limited. There need to be a lot more widgets that work out of the box. Also excessive styling of elements seems to be needed. That's exactly something a developer can't do. Nice looking QWidgets were and are a simple way to empower a developer to create a useable UX quickly. Also there should be a C++-only API for creating Qt Quick widgets. It might be a good idea to leverage the c++ knowledge of your userbase, if your core userbase are c++ developers.

shaan7 8y ago
> Also excessive styling of elements seems to be needed Um, not really. The inbuilt Universal style looks pretty good by default.