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I always wonder why Qt5+/Qml/QtQuick have not taken the XP desktop development by storm. QML is JS like, there's an IDE and KDE seems to have built lot of good

I always wonder why Qt5+/Qml/QtQuick have not taken the XP desktop development by storm. QML is JS like, there's an IDE and KDE seems to have built lot of good looking desktop software using Kirigami/QtQuick. It's got to be better than anything Electron for sure. Anyone know if .NET Core Qt bindings are a technical possibility?

cheez 7y ago
It's JS, but not webdev JS, which means they can't really transfer much of the DOM knowledge/tooling.
juliangoldsmith 7y ago
.NET Qt bindings are possible; the question is how much effort it would take. There are already GTK bindings for Mono through Gtk#. Those should be usable under .NET Core.
dx87 7y ago
> I always wonder why Qt5+/Qml/QtQuick have not taken the XP desktop development by storm. If I had to guess, it's because people are misinformed about the pricing and features. I regularly see people who assume that you either have to pay a large per-developer fee, or completely open source your application, even though Qt is licensed under the LGPL, so you're fine as long as you don't statically link it or depend on secret modifications to Qt for your application. A lot of people also assume it only supports C++ and dismiss it outright.
- jacobush 7y ago
  LGPL is problematic for App Store, since the user should be able to relink the app with a newer version [of QT] if they wanted to.
  - de_watcher 7y ago
    They can relink. The object files for relinking aren't required to go through App Store. Static/dynamic linking isn't a problem.
    - jacobush 7y ago
      Interesting. If I install this [0] app, how can I relink it against my patched QT5? 0: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/qt-5-showcases-by-v-play-apps/id1040477271 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/qt-5-showcases-by-v-play-apps/...
      - jcelerier 7y ago
        Felgo most certainly uses Qt through the commercial license so nothing is LGPL here.
        jacobush 7y ago
        Right. Now imagine it didn't. What then?
        jcelerier 7y ago
        you ask them for the LGPL package, they send it to you, you compile ? The onus is on the person making the app that links against the LGPL library to provide you with the build instruction. At worse they would give you their main static library and Qt LGPL source code and you just have to relink them and open Xcode to upload it to your iDevice ? Here is for instance the source code for the telegram app for iOS which is under GPL : https://github.com/TelegramMessenger/Telegram-iOS https://github.com/TelegramMessenger/Telegram-iOS there is no difference with... basically every other open source project ? Open the .xcodeproj, build, run.
        jacobush 7y ago
        I am not talking primarily about open source projects, but about closed source projects with LGPL components on app stores. You’d need the proprietary main object from them. Also, requiring that your users have an Apple dev account before they can execute their rights is problematic at best. I am not alone in rejecting Qt on these grounds, in favour of some MIT or similarly licensed alternative.
TorbjornLunde 7y ago
My bet is the licensing stuff which can make it difficult/expensive to make proprietary apps with it. (In practice, I know the picture is a bit complicated.) Also, personally, while QML probably is the nicest OOP/bindings style UI framework I've seen, it's still not as nice as any of the reactive ones (i.e. React, Vue, Angular2, Flutter, etc…).
solarkraft 7y ago
A .Net Core Qt Quick binding is not only possible, but very real: https://github.com/qmlnet/qmlnet https://github.com/qmlnet/qmlnet I think most KDE apps are neither written using Kirigami nor Qt Quick however, but plain old Qt Widgets (maybe I'm misinformed, but Kirigami doesn't look much like it's customizable by the desktop environment, which is something I love about KDE apps).
- blinkingled 7y ago
  Wow, that looks neat and the sample worked as expected including picking up the KDE breeze theme!
ubertakter 7y ago
Two replies mention licensing, with two different answers (It's easy, people just don't understand! It's hard, people just don't understand!). Personally, I've tried a couple of times to read the license information on the Qt site and sort out how the licensing really works. I still only have a rough understanding. It seems like information on the Qt site is intentionally vague so you'll be more inclined to buy a commercial license just to feel "safe" using it. Unfortunately, any commercial projects I work on can't justify the commercial license price. Anyway, the point is, people may not want to use Qt without being absolutely certain about how the licensing works and they (like me) probably don't have the time to try to understand the poorly organized information on the Qt site.
- jcelerier 7y ago
  > Personally, I've tried a couple of times to read the license information on the Qt site and sort out how the licensing really works. You could just go to the repo and check the licenses there : https://github.com/qt/qtbase https://github.com/qt/qtbase
pjmlp 7y ago
Because .NET, Delphi or C++ Builder are better options if you are paying anyway, and only focusing on Windows.

cheez 7y ago

It's JS, but not webdev JS, which means they can't really transfer much of the DOM knowledge/tooling.

juliangoldsmith 7y ago

.NET Qt bindings are possible; the question is how much effort it would take. There are already GTK bindings for Mono through Gtk#. Those should be usable under .NET Core.

dx87 7y ago

> I always wonder why Qt5+/Qml/QtQuick have not taken the XP desktop development by storm. If I had to guess, it's because people are misinformed about the pricing and features. I regularly see people who assume that you either have to pay a large per-developer fee, or completely open source your application, even though Qt is licensed under the LGPL, so you're fine as long as you don't statically link it or depend on secret modifications to Qt for your application. A lot of people also assume it only supports C++ and dismiss it outright.

jacobush 7y ago
LGPL is problematic for App Store, since the user should be able to relink the app with a newer version [of QT] if they wanted to.
- de_watcher 7y ago
  They can relink. The object files for relinking aren't required to go through App Store. Static/dynamic linking isn't a problem.
  - jacobush 7y ago
    Interesting. If I install this [0] app, how can I relink it against my patched QT5? 0: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/qt-5-showcases-by-v-play-apps/id1040477271 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/qt-5-showcases-by-v-play-apps/...
    - jcelerier 7y ago
      Felgo most certainly uses Qt through the commercial license so nothing is LGPL here.
      - jacobush 7y ago
        Right. Now imagine it didn't. What then?
        jcelerier 7y ago
        you ask them for the LGPL package, they send it to you, you compile ? The onus is on the person making the app that links against the LGPL library to provide you with the build instruction. At worse they would give you their main static library and Qt LGPL source code and you just have to relink them and open Xcode to upload it to your iDevice ? Here is for instance the source code for the telegram app for iOS which is under GPL : https://github.com/TelegramMessenger/Telegram-iOS https://github.com/TelegramMessenger/Telegram-iOS there is no difference with... basically every other open source project ? Open the .xcodeproj, build, run.
        jacobush 7y ago
        I am not talking primarily about open source projects, but about closed source projects with LGPL components on app stores. You’d need the proprietary main object from them. Also, requiring that your users have an Apple dev account before they can execute their rights is problematic at best. I am not alone in rejecting Qt on these grounds, in favour of some MIT or similarly licensed alternative.

TorbjornLunde 7y ago

My bet is the licensing stuff which can make it difficult/expensive to make proprietary apps with it. (In practice, I know the picture is a bit complicated.) Also, personally, while QML probably is the nicest OOP/bindings style UI framework I've seen, it's still not as nice as any of the reactive ones (i.e. React, Vue, Angular2, Flutter, etc…).

solarkraft 7y ago

A .Net Core Qt Quick binding is not only possible, but very real: https://github.com/qmlnet/qmlnet https://github.com/qmlnet/qmlnet I think most KDE apps are neither written using Kirigami nor Qt Quick however, but plain old Qt Widgets (maybe I'm misinformed, but Kirigami doesn't look much like it's customizable by the desktop environment, which is something I love about KDE apps).

blinkingled 7y ago
Wow, that looks neat and the sample worked as expected including picking up the KDE breeze theme!

ubertakter 7y ago

Two replies mention licensing, with two different answers (It's easy, people just don't understand! It's hard, people just don't understand!). Personally, I've tried a couple of times to read the license information on the Qt site and sort out how the licensing really works. I still only have a rough understanding. It seems like information on the Qt site is intentionally vague so you'll be more inclined to buy a commercial license just to feel "safe" using it. Unfortunately, any commercial projects I work on can't justify the commercial license price. Anyway, the point is, people may not want to use Qt without being absolutely certain about how the licensing works and they (like me) probably don't have the time to try to understand the poorly organized information on the Qt site.

jcelerier 7y ago
> Personally, I've tried a couple of times to read the license information on the Qt site and sort out how the licensing really works. You could just go to the repo and check the licenses there : https://github.com/qt/qtbase https://github.com/qt/qtbase

pjmlp 7y ago

Because .NET, Delphi or C++ Builder are better options if you are paying anyway, and only focusing on Windows.