cross platform GUI-ness

[Colt45]

I've never done much in the way of GUI apps, and I'm wondering which of the toolkits people here prefer... I've been looking at Qt, wxwidgets, GTK+...

This will just be windows and linux... I like the fact that wx calls native stuff, as opposed to qt faking it... but Qt creator seems a fair bit cleaner than something like codeblocks for wxwidgets, and most the qt apps i've seen look plenty native to me...


I don't know, just looking for input i guess.

 

[CU]

I used wxwidgets for an app that ran on OSX and XP. It looked good on both. However when I did it a few years ago it needed a better visual gui editor. Some stuff I had to just edit the xml by hand, because the editors always seemed to be behind what was current and what I needed. I never used QT, so I can't say much about it. I don't think it was free when I was working on that app. I have used GTK a long time ago. It was OK, but I don't like the way it looks on other systems.

 

[Asparagus]

I've used FLTK in the past for GUI apps running on Windows/Linux/Unix...

 

[EagleKeeper]

In 2000 I used a package called ACE that acted as a graphics library.

It would run on different flavors on *NXas well as Windows.
They had a simlar API to Windows, but underneath, they would have the appropriate OS API graphics drivers.

Worked well with embedded systems.

There are people that are still use it for aviation work.

 

[sourceninja]

I've heard great things about QT4 and how great it is on windows/linux/mac. I have not used it yet. I did a project once in wxwidgets and found it acceptable for linux/windows.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

I'm used to Java/Swing so maybe I am biased .... but that is the only thing I would consider to do a GUI these days.

Once you know Swing well, you can develop GUIs very rapidly. Not to mention that it is all cross platform. Which is great in industry because of obsolescence (hardware/software) issues that occur over time.

Try finding a copy of Borland C++ Builder 5.0 for an example of software obsolescence. We just found it recently, but it is a used copy for about $500!!! We need it to support legacy software. This will never be an issue with Java.

 

[Net]

for java i like using netbeans ide to make gui's/programming. you can draw the gui like visual basic.
its a great ide, get the full version. it has just about everything you need.

http://www.netbeans.org/downloads/index.html

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

Drawing GUIs creates code bloat whenever I've used it. I'd rather just understand the layout managers and do it by hand. Besides, you should have the design for the GUI done prior to implementation so it shouldn't be an issue where it changes alot.

 

[Nothinman]

I'm used to Java/Swing so maybe I am biased .... but that is the only thing I would consider to do a GUI these days.

And from a user's perspective I'm biased in the opposite way, I avoid Java apps as much as possible.

 

[Ken g6]

The only cross-platform GUIs I've ever worked on have been in Java. Though I can understand how a user might not like them.

The thing I like most about Java is its documentation. For instance, .NET documentation is not the worst I've seen, but it's more confusing and can't be downloaded in one zipfile. So I'd like to know, which of these GUI toolkits has the best documentation, in your opinions?