Qt4 Interface
By JBK on Saturday, February 10 2007, 16:37 - VideoLAN - Permalink
Qt4 Interface
I am going to speak a bit of the new
Qt-based interface and the FUD I have seen around this future interface.
A new UI should be shipped with VLC media player version 0.9.0.
- First, it will be shipped in parallel to the wxWidgets Interface
- Then, it will replace totally the wx Interface.
Why ?
This is the most asked question... There are a few answers:
- We had a lot of problems with right-to-left languages,
- We had a lot of problems with Unicode and Wide-Characters support,
- We lacked a few features,
- We needed to enhance this UI, and the main coder left,
- To test something new.
So, as we couldn't stay with wx, we had basically two choices Multi-OS:
The choice has been what the motivated coder had choose (zorglub), and also because Qt4 provides a shorter code and a bit easier to read. Zorglub wanted to test it, so let's go.
FUD
Qt is evil! Qt is not Open Source
Come on, this troll is not true anymore, and it has been said over and over, pfff. I know that good trolls are getting rarer (especially because of SUN... :D)
Why are you moving to KDE ? VLC is going to use all my RAM !
OMG! This is because a lot of people don't do the differences between KDE and KApplications and Qt and QApplications.
VLC will be using QT libraries not KDE libraries, so not to worry about it.
People using KDE4, will inherit the KDE presentation, and other people will have the cleanlook style, which is very gtk...
I am going to fork VLC
Pfff, I don't believe you. And you don't have to, because VLC is a very modular program, and you can use it without a GUI.
But, if you feel the time to improve the old wx interface or code a GTK-based interface, please do so, and submit the patches that we will integrate in the trunk, so you will have only to provide new compilations with the enable-gtk or enable-wx. VLC is open source and we welcome all the efforts toward us.
Just a thought about linux desktop and Wars.
I have been so bored about the FUD and the Wars between KDE and Gnome and the graphical libraries...
I have also been so bored of seeing two time the same development one based on KDE libs, the other one on Gnome libs, when it could juste be based on Qt libs and GTK libs. A lot of things should be standardized and should not rely on the desktop manager...
About look and feel integration, when you use GTK software under KDE, you use the 'gtk2qt' GTK+ engines that makes the default Qt draw your application.
But, under gnome, you don't have a 'qt2gtk' Qt engine that would let the defaut GTK+ engine draw the application ! Why ?
When Qt4 interface will be shipped ?
When it will be ready :D
Comments
Rock on!
I switched my little project from wx to qt4 long ago, and so far qt has been a joy to work with.
Congrats, and looking forward to 0.9.0!
Qt is really a great toolkit. By using it, both developers and users will benefit. You have made a good choice
And what will occurs with Mac OS X support?
I hope now it would be easier to implement drag and drop for adding subtitles to a video! It's a pain in the ass to open the video with the "open file" dialog in order to select also the proper subtitle file.
I also think it was time to have a new look and feel!
Mac OS X interface will stay native. But we have some people working on improvements on that one too.
Ah crap... VLC will be the first -and only- QT app I'll ever use... It's a real shame that the wx interface gets dumped over time...
A lot of distro's shipping Xfce or Gnome will think twice before making VLC the default media player if it lacks a GTK/wx interface. VLC will lose a lot of users this way...
VLC is not the default player in ANY Xfce / GNOME distribution, because they think TOTEM and crappy GStreamer are best. And because of software patents.
Qt is not KDE! And do you know that most users of VLC are using windows?
Anyway, I got a good news. There will be a GTK interface later :D
awk
Great news, gnome sucks.
@troll-tech
That is not linked to GNOME, just to Qt vs GTK...
Good choice !
QT4 is speeder than QT3, stable & is very multiplateform. With QT4, the code is very clean.
It's run with very good performances, integration & stability under Linux, Windows ( all version from Win98 to Vista ) & MacOS ! It's now Open-Source under Windows.
Thanks.
OK, to all the people saying "QT is not KDE and GTK is not gnome", let's get serious. QT is the widgets toolkit for KDE, GTK is the toolkit for Gnome, and most people are sticking to their guns on which one they'll be using, even if KDE/Gnome libs themselves aren't explicitly used. On that note, though, I love VLC and recently switched to KDE. Can't wait to see the new ui.
@Ego: Well, you are right, BUT, when you install Qt libraries, you are not installing KDE libraries. Same for GTK and GNOME.
For some people, this size on disk and memory consumption is important.
While Qt may be an excellent choice for porting & maintaining videolan, wouldn't it be too pricey for people on non-linux platform (no QT/GPL)? Do we have to fork out $3300 for a single developer/platform ( not qualify for academic & educational license)?
The freedom (compile, etc.) as accorded by your GPL license will hence be useless because we can buy a commercial video player at a fraction of
the Qt license price.
Yeah, please do remove support for wxWidgets....
@jiMMy:
I think you make a mistake since, Qt is free for GPL on all the platforms, since Qt4. And if you don't do GPL, you don't care about VLC.
from their main site.
Anyway, as usual, not being the default does not mean removing the code. VLC is modular. Use the module you want.
How could I use vlc without GUI ?
@gea: very easy, just use -Idummy or -Irc in command line after vlc:
vlc -Idummy
or
vlc -Irc
1) QT is evil... because it is GPL (+ some exceptions)/commercial and not LGPL (like GTK). I think graphical toolkits should be available, for free, to everything (also not-GPLed - but open source - or closed source applications) in order to provide easy access to the toolkit (without buying a license from Trolltech) and a consistent environment to the end-user (gtk2qt is just an hack), independently of the programs he uses (GPLed or not).
2) Bye bye VLC+QT... I know you will miss me, eh eh eh...
3) Excuse me for my poor English but it isn't my native language :-P
Hé a troll!
Dude... maybe because, for the reasons already explained, I don't support QT libraries and QT based applications. What don't you understand about this?
Yes, good explanation:
- You don't want to use a software because it uses a GUI toolkit that hasn't the license it should have according to you ? Just to say, wx isn't LGPL
- You don't want to use VLC, GPL, because it uses a GPL GUI ? Knowing that vlc can be used without Qt, but wx...
I am sorry, but I think you are a troll.wxWidgets uses a LGPL-like license: http://www.wxwidgets.org/about/newl...
I want a GUI and I don't want QT libraries and QT applications, because of the reasons already explained...
Try again...
So, use the old interface that use wxGTK! It still works on new versions.
Of course, but...
" * First, it will be shipped in parallel to the wxWidgets Interface"
Ok...
* Then, it will replace totally the wx Interface."
Mmm...
Pfff....
Qt4 will be default shipped with the Windows build, the one that VideoLAN take care...For linux, the distributions do what they want, but they will probably ship the different packages... Read my last post about this point.
This is a different thing. You should be clearer when you explain your points of view.
You said "it will replace totally the wx Interface", *now* you say "for the Windows build". I could think the wxWidgets interface will be discontinued at source-code level (and this would affect also custom builds).
However... my reasons are the same also on the Windows platform. QT is always QT... on Windows too.
You are just a troll... Trolling about LGPL being better than GPL for a library when you are using windows... Are you serious ? This won't affect you at all. VLC is GPL, Qt too. End of story.
I guess you don't use any KDE, Google Earth, Opera or Skype.
You don't want to read the post I make, fine. I just don't care. The default interface will be Qt, but we don't remove code, so just use the wx plugin instead of the Qt plugin.
If you don't use VLC anymore, it is fine with me. But not using an application that is GPL using GPL libraries because you think one library should be LGPL can seem quite weird to many people.
Typical GTK+ trolls. This has been rehashed so many times....
BTW, Qt can now render using the GTK+ styles. As in whatever the hell GTK+ is using as a widget style Qt will take that look on.
KDE, by virtue of using Qt. Can also have its applications look like GTK+ apps now.
http://labs.trolltech.com/page/Proj...
Tom: you are totally right, and I have a post about this QGtkStyle
i think, that it isnt good idea....
I don't like QT (GTK looks better for me), but if it makes you more inclined to update VLC interface... Please go on!
BTW, QGtkStyle is still not 100% working (it is a very good effort, and works well for most situations, but in my case, it doesn't render background images, which means it still looks (slightly) different)
Anyway, the current wxWidgets interface is *already* alien to the rest of my desktop; it uses the same widgets, but... well, I'm sure the next interface will be better, even in QT