Unifying GTK & QT Theme Engines 405
An anonymous reader writes "Some guy on kde-look recently released code that
makes gtk apps use the current qt theme. Seems
this would be a major development for unifying
the 2 environments. From the URL:
This GTK theme engine uses the currently selected QT style to do it's drawing. Basically, it makes your GTK apps look like QT ones. "
Unification in the *nix world (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Unified OS already exists since Win 95 (Score:1, Insightful)
Widget Mania (Score:5, Insightful)
When I can choose a widget theme once, using a central theme selector, such as GNOME's, and it shows up in all versions of Qt, GTK, Gtk2, Tk, Mozilla, and other applications, then I'll take notice.
The proliferation of toolkits does such a disservice to the desktop, even moreso than the proliferation of desktop environments. Why are there so many?
It seems like most OSS developers must go through the same milestones of skill development: a new C++ string class, a new IRC client, a new window manager, a new toolkit, and a new update package manager. Stop rewriting the wheel and improve what's out there in meaningful new ways.
Re:Unified OS already exists since Win 95 (Score:1, Insightful)
Accountability Problems (Score:-1, Insightful)
IMHO, the closed method is a dead end, and KDE isn't doing themselves a long term favor by being so split brained. They'll never win on one end, because they can't compete againse Microsoft, and they never lead on the other because they cant keep their focus like gnome.
Unified eyecandy != unified environments... (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a minor bit of neat hackery, nothing earth-shaking though, and nowhere near a step to unified environments.... If you want to create that illusion, surely it would be better to make something that creates two sets of themes (gtk and qt... or even more toolkits) from one single source, think DocBook. Fortunately, I don't think the author of this software claimed that he was trying to unify anyway.
Re:Why do we need two widgets? (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, I'm sure that you can write your program in either C or C++ and still use either toolkit, but I would imagine C programmers prefer a C-based toolkit, and C++ programmers prefer a C++ toolkit.
Re:Just a style (Score:5, Insightful)
OTOH this (unifying themes, i.e. one theme working for both QT & GTK) is the first step in the right direction, of making the two indistiunguishable to the user. Next would be _perfect_ cut & paste, including HTML pages, pictures, vector graphics etc. AFAIK freedesktop.org has come a long way working on cut & paste (drag & drop) and apparently all it needs now is more polish.
Final stage would be using kparts in GTK apps and bonobo components in KDE. There are cautious steps in that direction. And then there is OpenOffice (check out cukoo) of course and Mozilla and GNUStep... long way to go till everything is perfect. Then it will be the job of distributors like Mandrake & Xandros to give us the perfect desktop linux. Or our job, for those who like to tweak and fiddle with things. I'm looking forward to all this! (and I hope I'll be seeing less and less GNOME (KDE) sucks!!! style flamewars everywhere. Hey, I don't care whether I'm using Rhythmbox (where the file open dialog is still a joke) or Juk (which uses arts for the sound backend and arts sucks _and_ is a joke), I'll settle for either of the two as soon as it'll be perfect
Re:Great, so now we can make GTK apps ugly also (Score:2, Insightful)
No, QT is hard on your eyes. As shocking as it might be, different people have different artistic tastes. Personally I've never seen a GTK theme I didn't think was painful to look at, excluding those based on QT themes, but I'd never say they're hard on the eyes - just because it's obvious many people do like them. Having an opinion on matter which by its very nature is nonobjective does not make it fact.
Re:Widget Mania (Score:5, Insightful)
If that means that some apps won't be completely integrated with my dekstop, I'm fine with that. I'd rather have the choices I have now than be forced to use a desktop environment I don't like.
Re:Unification in the *nix world (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you mistook the OP comment on interoperability between apps written for different window managers to mean cross-platform portability.
The OP didn't claim windows was interoperable in a cross-platform sense. They were pointing out that on Windows, all apps have the same look and feel.
To achieve that result on Linux, across several common UI toolkits and window managers requires interoperability between apps written for the various toolkits.
Re:Accountability Problems (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't claim to know anything about GNOME development, but what do you know about KDE development that makes you think that they are "financially accountable to the closed software model of doing business"? They are not the ones being sponsored by SUN, GNOME is. Their annual budget for the year 2002 was a little over $1800, and for 2003 a little over $7600 - http://dot.kde.org/1072276327/
This does not look like "financial accountability to the closed model of doing business" to me. They have competent developers and newbees, both of which work on the code that they are capable of working on. Most newbees start out working on a small application, because nobody in their right mind would trust a newcomer unfamiliar with the KDE architecture to make changes to its core (does not apply to trivial bug fixes).
And what exactly do you mean by "can't keep their focus like gnome"? Where is that focus now - remove advanced desktop features so that the "simple" users can use it? KDE will find a way to meet the needs of simple users without sacrificing the usability to which advanced users became accustomed, that has been their focus since KDE 3.0, and they are following though with it.
Paul.
NO. (Score:3, Insightful)
I can not do the same thing with QT, it costs 1,200+
Re:Lawsuits by Canopy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Lawsuits by Canopy? (Score:4, Insightful)
Once you start mixing code, you open yourself up to lawsuits. Especially if you are mixing code with the lawuit-happy canopy. Canopy's entire existance is based on these kinds of lawsuits.
Arrgh, why does this awful legend still exist? Canopy owns a very, very small stake in Trolltech, while the employees hold more than 2/3 (IIRC) of the stock.
OTOH, Sun, a major sponsor of Gnome development, has seemingly filled SCO's war chest with a good amount of money (if what is said on groklaw is true), but nobody whines about that.
And, there's still this [urbanlizard.com] if Trolltech might be bought out.
Now, here's a question. Let's say Microsoft is doomed, and Sun, by having enourmous success with some Gnome based desktop offering, replaces them in market dominance. The dangers of this scenario combined with the fact the Gnome is LGPL'd are left as an excercise to the reader.
See, both scenarious are very unlikely, but I see no reason why I should trust Sun more than Trolltech.
KDE vs Gnome, battle of philosophy (Score:3, Insightful)
>"A GNOME spreadsheet you want Miguel? Don't worry. The way things are
>looking, I can hack one out in a few days. We will borrow from X, Y, and Z
>projects since they have most of the functionality we need. It will be a
>matter of fitting them all together."
I find it always funny that KDE supporters always list re-use of existing libraries as a big minus point of Gnome, as if it is a bad thing to re-use and adopt none-Gnome supporting libraries,
It is my vision that this is one of the great strengths of Gnome. In Gnome the supporting libraries are almost never Gnome dependent they often use already existing libraries or help to modify them too their needs, without Gnome-ifying them. When they create a new one for use in Gnome they tend too make it as generic as possible, With this sort of philosophy you create functionality that is easily adopted by other projects or was already in use or planned to get used. Things like Cairo (X-server), Fontconfig, ATK, etc. This is exactly why this functionality is popping up everywhere in open-source land. Which makes the KDE supporters scream that Gnome is taking everything over. This isn't true, but Gnome by using the above philosophy, doesn't alienate itself from other Linux/*nix projects in stark contrast too KDE. Gnome is not only about building a great desktop, it is about building modular desktop technology that can be used and reused by more projects then Gnome only, which make Gnome more cooperative too other projects then KDE. Look at the way KDE looked at Open-Office, They trashed everything about it and Koffice (or anything which was KDE-ified was much better), only now, after Gnome (Ximian) has showed the way by starting to make Open-Office better merge able into other widget sets they realize what opportunities Open-Office has too offer, but don't expect any thank you for the groundwork Ximian has done, making the integration as generic as possible so that a qt variant is also possible. No they will scream and whine till the end that Gnome is about adopting and Gnome-ifying, while little somebody else can use is coming from the KDE community (it is all of the KDE or die, look at Red-hat and userLinux how KDE treads other visions).
The question is: Do you want a *nux/Linux community desktop which takes from (Fontconfig, Cairo, librsvg, etc) and gives too (GTK+, Freedesktop.org, Gstreamer, ATK, Pango, etc) other projects (Xfree86, XFCE4, etc) without making everything it touches Gnome or do we want the none-*nix/Linux philosophy of one big API in the form of a win32 clone which alienates everything none C++/QT/KDE bolted on *nux/Linux (KDE). Which is more *nix/Linux one great API for everything or take the tools and merge it too what you need?
I find the KDE community extremely vicious against everything not KDE, The Borg like mentality of adapting everything into the KDE frame-work without keeping it generic alienates it from everything none C++/QT/KDE, but especially the whining they do that libraries that Gnome uses are also used in other important projects is something that keeps amazing me. It is the KDE community that uses embrace and KDE-ify it as there mantra! They turning the reality upside down.
Re:Great, so now we can make GTK apps ugly also (Score:4, Insightful)
Partly a win, partly a problem (Score:5, Insightful)
There's plusses and minuses to this. On one hand, unified theming is a win, no question. But doing so by adding yet another layer of interface could perpetuate the core differences rather than helping unify them. The world is rife with short-term hacks that are still running; it's one of the big contributors to bloatware.
In addition, it's a one-way change. When the author completes his work, Gnome apps can follow KDE themes, but not vice-versa. That's good for KDE, but not particularly good for Gnome.
It also leads to some subtle UI traps. When I run a Gnome app under KDE, it stands out. In one sense that's bad, as it can be visually jarring. In another sense that's good, as I'm visually alerted to expect some different UI rules. If one can't determine which ruleset to follow by a casual glance at the app, it's going to lead to user confusion.
It's also going to dilute the UI guidelines to both KDE and Gnome. Application writers tend to model their UIs on other apps, not from reading the UI guidelines. An app developer running Gnome apps under KDE look (but not feel!) will assume that either the KDE rules are loose or that he should be developing Gnomish features.
I'm not saying the author shouldn't do this; it's a noble goal and (from the responses on the author's posting [kde-look.org]) pretty decent code for an alpha/beta release. But we should hope for and work towards better long-term theme engines.
Re:Thank Goodness (Score:4, Insightful)
<rant> Funny, I'd say the reverse. GNOME icons are colorful, tasteful, and usable. KDE's default icons are so gaudy, garish, and poorly thought out (IMHO) that it's much harder to easily identify them.
Look at the average panel, for example (see this picture [kde.org]). Konsole has a monitor with a seashell - clever, but useless and confusing when you're looking for a terminal emulator. The control center has this weird gear thingy with an indistinct background - are those supposed to be micro-sized widgets? "Home" looks like a doghouse. Konqueror has this sort of half-spiky circle that's supposed to look like a globe, but doesn't. The hard disc icon on the desktop has worms growing out of it. And I have no clue what that smiley thing is supposed to be - it says nothing about it app it represents.
None of those icons makes it easy to find the program at a glance. When you think "control center", do you look for a purple-green-blue gear? Does "web browser" conjure up images of a spiky sphere? What I like about GNOME's icons is that a) they're not all blue, so you can tell them apart, and b) they seem much more intuitive, because they actually bear some resemblance to the thing they represent. </rant>
Why do we still fight GNOME x KDE (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Unification in the *nix world (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope. That is not even close to the reason why they have the marketshare that they have. First of all Mac has a very good unified theme but they have next to nothing in marketshare. If that's not enough to blow a hole in your argument then my next statement will. Third party apps for Windows often use themes that are not anywhere close to the Windows theme. Take Winamp for example.
Windows has their marketshare because of apps, vendor lock in, propietary formats, and a whole bunch of other things that have nothing to do with a unified look and feel.
With that said, I do think this is a step in the right direction. Hopefully one day KDE and Gnome will have unified libraries and a unified interface. I only hope for this so the community doesn't lose one desktop completely in favor of another.
Re:Just a style (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Widget Mania (Score:3, Insightful)
I think hacking the widget set to make it use the drawing routines of the other widget set as much as possible is probably the best solution anybody has come up with yet to make them fit together without having to go through some manual configuration nightmare and cherry pick themes with matching engines on both the Gtk and Qt side. So kudos to this fellow and may his work continue.
Re:Unification in the *nix world (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't really matter which side of the road you drive on. But it damned well would matter if it changed every time you crossed from one city to another.
The fact is that most users don't WANT to choose which windows manager they use. They want to be able to sit down at a machine and have it look and act in the same way they're used to it acting, whether it's their home machine, the machine on their desktop at work or the one at the corner Internet cafe. For power users and geeks, all this choice is a wonderful thing. For average users, it's a pain in the ass.
If we want Linux to move to the desktop (and that's a genuine "if" - it certainly isn't a given that that's necessarily the best future for Linux) but IF we want to move Linux to the desktop, it needs to be standardized. You can leave all the choices there, just as there's actually quite a bit of customization you can do to Windows if you get under the hood, but there needs to be a standard Linux "look and feel" that is a uniform default across distributions.
Re:Just a style (Score:3, Insightful)
The other important things are that all apps should use the native print/file dialog, and all apps should have access to the virtual filesystems within that environment.
Everything required for solid integration between these two (awesome) environments is well under way (from the KDE side at least -- I don't hang about the Gnome forums).
I too very much hope that everyone will learn to get along when this work is finished. Both environments are clearly important since they have so many loyal fans, and integrating would just reduce what is obviously a useful choice. Few zealots at all will admit that it would be nice to have Gnome/Gtk apps work perfectly in KDE, or KDE/Qt apps work perfectly in Gnome. This work will achieve that through a number of intiatives, and we will all benefit in true OSS style. Thankyou Gnome and KDE!
As for Mozilla and OOo, they are both being Gnomified (and possibly KDEified), and so even KDE users will benefit once Gnome apps work better in KDE.
Re:Unification in the *nix world (Score:3, Insightful)
I beg to differ. Choice is, in fact, always a good thing. I'd think you were an MS supporter trolling, except for the fact that you're conversant with terms like "window manager," so it would appear that you're actually a slightly misguided Linux supporter, thus you merit an answer :-)
The reason why choice is always a good thing is that while you may be right that most users don't want to choose (and would almost certainly be right if you modified that to "many users don't want to choose), the fact remains that a significant percentage of us *do* want to choose. That's a major reason why we are using Linux (or *BSD) in the first place: we want to choose.
I'm sure you've noticed that your distribution whichever it is, comes with some set of reasonable defaults. It could be Gnome, it could be KDE, it could even be Fluxbox, IceWM, or something else. If a person using that distro wishes to customize nothing, it will work just fine as-is. However, if another person using it doesn't like any of the defaults and wants to change them all, that is possible and it will still work just fine. This is why choice is always a good thing.
It isn't even necessary that there be a single cross-distro standard, nor is it even desirable. A high degree of integration between KDE and Gnome is desirable, and having all KDE apps adopt the theme of Gnome if you are running under Gnome, or all Gnome and other GTK apps adopt the theme of KDE if you are running under KDE, is certainly a good thing. This doesn't need to (IMO) include any other window managers, since people using those are generally going their own way anyhow, but tight interoperability between Gnome and KDE is clearly a Good Thing.
This would enable developers to write either for Gnome or KDE, knowing that their app will look appropriate on either. As it stands now, though, you can already write for one or the other and your app will still work, all the user needs is libraries for both installed, something most (all?) distros do.
Linux was never meant to be "one size fits all" and not being that way is what has led, in large part, to the great amount of success it has had. I'm a former Red Hat user. I mostly chucked Red Hat after they came out with their "one size fits all" interface, Blue Curve, and the cracked logic behind it: you shouldn't choose Gnome or KDE based on what they look like or how they behave (rough quote of Havoc Pennington, from his explanation of Blue Curve). On the contrary, those are exactly the type of criteria on which people choose, and they are totally reasonable. When they came out with their "one year to EOL" policy, I completely my move to Debian and have never looked back. Indeed, it's so good I should have done it sooner.
Whether or not we want Linux to move to the desktop (and if "desktop" is defined as "the sort of people who really shouldn't even have a computer but are nevertheless dabbling in Linux with distros like Mandrake and Lindows" then the answer is a resounding "no!") - something I used to support very strongly five years ago but have now substantially re-thought, there's no need to make Linux one-size-fits-all. That would kill Linux rather than help it. As for Linux on the desktop, the only argument I really have for it now is that I'd rather see anything other than MS on the desktop, and after Microsoft is will and thoroughly crushed, I can retreat into FreeBSD. It has an installer strong enough to keep away the computer-stupid. Already, the clue level in Linux has fallen so far due to the influx of newbies who are ignorant, want to stay that way, and don't want to learn the Unix Way, that I'm contemplating to jumping ship to BSD this year anyway.
Re:Unification in the *nix world (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Unification in the *nix world (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Just a style (Score:3, Insightful)
I've done Qt programming in the past (no GTK though), and toyed around with Windows GDI, but wxWindows actually seems to make more sense to me - it just seems easier than both of those (that could be because I haven't used Qt or GDI in a bit though).
I disagree on the extra layer of complexity for the programmer though - it's nice to be able to develop your main application using only one toolkit, and have most of the cross-platform issues taken care of for you (there are some limitations, but you plan for these). This is why I was initially attracted to Qt (but stopped using it after looking into wxWindows). I do agree that it is an extra layer of complexity/dependency for the end-user, but that's what pre-compiled binaries with installers are for.
The main thing that I like about wxWindows is that I'm planning for my application to run on many platforms, so it fits the bill perfectly. The application won't look exactly the same on Windows and Linux/UNIX with GTK or Motif, but it will be reasonably close, which is a huge bonus.
-- Joe
Re:Unification in the *nix world (Score:3, Insightful)
How on earth he got modded to +5 for such a ridiculously false statement is a true testament to the level of knowledge of most /. mods these days.
Anyone over the age of 20 who knows anything about the industry should know that that(ie. consistency) is absolutely not the reason for MS's marketshare, and in fact isn't even true, nor has it ever been true.
Re:Unification in the *nix world (Score:3, Insightful)
----------
Are we talking about the same Windows? Where Internet Explorer, Visual Studio, and MS Office all use a different toolkit, and Windows Media Player looks nothing like a regular Windows app?
I'm sitting at a KDE desktop, and the only time I have to use an app with a different toolkit is when transferring songs to my iPod (gtkpod). Of course, to do the same in Windows, I have to add another look-and-feel too, either MusicMatch, EphPod, or iTunes, none of which look like Windows apps!
looks are not the issue... (Score:3, Insightful)
i dont care if my xchat looks like my conqueror as long as i can copy a url from one and paste it in the other:)
oh and there are a lot of people that messes around with the windows looks, litestep or plan 9 anyone? hell you can even run blackbox as your windows desktop:)
Need to go beyond themes (Score:3, Insightful)
I find the KDE open/save dialogs vastly more useful than the GNOME ones, for example.
There are some people who feel the other way.
What is needed is a way to make it so that I always get KDE open/save dialogs, even when using GNOME apps, and so that the GNOME dialog fans always get GNOME dialogs, even when using KDE apps.
Choice is great, but this kind of thing should be the user's choice, and the current system makes it the programmer's choice, indirectly by which toolkit the programmer uses or which desktop environment the programmer writes for.
Re:Gnome is an excercise in egoism (Score:3, Insightful)
Having good enough technology, focus shifts to usability. This is needed to attract new non tech savy users. In this field Gnome has much more to offer than KDE. Anyone with a background in usability who looks at konqueror, the KDE flagship, can see this. While KDE still exels in the number of functions, Gnome makes it simpler to find the functions used by most users. And that is a winning formula.
As there are far more experienced coders than there are usability experts active in the opensource movement, my guess is that Gnome will have a better chance of fixing their technical deficienses, than KDE to fix their usability problems.
And for the record, QT wouldn't have bin free software today if Gnome/Gtk hadn't offered a semi free (LGPL) competing alternative. So I would say that Gnome was founded for all the right reasons.
Still, I will miss KDE if Gnome comes out on top, as Qt is much easier to develop in than Gtk.
I was able to fix bugs in KDE within hours after I first saw the code, while I still have a lot to figure out in Gtk before I get to the same level.
I've read this... (Score:3, Insightful)
GTK: Please QT, draws me a button
QT : Please GTK, draws me a button
GTK: Please QT, draws me a button
QT : Please GTK, draws me a button
GTK: Please QT, draws me a button...
I've read this a couple of times and it still isn't funny.