[albeva]

That's the main idea of wxWidgets - it doesn't have its own GUI backend (wxUniversal really doesn't count) but uses other native frameworks such as win32, cocoa gtk and now QT too. So it will probably look nice and native in say KDE environment.

[andyjohnson0]

I suspect fithisux's point is that Qt is itself a cross-platform library that abstracts the underlying gui.

[masklinn]

And I suspect albeva's point is that Qt is technically cross-platform but practically will look odd on every platform but native. GTK is exactly the same, technically cross-platform but practically a GTK application on Windows or OSX stands out like a sore thumb and behaves weirdly.

[scrollaway]

> but practically will look odd on every platform but native

That's absolute nonsense. First of all there's no "native" platform to Qt because it's cross-platform, and that's taken extremely seriously. Second of all, Qt apps are extremely well integrated on Windows, OSX and Linux alike.

There's tons of examples of commercial Qt apps exactly for that reason. What you say is true only for GTK, not Qt.

Disclaimer: Lead dev/designer of LXQt.

[coldtea]

>Second of all, Qt apps are extremely well integrated on Windows, OSX and Linux alike.

I've never seen a QT app that I couldn't immediately tell apart from a native OS X/Cocoa app -- with the exception of Skype, which still doesn't look 100% native, but at least looks like it has a decent skin.

[dools]

isn't it possible that you've seen qt apps you couldn't tell apart and therefore didn't realise they were built with qt?

[coldtea]

Nope, I follow UI toolkits pretty closely and always try to find a native app for a given task first and foremost. After that QT is the second best option, GTK somewhat worse, and Swing and other monstrocities to be avoided at all costs.

It's not subtle either, these things always stick like sore thumbs -- only exception are some that only use very basic widgets and delegate 90% of the work to native ones (like native file open dialogs etc).

But let's see, if you have any

[scrollaway]

Transmission?

[coldtea]

From their page: "The Mac OS X interface is written in Objective-C and uses Growl notifications and dock badging to keep you informed".

They have different OS X (Cocoa/Obj-C), QT and even GTK implementation of the UI.

[eco]

Qt is great but it's a stretch to say it looks and feels completely native. Open Qt Creator on Windows and tell me it looks or feels anything like a native Windows application.

Qt looks pretty close if you stick to just the essential controls/widgets (text, buttons, text fields). Once you start using other stuff you can definitely tell it isn't a native application. That's not to say Qt isn't good. It's a great toolkit and far, far more complete and featureful than wxWidgets but that's comes as a trade off. The native-backed nature of wxWidgets means you are kind of working with the lowest common denominator a lot of the time which means you don't often get more sophisticated control/widget options. You also have to deal with more bugs between the platforms whereas you rarely have to with Qt.

You have to decide if you want a big, powerful toolkit with commercial backing (and a pretty hefty licensing fee for commercial users) that doesn't quite feel native or a natively-backed toolkit that is less featureful, more buggy, and free.

[scrollaway]

> looks or feels anything like a native Windows application

But compared to what? A ribbon app like MSWord? Photoshop? VS2015? VS200X? They're all radically different and they're all creation-centered apps, so if you tell me Qt Creator doesn't feel native... it feels more native than any of those I cited, all massive commercial successes?

It's like you said... it looks native when you stick to forms and buttons. And honestly, yeah that's fine, because any app that doesn't stick to forms and buttons will want to customize itself far more.

[heinrich5991]

Wikipedia:

>On some platforms (such as MeeGo and KDE) Qt is the native API. Some other portable graphical toolkits have made different design decisions; for example, wxWidgets uses the toolkits of the target platform for its implementations.

As far as I know, it's also true that Qt doesn't try to use native widgets, it instead tries to draw them on its own (resulting in more possibilities of course).

[scrollaway]

KDE is not a platform, it's a desktop environment based on Qt that runs on top of X11 (just like LXQt). So that article is misleading.

[coldtea]

Besides maintaining the eponymous desktop environment, KDE is very much a platform, leveraging Qt, but also offering its own core libs and infrastructure for tons of stuff.

So much so, in fact, that the title of their webpage is: "KDE - The KDE development platform".

I should know, I've been following (and occasionally participating) in the project since 1998.

[witty_username]

Even many of the Windows apps that one might use use Qt, for example VLC.

[babuskov]

Exactly. Running Gimp or Inkscape on OSX is really painful experience at some times. I wish they choose wx instead of GTK.

You usually cannot tell wxWidgets application from any other system one (unless the developer is clueless about platform guidelines like Quit menu item on Mac or such).

[heinrich5991]

"I really wish Gimp wouldn't use GIMP Toolkit."

Gimp created its own toolkit because at the time, Qt didn't have a GPL-compatible license.

[bitwize]

Gtk is now effectively the GNOME Toolkit, and whatever crack they're smoking at the GNOME Foundation is having an effect on Gtk's evolution.

[Zardoz84]

And that toolkit is what We know now as Gimp ToolKit aka GTK

[babuskov]

Looks like I forgot about that little detail :)

[detaro]

Do you have an example of a particularly "odd-looking" Qt app? All the ones that I use and I'm aware of them being Qt look "right".

[jscholes]

They might look right, but they don't behave right with screen readers and other assistive technology tools, or with software designed to programmatically access, automate or test GUI controls. So it's a shame more software projects don't use wx, which for the most part doesn't have those problems.

[vetinari]

QGIS, for example (that's Qt4 app).

While it is a great apps, UI-wise it is exactly as masklinn wrote. It has weirdness-es on all - Windows, OSX and Linux.