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by saucerful 5303 days ago
> Consider the myriad of UIs which run on X, many of which aren't compatible with one another

If you are referring to window toolkits, they are all compatible in the sense that you can run different ones side-by-side. If you are referring to window managers, you only need one. If you are referring to a consistent look, the two major ones (GTK and Qt) each have themes which render their widgets in the other toolkit (GTK-Qt and QGtkStyle, respectively). I can vouch for GTK-Qt. It works.
3 comments
jebblue 5303 days ago
Totally agree, UI's do not need to be overseen by an overlord of design. I can right now start up a KDE app or a Gnome app and they happily co-exist. Try to pull of something like that on oh Windows, Mac or Android. At least I don't think I've ever seen anything like that on those OS's.
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xtracto 5303 days ago
The problem I see with open source applications (on the GUI level, for *BSD and Linux families) is that of interaction between apps.

Something as obvious as copying and pasting between applications is still broken in these systems mainly due to the lack of a standard, or for the small standards that exist, few applications follow them.

I think that one of several issues, but it is the one that I find more obvious.

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jodrellblank 5303 days ago
Something like running a Win32 app, a .Net Winforms app, a Java app and wxPython app concurrently?
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jebblue 5302 days ago
Good points. Even Gtk apps now that you jog my memory.
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wmf 5303 days ago
OS X had Cocoa, Carbon/QuickDraw, Classic, and X11. It's great for compatibility but not so much for consistency.
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SeanLuke 5303 days ago
> If you are referring to window toolkits, they are all compatible in the sense that you can run different ones side-by-side.

So what? I can run X Windows on my Mac using Apple's X app. That doesn't mean they're compatible with one another. I can't drag-and-drop between them. I can't transfer font or color preferences between them. I can't even properly cut and paste between them.

As it turns out, this is, amazingly, also the case for widget toolkits on X -- on the same windowing system!. There are major toolkits which are missing interoperability. Drag and drop is particularly bad. But in some cases even cut and paste is an issue.

> If you are referring to a consistent look, the two major ones (GTK and Qt) each have themes which render their widgets in the other toolkit (GTK-Qt and QGtkStyle, respectively).

Ah, the plaintive cry of the X person who still thinks that graphical interfaces are skins. So 1985, thanks for the memories.

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wmf 5303 days ago
The different toolkits are not visually compatible (I realize many people don't care, especially when the alternative is to do without), and in some cases they're not conceptually compatible (e.g. how do I paste here?).
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saucerful 5303 days ago
The themes I mentioned makes them visually compatible. Note that there is no fiddling, the widgets are actually rendered using the other toolkit so your Qt application inherits all of the colors and styles of your GTK settings. Of course the toolkits are not isomorphic so there will be some differences, but I've never noticed anything...

And throughout all of X, selecting text with the mouse is "copy" and the middle button is "paste." Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V have also always worked in my experience.

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