Re: [dev] Qt as a valid replacement for VCL
Le samedi 17 janvier 2009 22:21:18 Thorsten Behrens, vous avez écrit : Éric Bischoff wrote: Recoding for qt, gtk, win32, and Cocoa is a serious duplication of efforts. If the purpose for having an abstract layer and porting on so many APIs is PORTABILITY to many operating systems, then this duplication of efforts becomes useless, because Qt is already very portable. If the reason for this effort is strategic INDEPENDANCY towards one library provider, then yes it makes a lot of sense to have abstraction layers in the middle. Hi Thorsten, definitely the latter, not in the sense of mistrust against the provider, but knowing the fundamental law that only one thing is constant - that things are changing. (...) Yes, that's why I said that the strategic independancy made a lot of sense. And btw, qt and vcl are actually quite similar in their core design, and thus share the same weaknesses, conceptually - they don't use native widgets, but only native look (which is noticeable even today, if you look closely, and is surely not becoming less of a problem, c.f. Apple's deprecation plans...). Yes, I presented Qt as a replacement for VCL because they really work on the same level. There's a huge difference between VCL and Qt though: while Qt is company- supported and has a huge user base, VCL is developed and maintained by OpenOffice.org only. Replacing VCL with Qt would have been a way to externalize maintenance efforts. And it's not only VCL that has to be maintained, but also all the platform-specific plugins (Windows, Cocoa, etc.) (...) -- Writing about music is like dancing about architecture -- Elvis Costello - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.org
Re: [dev] Qt as a valid replacement for VCL
Thorsten Behrens wrote: Éric Bischoff wrote: Nokia recently relicensed the Qt library under a triple license : GPL, LGPL, and commercial. Qt is cute, modern, C++, easy to program with, and multiplatform. Wouldn't it be the ideal replacement for VCL, now that LGPL is an option? Hi Eric, why are you following up to my (unrelated) lib unloading mail?! Anyway, besides concerns others have voiced regarding text layout accessibility, changing the underlying toolkit of OOo in the way it is proposed here is the most far-reaching change to the code base I can conceive of, short of changing the implementation language from c++ to managed c++ or somesuch. So that's nothing we should do on a whim - quite the contrary, we should never ever again bind ourselves against the implementation of one specific toolkit, but rather code against an abstract interface. i fully agree but not with the current toolkit that is more or less a pour rip-off of VCL in may areas. Not easy to use and of course a lot of things are missing. If we would move forward in this direction i would strongly recommend an incompatible change and redesign of the toolkit or a complete new one. First and foremost should we make use of the UNO ease of use features, means multiple inheritance, service constructor etc. to make it more comfortable and easier to use. It will be probably always a little bit more overhead or not so comfortable than using a toolkit XY directly. But as Thorsten mentioned we will have a clear abstraction and no dependencies on one specific toolkit. That was and still is the main design idea of the toolkit. However it was addressed and implemented in the past. Along that lines, see the work that's happening around dialog auto-layouting and the awt toolkit (http://marketing.openoffice.org/ooocon2008/programme/friday_1470.pdf) we need the layouter, we need it, we need it ... When will it be really usable? Juergen Of course, having qt then provide _one_ implementation of that toolkit interface is quite the plan (as having a gtk, Win32 Cocoa one). And the license change definitely helps there. Cheers, -- Thorsten - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.org
Re: [dev] Qt as a valid replacement for VCL
Juergen Schmidt wrote: Along that lines, see the work that's happening around dialog auto-layouting and the awt toolkit (http://marketing.openoffice.org/ooocon2008/programme/friday_1470.pdf) we need the layouter, we need it, we need it ... When will it be really usable? Hi Juergen, oh, it's quite usable - though the general answer to that question is of course the usual when it's done, which will be a lot earlier with more people working on that. ;) For more details, and for arbitration of volunteers, Janneke is the one in the know, and on Cc. -- Thorsten - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.org
Re: [dev] Qt as a valid replacement for VCL
Éric Bischoff wrote: Recoding for qt, gtk, win32, and Cocoa is a serious duplication of efforts. If the purpose for having an abstract layer and porting on so many APIs is PORTABILITY to many operating systems, then this duplication of efforts becomes useless, because Qt is already very portable. If the reason for this effort is strategic INDEPENDANCY towards one library provider, then yes it makes a lot of sense to have abstraction layers in the middle. Hi Eric, definitely the latter, not in the sense of mistrust against the provider, but knowing the fundamental law that only one thing is constant - that things are changing. Quite as Qt appears like a good choice today, vcl's design appeared as a good choice back when the decision was made. And btw, qt and vcl are actually quite similar in their core design, and thus share the same weaknesses, conceptually - they don't use native widgets, but only native look (which is noticeable even today, if you look closely, and is surely not becoming less of a problem, c.f. Apple's deprecation plans...). In this light, I guess wxWidgets would even be the better choice iff we'd want to port against one specific implementation. Cheers, -- Thorsten - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.org
Re: [dev] Qt as a valid replacement for VCL
Hello Eric :-) Happy new year btw :-) Le 16 janv. 09 à 16:01, Éric Bischoff a écrit : Hi everyone, Nokia recently relicensed the Qt library under a triple license : GPL, LGPL, and commercial. Wow, LGPL ? awesome :) Qt is cute, modern, C++, easy to program with, and multiplatform. Wouldn't it be the ideal replacement for VCL, now that LGPL is an option? I don't know the API, but I got several questions : - I know the Linux/ Mac side could be ok, but how does it work on windows ? - vcl has a lot of deep roots in OOo, land this will be a long and difficult task to change. Ref: http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/121695 Thanks for the link, I'll read :) Kind regards, Eric -- qɔᴉɹə
Re: [dev] Qt as a valid replacement for VCL
Le vendredi 16 janvier 2009 16:08:40 eric b, vous avez écrit : I don't know the API, but I got several questions : The API is really a programmer's relief. Simple, straightforward, clean. - I know the Linux/ Mac side could be ok, but how does it work on windows ? Short answer: very well. BTW, one of the advantages of such a change would be that all widgets would have the native look and feel of the platform. - vcl has a lot of deep roots in OOo, land this will be a long and difficult task to change. Yes. But it's been years that VCL replacement is discussed, now OOo has an opportunity to delegate the graphical lowest layers to a rock-solid, C++, toolbox. There's of course the intermediary solution to have a VCL-Qt driver (vclplug) that would do the job in the intermediary phase. -- Writing about music is like dancing about architecture -- Elvis Costello - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.org
Re: [dev] Qt as a valid replacement for VCL
When reading the announcement, I also though that Qt would be a valid option now :) The reason that I didn't post it here was that I didn't want to discuss it when nobody would work on a VCL replacement now. Sun Team in Hamburg not working on it of course doesn't mean that not somebody else could do, but: I think it's reasonable to wait what the project renaissances (http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Renaissance) will bring us. If the outcome of that project is that almost all UI would be created from scratch, than changing the toolkit is not so much (extra) work compared to just switching to a new toolkit. And just for clarification: Qt could be something for the _widget_ part of VCL. Exchanging the output device part of VCL probably wouldn't be very reasonable, because a lot of magic for CTL, RTL, Font stuff, meta file recording etc. is built in there. At least it would be a (very) big additional chunk of work. Malte. Éric Bischoff wrote, On 01/16/09 16:31: Le vendredi 16 janvier 2009 16:08:40 eric b, vous avez écrit : I don't know the API, but I got several questions : The API is really a programmer's relief. Simple, straightforward, clean. - I know the Linux/ Mac side could be ok, but how does it work on windows ? Short answer: very well. BTW, one of the advantages of such a change would be that all widgets would have the native look and feel of the platform. - vcl has a lot of deep roots in OOo, land this will be a long and difficult task to change. Yes. But it's been years that VCL replacement is discussed, now OOo has an opportunity to delegate the graphical lowest layers to a rock-solid, C++, toolbox. There's of course the intermediary solution to have a VCL-Qt driver (vclplug) that would do the job in the intermediary phase. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.org
Re: [dev] Qt as a valid replacement for VCL
On Fri, 2009-01-16 at 16:01 +0100, Éric Bischoff wrote: Qt is cute, modern, C++, easy to program with, and multiplatform. Wouldn't it be the ideal replacement for VCL, now that LGPL is an option? No flames please. Are you volunteering to do the work? Hub - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.org
Re: [dev] Qt as a valid replacement for VCL
Le vendredi 16 janvier 2009 16:48:53 Hubert Figuiere, vous avez écrit : On Fri, 2009-01-16 at 16:01 +0100, Éric Bischoff wrote: Qt is cute, modern, C++, easy to program with, and multiplatform. Wouldn't it be the ideal replacement for VCL, now that LGPL is an option? No flames please. Are you volunteering to do the work? Not the whole work, but to be part of it, yes. Of course, there's no need to rush into finding human task force if there is not a consensus on this huge change and without a discussion on the how (see Malte's remarks about project Renaissance and about the limited extent to the widgets). -- Writing about music is like dancing about architecture -- Elvis Costello - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.org
Re: [dev] Qt as a valid replacement for VCL
Hello Éric, On Friday 16 January 2009, 13:31, Éric Bischoff wrote: Le vendredi 16 janvier 2009 16:08:40 eric b, vous avez écrit : I don't know the API, but I got several questions : The API is really a programmer's relief. Simple, straightforward, clean. - I know the Linux/ Mac side could be ok, but how does it work on windows ? Short answer: very well. BTW, one of the advantages of such a change would be that all widgets would have the native look and feel of the platform. - vcl has a lot of deep roots in OOo, land this will be a long and difficult task to change. Yes. But it's been years that VCL replacement is discussed, now OOo has an opportunity to delegate the graphical lowest layers to a rock-solid, C++, toolbox. my favorite Desktop env. (and I see also yours ;-) ) is built on top of Qt. OOo could learn a lot about the high programability KDE gives to its API clients, this way people is happy to code and contribute (just browsing http://www.kde-apps.org and http://www.kde-look.org shows how OOo extensions is far behind in external developers interest). [not to mention how is easy is to start withh the CMake based build system they implemented vs. OOo build system. Vid. http://aseigo.blogspot.com/2009/01/building-community-around-your-foss.html http://www.purinchu.net/wp/2009/01/14/things/ ] Sure this will be a lot of work, but Qt is very popular, this could bring new air and new developers to OOo (not to mention the dream to bring Nokia support [they are contributing a lot already in KDE... so why not dreaming!]) Good links in http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/3829 [enthusiasm is funny: http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/3831 ] Regards -- Ariel Constenla-Haile La Plata, Argentina Aus der Kriegsschule des Lebens - Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich härter. Nietzsche Götzendämmerung, Sprüche und Pfeile, 8. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.org
Re: [dev] Qt as a valid replacement for VCL
An other thing that just came to my mind: Accessibility implications on different platforms have to be considered There is much work in progress with ATK and switching to D-BUS, so that non-gnome environments can use ATK. That will take some time. And I am also not sure about the status of Qt's IAccessible2 implementation on Windows - which then would also mean that all OOo UAA implementations would need to be bridged to IA2 then, instead of to Java Accessibility APIs. Without Accessibility issues solved/solvable, every toolkit change is a no-go. Malte. Malte Timmermann wrote, On 01/16/09 16:44: When reading the announcement, I also though that Qt would be a valid option now :) The reason that I didn't post it here was that I didn't want to discuss it when nobody would work on a VCL replacement now. Sun Team in Hamburg not working on it of course doesn't mean that not somebody else could do, but: I think it's reasonable to wait what the project renaissances (http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Renaissance) will bring us. If the outcome of that project is that almost all UI would be created from scratch, than changing the toolkit is not so much (extra) work compared to just switching to a new toolkit. And just for clarification: Qt could be something for the _widget_ part of VCL. Exchanging the output device part of VCL probably wouldn't be very reasonable, because a lot of magic for CTL, RTL, Font stuff, meta file recording etc. is built in there. At least it would be a (very) big additional chunk of work. Malte. Éric Bischoff wrote, On 01/16/09 16:31: Le vendredi 16 janvier 2009 16:08:40 eric b, vous avez écrit : I don't know the API, but I got several questions : The API is really a programmer's relief. Simple, straightforward, clean. - I know the Linux/ Mac side could be ok, but how does it work on windows ? Short answer: very well. BTW, one of the advantages of such a change would be that all widgets would have the native look and feel of the platform. - vcl has a lot of deep roots in OOo, land this will be a long and difficult task to change. Yes. But it's been years that VCL replacement is discussed, now OOo has an opportunity to delegate the graphical lowest layers to a rock-solid, C++, toolbox. There's of course the intermediary solution to have a VCL-Qt driver (vclplug) that would do the job in the intermediary phase. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.org
Re: [dev] Qt as a valid replacement for VCL
Éric Bischoff wrote: Nokia recently relicensed the Qt library under a triple license : GPL, LGPL, and commercial. Qt is cute, modern, C++, easy to program with, and multiplatform. Wouldn't it be the ideal replacement for VCL, now that LGPL is an option? Hi Eric, why are you following up to my (unrelated) lib unloading mail?! Anyway, besides concerns others have voiced regarding text layout accessibility, changing the underlying toolkit of OOo in the way it is proposed here is the most far-reaching change to the code base I can conceive of, short of changing the implementation language from c++ to managed c++ or somesuch. So that's nothing we should do on a whim - quite the contrary, we should never ever again bind ourselves against the implementation of one specific toolkit, but rather code against an abstract interface. Along that lines, see the work that's happening around dialog auto-layouting and the awt toolkit (http://marketing.openoffice.org/ooocon2008/programme/friday_1470.pdf) Of course, having qt then provide _one_ implementation of that toolkit interface is quite the plan (as having a gtk, Win32 Cocoa one). And the license change definitely helps there. Cheers, -- Thorsten - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.org
Re: [dev] Qt as a valid replacement for VCL
Both Qt and OOo have Java bindings. OOo allows writing extensions and Qt allows building UI using Java. Looks like the two are made for each other from a Java developer's standpoint. Exposing Qt as the standard UI toolkit for OOo should encourage 3rd party developers to extend the functionality of OOo. Some of those extensions could eventually become part of the core OOo distribution. Today's UNO APIs are a total mess. So this may be a chance to finally fix the community problems as well. Just my 2 cents. Yegor On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 2:47 PM, Thorsten Behrens t...@openoffice.org wrote: Éric Bischoff wrote: Nokia recently relicensed the Qt library under a triple license : GPL, LGPL, and commercial. Qt is cute, modern, C++, easy to program with, and multiplatform. Wouldn't it be the ideal replacement for VCL, now that LGPL is an option? Hi Eric, why are you following up to my (unrelated) lib unloading mail?! Anyway, besides concerns others have voiced regarding text layout accessibility, changing the underlying toolkit of OOo in the way it is proposed here is the most far-reaching change to the code base I can conceive of, short of changing the implementation language from c++ to managed c++ or somesuch. So that's nothing we should do on a whim - quite the contrary, we should never ever again bind ourselves against the implementation of one specific toolkit, but rather code against an abstract interface. Along that lines, see the work that's happening around dialog auto-layouting and the awt toolkit (http://marketing.openoffice.org/ooocon2008/programme/friday_1470.pdf) Of course, having qt then provide _one_ implementation of that toolkit interface is quite the plan (as having a gtk, Win32 Cocoa one). And the license change definitely helps there. Cheers, -- Thorsten - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@openoffice.org
