[Skencil-devel] Future Skencil 2, GUI framework? (Re: Revitalising Skencil)

[Bernhard Reiter]

Am Sonntag, 21. November 2010 13:39:04 schrieb Igor Novikov as reply to 
Bernhard:
> >> Qt has better support on windows32api than GTK as far as I know.
> >
> > Concerning Qt way I think you are right. I have took a look on current
> > pyqt and found
> > that it seems the binding is more powerful than pygtk.

There is also a new binding called http://www.pyside.org/
The difference is one in licence (PyQt ist GNU GPL and there is a company with 
a proprietary business model behind it. PySide is GNU LGPL)
and I would guess that PySide will have better support for new platforms,
e.g. MeeGo and Touch interfaces, e.g. QtMobility.
Today there is a lot of support behind Qt, 
especially on the graphics side of things.

> > At least this issue should be tested on
> > sample application under linux, win32/64 an macosx platforms. If we will
> > choice Qt way we should skip cairo and use QPainter renderer. 
> > As a final result we could get application with OpenGL
> > renderer (QGLWidget). The mostly interested issue is a macosx version,
> > because pygtk and cairo have a bad support for this platform.

> After some deliberation, we concluded that it makes sense to support
> bothGtk and Qt versions.

Thanks for considering and taking the time to look at Qt at all.

> Gtk port is an easy way as for sK1 and for Skencil, because GtkDrawingArea
> is closer to Skencil Canvas and adopted for sK1 Cairo renderer. 
> Also Gtk application is more preferable
> for Ubuntu. According to sK1 download statistics Ubuntu packages are most
> popular, ~50 times more than packages for other distros.

> But Qt application is better for windows and macosx due to excellent qt4
> system integration. Unfortunately qt porting requires to rewrite renderer
> completely not UI elements only. To avoid development freeze like
> for Skencil 0.7 branch, we are going to port sK1 on Gtk widgetset and after
> that start Qt porting. 
> I think the same pattern is suitable for Skencil also. 

In general I agree, and the people that do the code get to decide anyway. :)

> Skencil UI is simple so dual widgetset UI support will not
> be a complex task. Of course this way is more complex for custom
> extensions, because authors should support both versions.

I guess that for extension the complexity could be wrappen and thus hidden a 
bit. In the long run I think one version should be prefered to avoid this 
kind of fragmentation. 

Best,
Bernhard

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