Qt vs wxWidgets

[scourge]

I'd like to hear some arguments for and against these two toolkits, preferably from developers who have experience with both. I was somewhat happy with wxWidgets, but now I'm wondering if I should switch to Qt. Here are my pros and cons for wxWidgets:

Pros:
- Uses native GUI elements
- Very fast
- Has a solution to just about any cross-platform problem (gui, threads, processes, config files, etc.)
- Uses GTK on Linux, which is optimal for a Gnome user like me
- Free, even to developers of proprietary software

Cons:
- Installing in Windows was pretty hard. It was actually easier to set up a cross-compiling environment in Linux.
- Converting between C strings and wxWidgets' unicode strings
- Creating makefiles and bakefiles is not fun at all


I've experimented with Qt for one weekend, and based on the first impressions and reading the docs:

Pros:
- Easy to install on any platform
- Qmake is very simple to use, no need to edit makefiles manually
- Implicit casting from const char* to unicode, no need for ugly wxT() macros
- Easy separation of gui (.ui files) and code
- Automatically connects signals to slots based on the names
- Qt designer - wxGlade and Anjuta pale in comparison

Cons:
- I'll have to pay to distribute proprietary software
- Doesn't fit seamlessly into the Gnome desktop, not even with Cleanlooks


So far I've been really impressed with the Qt4 + Qt Designer + KDevelop combo. I also do a fair amount of parallel programming, and I have to say that QtConcurrent looks really promising, assuming that there's no significant overhead. But what are your experiences, should I stick with what I know well, or do the switch?

[artoj]

I've developed programs using both toolkits and I prefer Qt all the way. It has much better API including the new concurrency framework that's been included to Qt 4.4, WebKit integration (also in 4.4), better model-view support and better painting support.

And no matter how wxWidgets sells itself as stable framework I have to disagree. wxProcess returning pid of 0 on Mac for newly created processes couple releases ago comes to mind (quess what happens when you try to kill that process).

[scourge]

I noticed that Qt seems to be more mature, consistent and polished, though wxWidgets has also been around for a long time.



I've developed programs using both toolkits and I prefer Qt all the way. It has much better API including the new concurrency framework that's been included to Qt 4.4, WebKit integration (also in 4.4), better model-view support and better painting support.

I probably don't need WebKit integration, but anything that can make parallel/concurrent programming easier is much needed. I did have some problems with double-buffered painting in wxWidgets, especially in Windows.

[Lau_of_DK]

I'd like to hear some arguments for and against these two toolkits, preferably from developers who have experience with both.


I've not developed in wxWidgets so you can disregard this: Qt4 is a very powerful, polished cross-platform framework which makes developing complex programs a breeze. They have full classes for networking like FTP, that run smoothly and safely. So it gets a BIG thumbs up from here :)


/Lau

[Glaxed]

I hate to drag GTK into this, but I have to have your opinion:
Would you guys say that the Qt4 designer is "better" than Glade (as in more features or speed)?

[scourge]

I've not developed in wxWidgets so you can disregard this: Qt4 is a very powerful, polished cross-platform framework which makes developing complex programs a breeze. They have full classes for networking like FTP, that run smoothly and safely. So it gets a BIG thumbs up from here :)


/Lau

Thanks. I think the feature set of the two frameworks are equally impressing. wxWidgets also has the networking stuff you'd expect.



Would you guys say that the Qt4 designer is "better" than Glade (as in more features or speed)?

They have pretty much the same features, but Qt Designer is just a lot easier to use. The controls can be freely positioned anywhere on the form, and when it all looks okay you can define the layout. That's a lot faster than the Glade way of doing the layout first, and then adding controls. You can also configure connections between the controls, like this: http://doc.trolltech.com/4.3/designer-designing-a-component.html#creating-a-form

[tseliot]

I hate to drag GTK into this, but I have to have your opinion:
Would you guys say that the Qt4 designer is "better" than Glade (as in more features or speed)?
I use both of them and they are just different. They have different features. For example Glade-3 has an about dialog widget which is not in QT designer (at least as far as I know). If you want to use the about dialog widget you will have to write code for it (QMessageBox::about). Of course QT designer has other features which Glade lacks.

Using Glade-3 in Python with simplegladeapp is a breeze and so is QT4 designer (in both C++ and Python). I don't know if there is something similar to simplegladeapp in C or C++ though.

My suggestion is to try both of them and then choose the one you feel more comfortable with. However if you choose QT4, especially in C++, you will write code which is different from standard C++. For example have a look at this foreach loop:

foreach (QString sect, m_Sections) {
if (line.trimmed().startsWith("Section")
&& line.toLower().contains(sect.toLower())) {
m_Flag = sect;
m_FirstTime = 1;
m_HasSection = true;
}
}

[irrdev]

I prefer wxWidgets for several reasons.
1. No licensing restrictions to speak of
2. Sockets
3. Community support (over commercial support)

Regarding wxWidgets setup on Windows, I would truly recommend that you try out wxDev-C++ (http://wxdsgn.sourceforge.net/). This IDE autimatically installs the wxWidgets library, and includes its own GUI designer to boot. For a pure form designer, I would also recommend wxFormBuilder (http://wxformbuilder.org/). You may have to get used to the strict layout design, but it results 100% resizable windows and controls.;)

[scourge]

1. No licensing restrictions to speak of

This is the biggest advantage for wxWidgets in my opinion. Right now I only develop GPL software, so Qt is fine. But if I ever want to go proprietary, Qt will cost me an arm and a leg. So I'll definitely keep my wxWidgets skills sharp as well.



Community support (over commercial support)

To be honest, I never even visited the wxWidgets forums. The online documentation was always enough. And the same goes for Qt, very good docs.



Regarding wxWidgets setup on Windows, I would truly recommend that you try out wxDev-C++. This IDE autimatically installs the wxWidgets library, and includes its own GUI designer to boot.

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind in case I ever want to write or compile wxWidgets apps in Windows. Currently I'm cross-compiling with MinGW in Linux.



For a pure form designer, I would also recommend wxFormBuilder. You may have to get used to the strict layout design, but it results 100% resizable windows and controls.

I had heard of wxFormBuilder, but I thought it was commercial or Windows-only. Glad I was wrong. I just tried it, and it's clearly better than wxGlade (I hate having a million little windows floating around). The layout thing is a real bitch though. With Qt Designer I can just drag and drop controls where I want them just like in Visual Studio, and quickly finish the layout so that everything will resize properly.

[Mickeysofine1972]

I use both of them and they are just different. They have different features. For example Glade-3 has an about dialog widget which is not in QT designer (at least as far as I know). If you want to use the about dialog widget you will have to write code for it (QMessageBox::about). Of course QT designer has other features which Glade lacks.

Using Glade-3 in Python with simplegladeapp is a breeze and so is QT4 designer (in both C++ and Python). I don't know if there is something similar to simplegladeapp in C or C++ though.

My suggestion is to try both of them and then choose the one you feel more comfortable with. However if you choose QT4, especially in C++, you will write code which is different from standard C++. For example have a look at this foreach loop:

foreach (QString sect, m_Sections) {
if (line.trimmed().startsWith("Section")
&& line.toLower().contains(sect.toLower())) {
m_Flag = sect;
m_FirstTime = 1;
m_HasSection = true;
}
}

I agree, they are just different and the only think I've found a bit naff is the way wxWidgets looks under vista! But who the hell cares about vista anyway LMAO!

Mike

[emilevr]

Hi there.

I've only recently started playing around with wxWidgets, so don't have a lot of experience yet. From the research I have done though, Code::Blocks (http://www.codeblocks.org/) seems to be a great dev environment to use for doing C++ wxWidgets development.

Code::Blocks itself was developed using wxWidgets, so it is cross-platform and free. So far I am very happy with the feature set. It includes a wxWidget project type and there is a plugin dialog editor called wxSmith which allows you to work with sizers or drop in a panel to freely position controls using a grid, like a basic version of the MSVC6 dialog editor, minus the nice formatting tools etc. The code it generates for your dialog/frame uses a similar mechanism to how MFC in MSVC6 did it, e.g. labeled and managed blocks of code.

As I mentioned I haven't done too much with it yet, but so far it looks great. You might want to have a look.

Take care,
Emile.

[cb951303]

- Doesn't fit seamlessly into the Gnome desktop, not even with Cleanlooks

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=794652

it will in a couple of months :)