Corel Releases Professional Linux Photo Software

[ciplogic]

And this was possible thanks to Qt UI i one of the most difficult part of cross-platform application

Yes and no. Depends how much back-logic is there. Cross-platform desktop applications may be exposed via HTML5 today and the browser bugs may be the most difficult part, or in a similar fashion you may use Java and the UI (Swing) will be easy but the hardest part would be how you access the native libraries.
In fact there are applications that don't have Qt anymore and are still cross platform (like Opera browser), or they use Qt just as a backend (Firefox on KDE, LibreOffice on KDE).
At the end cross-platform may be easy if you draw using a cross platform API from scratch, like Cairo, OpenGL (all using custom UI maybe), Swing, Qt, (ugly) Gtk (on Windows), but if you would pick for example OpenGL, the cross platform may be bug dependent (like Rage game on AMD cards), so cross platform implies much more than it is.
Also cross-platform depends on platform: disk-free devices may be a different cross platform (that may store every data on the cloud, a switching drive like Android applications using the SD card), because are more things to be platform dependent than just the UI toolkit. Writing a think in Java may not work on a Wii or on the WinPhone 7 device, and writing DOS applications may work just cross platform as DOS emulators work on Android too.

[curaga]

Talking about Corel Draw ... I have one guy who *needs* CD X10 in order to operate his plotter, everything legal with dongles etc. But once he tried to open Inkscape-produced SVG in Corel Draw, it failed completely.
So he went like, free hence crappy etc. How was he suprised to find out firefox 9 opens that SVG from Inkscape just fine.
Talk about quality with Corel...

You should be blaming SVG, a standard so crappy no two programs can understand each other's SVG perfectly.

[liam]

You should be blaming SVG, a standard so crappy no two programs can understand each other's SVG perfectly.

Svg is a hideously long standard that no one has yet implemented fully(hence why inkscape targets tinsvg) but the problem here might simply be that the svg was created using the inkscape svg name space and want sent exported to the standard svg namespace. I've seen this happen before is why I'm mentioning it.
Btw, what I'd really like to see is a widely accepted standard binary XML format. That would make svg so much more useful on the web (not to mention hugely speeding up filter operations that work on tons of nodes).

[TheBlackCat]

Btw, what I'd really like to see is a widely accepted standard binary XML format.

I think I am missing something here, since "binary XML format" seems like an oxymoron.

[DeepDayze]

Same here... But don't..

The reality is that the only reason this software runs on Linux is because Corel bought out the company that supported this software under Linux.. None of Corel's other software runs under Linux and to think that Corel will continue to support Linux regardless of how many sales they get on this product could be a big mistake... They might not have the staff or expertise to support this product under Linux, and might not have any plans to hire any since Corel has always been an all-Windows shop. The Linux support is probably just an added perk from the buy-out that they're planning on profiting from as much as possible and then dumping it afterwards..

Windows developers are both CHEAPER in salary and EASIER to find.. That's why Corel dumped Linux a while ago, and I'd expect them to do it again.

Well on the other side of the coin Corel may be wanting to now get their feet wet with Linux again thru purchasing Bibble and retaining Bibble's tech support people that are familiar with Linux. This *hopefully* is the scenario that this turns out to be and if they keep the Linux version of the program as well as keeping it updated then this can become a win for Corel considering their rather checkered past in Linux-land.

PS: I sure hope to see such gems as WordPerfect running on Linux again (even though Corel no longer owns it)

[liam]

I think I am missing something here, since "binary XML format" seems like an oxymoron.

So, you haven't heard of the chm format (I think it is a microsoft format, but it is/was quite a popular textbook format)?
I THINK you are thinking the same thing as my gf, namely, that the point of XML is that it is always, in principle, human readable. She doesn't like the idea of a binary XML format b/c it opens the door to inherently unreadable markup. Well, I think that is why we have standards. Unfortunately, in this area, the different standards agencies are picking different horses (leaving aside Mastroska's EBML as simply niche), so it seems as though this is not going to go anywhere.
Too bad, b/c some of those binary parsers are SO much faster than standard text parsers...

[Aleve Sicofante]

Clueless?

Michael:

I'm surprised by your lack of understanding of what the different graphics tools you mentioned in your article are about.

There's no such thing as "Adobe Photoshop Lightroom". It's either Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Lightroom, two different programs with different goals and purposes. Also, the GIMP has little to do with software like Adobe Lightroom or Corel's AfterShot Pro. The GIMP is a lot like Photoshop.

[TheBlackCat]

I THINK you are thinking the same thing as my gf, namely, that the point of XML is that it is always, in principle, human readable.

Uh, yes, that is one of the explicit goals of the XML standard in the first place. See goal #6 of the standard here:

6. XML documents should be human-legible and reasonably clear.

[Kejk_PL]

Yes and no. Depends how much back-logic is there. Cross-platform desktop applications may be exposed via HTML5 [...]

You are completely right, I was just amazed how Qt simplifies writing cross platform application in C++. I used Qt in my MA thesis, I wrote proof of concept application for Linux, Windows and Symbian. The same code, just recompile. Beside small bugs everything worked quite smoothly. Of course Qt brings some problems, Symbian port was beta-quality and had some issues with threads and input handling, but (form me) it would be impossible to write such application in very limited time.
I know that Qt is not a remedy form every problem, but it really helps in C++ applications, when usage of Java or HTML is not possible. Is not the only solution too. But (IMHO) in this case it's done great job. This application don't use platform dependent features, differences in file and network handling were solved by using Qt. Could be done in another way? Surely, but this way was chosen

[bug77]

Uh, yes, that is one of the explicit goals of the XML standard in the first place. See goal #6 of the standard here:

That may be, but it's not the standard's fault humans can't read binary.