In Road To Qt, Audacious Switches From GTK3 Back To GTK2

[ua=42]

Not reading much about this porting decision but I'm wondering what benefit it could have by going Qt.

Better cross-platform support? Yes, Qt4/5 indeed has better support on Win and OS X. But how many users who may want to use cross-platform audacious over many existing ones native on these platform.

Better Linux support? Porting to Qt4 will lose Wayland support in GTK3+. Qt5, well, has not been widely adopted by Linux distributions. Besides, desktop linux is no longer the focus point of Qt world.

• A stable api. Gnome has been removing stuff they don't use from gtk. They haven't kept api stable either.
• Native look on gnome/kde/lxqt/windows/mac. Doing that will expand their audience greatly. It's also nice to be able to use your favorite media player no matter which os you are currently on. (Allot of people duel boot)
• Qt will support wayland. By the time they finish their port, qt5 will be the default on many linux distro's.

[liam]

Then what should we do? Linux desktop other than GNOME isn't the focus point of GTK3. Should we fork GTK2?

Adopt efl

[deve]

http://redmine.audacious-media-player.org/boards/1/topics/1135

So everything just because of one stupid dialog window???

[emblemparade]

So tired of these hyperbolic statements (and decisions) about Gtk+!

If you just read the forums and angry devs, it would sound as if Gtk+3 is completely unsable, breaks everything on every version, is designed only for GNOME (and tablets?!), while Qt was a perfect frameworks that works everywhere and is a pleasure to use.

The fact is that Qt has its own set of costs: you must use C++ (which not everybody likes), and it uses a very strange C++ preprocessor at that. It also breaks APIs upon every major release (that's the point of major releases, you know). For sure, Gtk+ gives me some headaches, but so does Qt, as does Cocoa, WxWidgets, Swing, MFC, the Android UI, Ext JS, etc.

Let me tell you a secret: the countless widget frameworks out there all offer pretty much the same set of features, and no particular one is that much better than the others.

Gtk+ has some really good things going for it: it is based on C (many of us prefer that over C++, it definitely offers much better debuggabality), but allows to use the Vala/Genie languages (which are great and turn into C code), it has very good cross-language binding support, is forward-looking enough that it supports Wayland and some mobile technologies, and is backed by a big-enough project that you know that it will continue being developed and fixed. I've found that upgrading my apps (written in Genie) from Gtk+2 to Gtk+3 was not so hard at all, as hard as any major revision upgrade.

But, yeah, let the Audacious devs use whatever they like. I'll continue using it because it's a great app.

[psychoticmeow]

A couple of general questions regarding this:

1. Can someone link me to some examples of serious breakage in Gtk? So far it's been talked about but not shown, and as I've never had to experience it myself because I use Gnome it's a bit hard to tell how seriously I should take it.

2. Have any of the larger projects also relying on Gtk attempted to work with the Gtk team, any outcomes?

To me it seems obvious that Gtk will need to break things in order for the Gnome desktop to progress, and I think it's expecting a bit unreasonable for a project that's understaffed to deal with the needs of everybody.

I cannot find any options to replace the monochrome icons in the gtk-file-chooser. They are a glaring mismatch to my custom theme...

Isn't this actually an issue with your custom theme; surely it just needs to symlink the appropriate classic icons to the new symbolic names?

[RealNC]

In a sane world, the library used by applications should not matter at all to end users. The only difference should be in the output of 'ldd'.

Since quite a few projects started switching away from Gtk in the last couple of years, it would seem that Gtk has no interest in that "sane world?"

[Adarion]

I very much welcome a possible switch to Qt as well as switching back to GTK2. Haven't had much reasons for gtk3 besides that something pulled in GTK3 here. Would be less hassle if that changed in the future. I never minded having both GTK and Qt even on my smaller systems. But listening to the screams over recent GTK3, Gnome3 (hard dependencies on systemd anyone?) it seems to be drifting in a bad direction.
Also I noted that quite some projects went away from GTK. As a non-developer I can't really judge that but these people might have a reason for doing so.

[TheBlackCat]

is designed only for GNOME

This one is mostly true. GTK+ devs have said that GTK+ is primarily for apps for the Gnome desktop. Support for anything else, even other Linux desktop environments, is an afterthought.

it uses a very strange C++ preprocessor at that

Which isn't required. It just saves you from having to write all the boilerplate that makes writing new GTK+ widgets such a chore. You can do it by hand if you want. In GTK+ you have to do it by hand, or use an entirely different language.

It also breaks APIs upon every major release (that's the point of major releases, you know).

If that is the "point of major releases", then how is this a complaint about Qt? GTK+ does that to. However, GTK+ they also breaks API in minor releases. Not everything, but some things.

Let me tell you a secret: the countless widget frameworks out there all offer pretty much the same set of features, and no particular one is that much better than the others.

If you want your software to work well on anything other than the Gnome desktop, GTK+ developers have said that GTK+ is not the right toolkit for you. Qt, on the other hand, makes a major effort to work pretty much everywhere. That is a huge difference.

Qt makes it much, much easier to subclass and write new widgets. That is another huge difference.

Qt supports a scenegraph now, and has for a while. GTK+ intends to support it at some point in the future. Again, another big difference.

Yes, they have some things in common, but to claim that they "all offer pretty much the same set of features" is simply false. The very fact that so many projects are switching, and the switch is pretty much entirely one-directional, should tell you that there is something different.

is forward-looking enough that it supports Wayland and some mobile technologies

Qt has supported Wayland for a long time, and supports pretty much all current mobile technologies. Neither of those are advantages of GTK+, and the latter is a major disadvantage and a major reason many projects are switching (they want to release versions on iOs and Android).

[TheBlackCat]

2. Have any of the larger projects also relying on Gtk attempted to work with the Gtk team, any outcomes?

I remember hearing that XFCE tried, but GTK+ devs weren't very interested. I am not certain I am remembering correctly, so don't quote me on that.

[Apopas]

What is the point of another qt based music player? At least Clementine and Amarok should cover all the bases (the former for traditional music playing with all the network features, the latter for music browsing).

Not really. I never liked the itunes style players. The winamp-style interfaces suit me better for listening music.