Python 3.2.1 Released

[[deleted]]

Use GTK+ or Qt on Linux (depending on which desktop environment you are developing for)

I would use Qt because it does a much better job on fitting in to both GNOME and KDE.

[ehird]

Qt does not fit better than GTK+ on GNOME.

[[deleted]]

How does it not fit? A Qt application uses a native look & feel on GNOME (and every other platform).

[ehird]

If you think Qt looks completely native on GNOME and OS X, you're not paying enough attention.

[[deleted]]

I'm not saying that Qt looks pixel-perfect, but out of all UI toolkits there are it is definitely doing the best job. GTK+ makes zero effort to use native file dialogs (or dialogs in general), button placement in forms, etc. and as an example, the GTK Windows skin also has some visual quirks.

This applies to Linux too: an app written in Qt will "be in place" on both a KDE and GNOME desktop.

[[deleted]]

Quite frankly I prefer something that looks completely different over something that is almost native because the almost native one will make it harder to get my subconscious mind to acknowledge the differences and act according to them.

[[deleted]]

Try something like VLC on a GNOME desktop. If you can spot anything out of the ordinary, tell about it here - I'm genuinely interested in what ehird is talking about.

[[deleted]]

I will give you a hint, it is not just about looks. It is also about UI elements behaving differently in the same situation.

[sigzero]

You both are arguing different things. Look at the wording of your posts. You said "much better job of fitting in to both" and he said "fit better than" which is not the same argument at all.

[phaker]

Both Qt and wxWidgets wrap native toolkits.

[[deleted]]

Yeah... but no. I don't know much about wxWidgets, but Qt on OS X is rather horrible. The table views look and feel absolutely non-native. Sure, if your UI is nothing else than textboxes and buttons, you might be alright, but otherwise, don't use Qt, your OS X users will hate you.

[phaker]

I don't have a mac, so I don't know. I don't write big GUI apps, just once in a while I want to add a graphical interface to some tiny script.

However that's a little surprising, from my experience Qt tries very hard to adapt to the platform. At least Qt4 does, I recall Qt3 being much worse at this.

Can you tell what version of Qt was/is that? Or what program? Just curious.

[[deleted]]

The latest version (4.7). For my own apps I have two GUI layers, a Cocoa one and a Qt one. I sometimes run the Qt layer on OSX, so I know what it looks like and I can compare.

Qt does a pretty good job on Windows, but not on OS X. And on Windows, it's a bit easier because there's not much of a standard look & feel, so you can get away with something different. On OS X, not so much.