Comments for Life of a Developer

Comment on Components Growing by Johan Thelin

Johan Thelin — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 06:04:58 +0000

@Vladimir I know that BB10 is the “odd bird” in this setting, and I know that I’m not intimately familiar with the platform. I guess the tradeoffs made at RIM give a better platform in some sense, while it is not a pure QtQuick solution.

As for who should the driving the unification, I believe that it is in Digia’s interest. However, as Qt is an open source platform run by the Qt Project, I believe that all users of Qt are jointly responsible for this in some sense. This implies that if RIM believes that it can gain from such a unification, e.g. get more apps for the platform, RIM can drive such a unification as well. The same goes for all the other parties: Canonical, Jolla, Mer, KDE, and so on.

Personally, I can see where this would be hard to realize. Language limitations in QML, as well as fundamental differences between the platforms are factors that can play a part in this. Still, I do believe that the cross platform abilities is one, of not *the*, core value of Qt. Providing something similar to the classic widgets, i.e. a set of components that can be hinted to behave correctly on all platforms (my definition of hint: a setting that only applies where applicable). It would still require validation on each platform, and probably tweaks, but it would provide a method for tweaking, and also a method for providing a tweakable API.

Comment on Components Growing by Vladimir Minenko

Vladimir Minenko — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 16:42:19 +0000

Good point on defining some base level of compatibility. I additionally would suggest some enhancements in the content to avoid confusions in the general public. QML is just a language. Most people use Qt Quick on top of it. BlackBerry 10 provides the Cascades framework running on top of QML and is not using Qt Quick. Cascades include high-level UI components, like Buttons (not available in Qt Quick) and some other items and elements comparable to those in Qt Quick. The fact that Qt Quick provides only low-level primitives is the key motivation for many parties in different industries for starting own developments. I’m very sure the actual list is much longer those you mention. Those you mention just express their intends in public and so get cited. Digia as a new owner of Qt should drive any upcoming unification works and additionally improve Qt documentation and terminology (e.g. what is the actual difference between “item” and “element”) to avoid confusions.

Comment on Update on Work by Jeremiah

Jeremiah — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 08:54:47 +0000

Nice post Johan!

For more Pelagicore at CES, click here: http://pelagicore.com/news-ces-2013.html

Hopefully we’ll have more pictures and we’ll get Johan to write us a nice summary of CES.

Comment on Update on Work by Johan Thelin

Johan Thelin — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 04:29:09 +0000

You are right, Qt isn’t made by Digia, but Digia is a major contributor to Qt.

Comment on Update on Work by Àlex Fiestas

Àlex Fiestas — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 22:26:08 +0000

Qt isn’t make by Digia but by qt-project.

Comment on Components Growing by sebsauer

sebsauer — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 14:45:23 +0000

@Nejc

An user-interface can be a complex thing. You can go with pure QML and then t all works fine on any platform. Using SystemPalette also platform coloring works in most cases but for proper pkatform-integration, like Ubuntu’s styling concept or just hoe a TextInput looks like, you need to write one UI per platform or have basic elements like Button, CheckBox and TextInput that wrap to the platform components.

As Qt-developer I am lazy. I am used to recompile and be fine. It would be great to reach the same level including proper platform integration with minimum additional work or code on my side means in my apps. Just a QML-API I can use and Qt does then handle all the platform-integration, styling and stuff for me. I just not like to need to care about that. QWidget’s like :)

Comment on Components Growing by Nejc Pintar

Nejc Pintar — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 23:39:02 +0000

I’m not that feared of fragmented API space, because if you have done your homework (you’ve written your business logic in C++), creating an interface on top should be as easy as pie. Initiatives to standardize this are welcome, but I doubt it and I’d be already very happy if I could reuse the business logic throughout different platforms. Thinking Qt is already running on MeeGo, Symbian, Android, Sailfish, Ubuntu, Windows, OS X, Desktop linux and will soon run on iOS makes me a happy developer!

Comment on Components Growing by Johan Thelin

Johan Thelin — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 18:20:41 +0000

GB, Kevin, thanks for point out these missing properties/signals!

Comment on Components Growing by Kevin Krammer

Kevin Krammer — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 11:11:11 +0000

on the “enabled” property: I think all of them have it. On BB10 it is inherited from bb:cascasdes:Control, on anything using QtQuick1 (e.g. Plasma) it is inherited from QGraphicsObject, on anything using QtQuick2 it is inherited from QQuickItem

Comment on Components Growing by GB

GB — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 22:45:39 +0000

I think the “PressAndHold” Feature is also available at Harmattan. All in all your idea is great, it’s nice to build your own QML Components on the other side it would be very nice for porting apps, to have the same “API” for all components. I think also ListView’s should be the same, because they are very often used. Also TextField/TextInput elements! :)