Hello all!

Im a programmer that has been blinded by Windows ever since I was on computers. I have recently jumped over to Mandrake 9 and am interesting in programming on the linux platform. I know C++ very well, however... I was looking for someplace to start in Linux for GUI programming.

I have read posts about Glade, Qt, OpenGL and maybe even some others... I have heard of them and my problem is that I dont know what role they play. I am familiar with Windows API and was wondering if someone could draw a relation to that to make it clearer? What exactly is Glade and Qt and how do they work? Are they just seperate APIs for GUI programming or are they made for different purposes? Is it like MFC for Windows? There are many more questions, but until I understand the basics, I will save those

Im sure lucky I found this forum


Thanks for any and all input!

Will

Qt and GTK are toolkits (like MFC, probably). Qt is C++ based, when GTK is rather for C (but can ne used with C++). Both Qt and GTK are "over" plain X (you can program in plain Xlib if you wish, but that's harder).

Glade and Qt Designer are tools to design GUI apps. They're graphical and allow you to "draw" windows and so on. Plus they generate code you can include in your program. They're well documented, so you can try hem reading tutorials. Glade is for GTK, Qt Designer is for Qt (that was easy to guess).

Edit: Qt and GTK functionality is similar (well...) to MFC, but the way they work is different. Just try one of them, read basic tutorial and you'll know what I mean.

PS I may be wrong, I'm not a Windows programmer.

So is there any advantage to using Qt over GTK or vise-versa? Im very knowledgeable in C++, so should I stick with Qt? Ive seen alot of applications that require GTK.

Thanks for your input Mara. Do you have any recommendations for basic tutorials?

If you are a fan of Win32, go for XLib - torture leads to the ultimate acension

I'm kind of in the same situation. I pretty much know Windows programming inside and out, and am now learning some X programming.

What I've learnd so far is that Xlib is fairly comparable to the Win32 API. But, despite the similarities, there are still enough differences in how things are done to make things challenging. Many of the other libraries seem to provide a higher level abstraction layer to Xlib, the same way MFC, .Net forums, etc. provide a higher level abstraction layer to the Win32 API.

I haven't looked at anything other than Xlib and Xt yet, but I'm guessing that much like learning the Win32 API gives you insight into how MFC et. al. work underneath, learning Xlib would give you insight into how all the higher level libraries for X work underneath.

You can also program in C++ for gtk+. You have to use the C++ wrapper classes, gtkmm, for this

Thank you all for your input.

I think I will take a look at straight Xlib first. Depending on how that goes, I will probably go towards Qt.

I never liked MFC, and found the Win32API was much easier in windows... perhaps the same will be true in linux

Thanks again to all!!

I saw an MFC program drawing a window and something inside and it was loooooong. In Qt/GTK it's much easier (and shorter). So comparing MFC and Qt/GTK is probably not the best idea.

Mara

I agree. MFC code is so over bloated its not funny. I will read both Qt and Xlib tutorials, but probably focus on Qt. Seems like the way to go

http://www.ac3.edu.au/SGI_Developer/...b_PG/sgi_html/
id say thats the best xlib tutorial (for some reason theres not much tutorials with exaples, either an explanation, or just the plain functions with no info on how they work

as for GTK vs QT, id take GTK only cuse the apps i like are made for it, but its realy up to you
and if your planing to make any programs with user interfaces then defidently go with a toolkit as that will handle most of the hard stuff for you in dealing with the X windowing system

I would suggest you look into QT, it's a very clean and powerful toolkit (KDE is built on it) and more than just a GUI library. Check the homepage at www.trolltech.com, the online documentation is very extensive!

I do notice that a great deal of apps I use, the requirements always make mention to GTK... I dont see too many apps based on Qt (at least they dont specify it). Is there any particular reason for this? What are some apps that require Qt?

It's mostly programmmer's personal preference. Many apps require Qt, I think that the ratio is equal.

Xlib is a great way to learn about the bowels of X11, but take heed, it is for the true mashochist at heart. It is more accurate to compare Xlib with just the Win32 GDI and window messaging API. You're going to have a much harder time writing Xlib code than Win32. No functions for doing dialog boxes, menus, advanced controls etc.

and forget those nifty resource files. Much harder here. But hey, it is well worth it.