Hi fellow Qt users,
spread across various comment threads at the Qt developer forum, Qt Labs blogs,
and Qt mailing lists, there has recently been quite a bit of discussion over
the scope and priorities of Qt Quick, and whether or not Nokia's (and the other
Qt contributor's) roadmap, focus and design choices align with the needs and
preferences of the majority of Qt users.
So I thought it might be interesting for everyone to get an overview over where
exactly Qt users as a whole (or at least those who are active in Qt's online
communities) would prefer Qt Quick 2.x to go (or not go) in the near- or
mid-term future.
So there is now a corresponding poll (link at the bottom of this mail) hosted
at the Qt Developer forum. Completely unofficial, but still worthwhile I think.
The pollquestion is:
Qt 5.0 (which is already in feature-frozen alpha stage) introduces the new
scene-graph based Qt Quick 2.0 framework. While the foundations are there, and
for many use-cases
(mobile apps, certain types of games, …) it is already deemed a vastly
superior way of creating UI’s, it is definitely not yet ready for
replacing the Qt Widget framework everywhere.
Considering that only finite development resources are available, which
potential improvement/add-on for Qt Quick 2.x should – in your opinion – have
the highest priority for Qt 5.1 and 5.2?
The choices are:
* Desktop Components
A comprehensive set of Qt Quick UI elements with native look & feel on all
supported desktop platforms.
Note:There is currently a lab project for this.
* Generic Theming Support
A way to easily create themeable components, similar to what QStyle make
possible for QWidget subclasses.
* Binary QML
Support for translating QML into a corresponding binary data structure at
compile time (rather than letting the Qt Quick engine do it during application
start-up), for IPR protection and reduced application start-up time.
* Expanded C++ Component API
Support for extending existing Qt Quick components, and more convenience for
implementing new ones, in C++.
Note:Qt Quick 2.0 doesalready allow C++ developers to create custom components
by subclassing QQuickItem or QQuickPaintedItem. However, the built-in
components (like Rectangle, etc.) are not exposed to C++ and hence cannot be
extended/re-used, and also some users feel that in general more C++ convenience
API could be provided.
* Full C++ API (should have been better named: "Dedicated C++ Front-end
API")
First-class support for instantiating Qt Quick elements and populating the Qt
Quick scene graph directly from C++, without using any QML – potentially
allowing C++11 lambdas (or a custom signal/slot based
solution) instead of JavaScript expressions for property bindings.
Note: Qt Quick 2.0 does alreadyprovide some C++ API for manually populating the
scene graph through QSGNode, QSGGeometry, QSGMaterial, etc. However, some
things - like instantiating built-in components - is not possible without
passing around at least small snippets of QML, and no clean C++-only
alternative is provided for property bindings (one of the things that make Qt
Quick so powerful), and altogether some users feel that the existing C++
scene-graph API should be either expanded, or complemented by a different
one(e.g. declarative, but still native C++) to make it a "first-class citizen"
alternative to the QML "front-end" for Qt Quick.
* Optional V8 Dependency
Support for building & deploying Qt Quick without the V8 engine for
applications which don’t need any of the JavaScript-depending features.
* Graphics View Component
A Qt Quick component providing similar massive-data-visualization functionality
as the QWidget-based QGraphicsView (including things like BSP tree indexing of
items, collision detection, ...)
* some other improvement/add-on (please specify in the poll's comment
section)
* nothing – I’m happy with what Qt Quick 2.0 (to be shipped with Qt
5.0) provides.
* nothing – I don’t like Qt Quick altogether, I’d like to see more
resources put into improving other parts of Qt.
Other things which have been requested before in various places, but which I
missed at the time when I created the poll(if applicable to you, select "some
other improvement/add-on" in the poll and specify by leaving a comment):
* Sandboxed Mode
Ability to safely run QML files from non-trusted sources, e.g. for using Qt
Quick as a Powerpoint replacement.
Note:For an idea of what QML makes possible for "presentation" use-cases, see
this labs project.
* Better Model/View Support
More convenience for creating QML views for complex custom data models
implemented in C++.
* probably more...
Link to the poll:
http://qt-project.org/forums/viewthread/16693/
Best regards
Davet Jacques_______________________________________________
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