Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 5:09 PM, Kate Alhola kate.alh...@nokia.com wrote: Because there has been lot of discussion about these some widgets that do not yet have 1 to 1 counterpart in current Maemo Qt, we are going to have solution this question soon. To return a bit to this old discussion - it would be nice if the Qt apps written for Fremantle would look identical in Diablo - i.e. implement it so that they would use fremantle style in Diablo. I don't think people care as much about retaining a consistent feel, as they do about having stuff they can comfortably use with their fingers. Also, N810 is much cheaper than N900 (I imagine there will be a big second hand device market few months from now ;-), which makes it more appealing for some developers as development target. -- Ville M. Vainio http://tinyurl.com/vainio ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
On Wednesday 23 September 2009 12:26:01 Ville M. Vainio wrote: it would be nice if the Qt apps written for Fremantle would look identical in Diablo - i.e. implement it so that they would use fremantle style in Diablo. I don't think people care as much about retaining a consistent feel, as they do about having stuff they can comfortably use with their fingers. If this was just about button/dialog styling, it would be relatively easy, but there are differences that would make this a very awkward thing. While I understand the request from a pragmatic user standpoint, I can't really support it considering the cons (inconsistency, more work, potentially breaking existing apps and having things that simply won't work right in a Diablo context). ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 1:49 PM, Attila Csipa ma...@csipa.in.rs wrote: it would be nice if the Qt apps written for Fremantle would look identical in Diablo - i.e. implement it so that they would use fremantle style in Diablo. I don't think people care as much about retaining a consistent feel, as they do about having stuff they can comfortably use with their fingers. If this was just about button/dialog styling, it would be relatively easy, but there are differences that would make this a very awkward thing. While I understand the request from a pragmatic user standpoint, I can't really support it considering the cons (inconsistency, more work, potentially breaking existing apps and having things that simply won't work right in a Diablo context). I think it would end up being less work (for the developers), and would make those now-dated Diablo devices much more useful (without switching to Mer). The twist here is that you can use the same codebase for both Diablo and Fremantle, and expect the app to work the same. Provided that Nokia chooses to support Qt-apps-made-in-fremantle-style in Harmattan as well, so much the better. It will create more work for those that already made Diablo Qt apps (they would have to retest tweak their app, but in the end they would have a better app), but how many are those anyway? After using both Diablo and Fremantle ui's, the Diablo one will quickly feel like a strait jacket... -- Ville M. Vainio http://tinyurl.com/vainio ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
On Wednesday 23 September 2009 13:10:43 you wrote: switching to Mer). The twist here is that you can use the same codebase for both Diablo and Fremantle, and expect the app to work the same. Yes, I understand that, it's just there area few things that are not applicable or different on Diablo. For example, fullscreen/windowed mode is hard to accomodate for automatically because of the lack of the left toolbar and functional differences in the top one. Also, many of the UI concepts that make Fremantle are simply not available on Diablo - even simple ones like background blurring to make dialogs stand out more can cause confusion (will existing Diablo users realize they need to click outside of the dialogs to close them ?), etc. None of these will make you app useless, of course, but they will suffer both visually and usability-wise. And please do not underestimate UI consistency, for average users it's a lot more important than for most people on the -dev list :) ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
ext Attila Csipa wrote: On Wednesday 23 September 2009 12:26:01 Ville M. Vainio wrote: it would be nice if the Qt apps written for Fremantle would look identical in Diablo - i.e. implement it so that they would use fremantle style in Diablo. I don't think people care as much about retaining a consistent feel, as they do about having stuff they can comfortably use with their fingers. If this was just about button/dialog styling, it would be relatively easy, but there are differences that would make this a very awkward thing. While I understand the request from a pragmatic user standpoint, I can't really support it considering the cons (inconsistency, more work, potentially breaking existing apps and having things that simply won't work right in a Diablo context). The Diablo port is separate older branch. Answer to this question depends a lot of what your application is doing. HildonAppMenu, Stacked Windows etc are not implemented in Diablo port. If you just talk about vanilla application, it just takes your GTK+ Style and renders widgets using that style. Using new special features needs to some change to your code and because there are not equivalent counterparts in Diablo, this limits some amount portability but this is exactly same with GTK. If you just port Diablo QT application to Fremantle it works but it looks a like Diablo application with Fremantle styles. Kate ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 2:35 PM, Kate Alhola kate.alh...@nokia.com wrote: If you just talk about vanilla application, it just takes your GTK+ Style and renders widgets using that style. Using new special features needs to some change to your code and because there are not equivalent counterparts in Diablo, this limits some amount portability but this is exactly same with GTK. If you just port Diablo QT application to Fremantle it works but it looks a like Diablo application with Fremantle styles. Alright, so the bottom line is that we can't get the Fremantle look-and-feel on Diablo w/ Qt, as it would require providing the Fremantle Gtk style on Diablo as well. Shame... -- Ville M. Vainio http://tinyurl.com/vainio ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
ext Ville M. Vainio wrote: On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 2:35 PM, Kate Alhola kate.alh...@nokia.com wrote: If you just talk about vanilla application, it just takes your GTK+ Style and renders widgets using that style. Using new special features needs to some change to your code and because there are not equivalent counterparts in Diablo, this limits some amount portability but this is exactly same with GTK. If you just port Diablo QT application to Fremantle it works but it looks a like Diablo application with Fremantle styles. Alright, so the bottom line is that we can't get the Fremantle look-and-feel on Diablo w/ Qt, as it would require providing the Fremantle Gtk style on Diablo as well. Shame... The problem is that many Fremantle stuff is special features of window manager. Dialogs are closed by clicking outside of dialog, not cancel button. Stacked windows needs also window manager support. Some features like AppMenus etc could be back ported to Diablo version. Kate ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
Hi! ext Alberto Garcia wrote: Nokia has already announced that they're switching from Gtk to Qt in Harmattan (which has been a confusing move for many users and developers), but I don't know if they plan to keep the same basic widgets and UI style that has been designed for Fremantle or not. If the plan is to keep more or less the same UI style I'd expect a decent, community-supported, release of Gtk/Hildon for Harmattan. We will start talking about the Harmattan UI plans in the Maemo Summit, with plenty of time to discuss and develop before any Harmattan final release gets in the hands of the users. The Maemo Summit is a also a good place to start discussing the future of Hildon/GTK+ in the hands of the community. We want to see what is the community interest and how can we help getting this community support in the Harmattan time frame. What about a BOF in the Maemo Summit? I have seen several developers registered that are familiar with GTK+ and Hildon and even upstream maintainers. Some of them are currently working in Fremantle, and will probably keep working during the maintenance period. There are also Nokia developers registered that are working on the Harmattan UI framework based on Qt, the Qt developers themselves... I bet that you could share a room for one hour and get some ideas started, then dinner, beers and a draft plan. :) Our aim is to pull Qt to Fremantle to offer a beta path to get developers into Harmattan, and also offer a continuity path for those developers preferring to push their software based on GTK+ forward. It can be done. So... who submits the proposal for the BOF in the maemo Summit? -- Quim Gil open source advocate Maemo Devices @ Nokia ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
ext Alberto Garcia wrote: On Mon, Sep 07, 2009 at 08:17:01PM +0200, Attila Csipa wrote: This sounds to me like saying coding for Fremantle is a one-shot affair - you have these specially designed widgets, which are there only on Fremantle and who knows what their future will be That's a very reasonable concern, and one that is shared by many people, including me. Nokia has already announced that they're switching from Gtk to Qt in Harmattan (which has been a confusing move for many users and developers), but I don't know if they plan to keep the same basic widgets and UI style that has been designed for Fremantle or not. If the plan is to keep more or less the same UI style I'd expect a decent, community-supported, release of Gtk/Hildon for Harmattan. If the plan is to redesign the UI all over again then God only knows what's going to happen... :-) One-shot ? Was Diablo also one-shot ? Next version is coming and we have already released direction where we are going in Harmatan. Don't expect Harmatan being just Fremantle rewrite with Qt. Nokia is not stopping making new innovations. This market area is where you need to run fast just keep your position. Other option is stop and die. We will release Harmatan software alphas. betas and pre-releases a lot before actual device goes out, there will be lot of time to adapt with coming new features. There is pro's and con's for releasing early versions. When we do so, it always raises questions about things not yet released. Remember that when we are doing early releases, everything is not ready to release, everything is not even written or code is in so early stage than fundamental changes may happen etc. Of course we could also keep all Harmatan top secret, don't even tell that it exists and ten just some day tell that there is product, go shop an buy it and by the way, it is now Qt based, rewrite your apps or write your own GTK+ port for it. I don't promise that if you write application with Fremantle-Qt that it will be without modifications Harmatan UI compatible. I rather say that some work will be needed but when you have all structure already Qt it is much, much easier to do. * Telling people that it's completely reasonable to write Fremantle apps in Qt without making clear that some fundamental Fremantle widgets have not been written yet it not a good idea IMHO. Sigh, I said I won't comment on this, but... I'm not sure what's the developer's alternative. Since I don't know Nokia's plans for Harmattan, I'm afraid I can't help you much more. It's not that I like the current state of confusion much either, I'm just trying to explain how I see things now and I think that it's up to each developer to decide what to do, but evaluating things first. Many will think that it's OK for them to write applications in Qt, even if they don't have the complete set of Hildon widgets available right now, because that's the future of Maemo. Others will prefer, at least for now, to stick to Gtk/Hildon, which has been much more thoroughly tested in Fremantle, and is the one officially supported and guaranteed to be consistent with the rest of the platform. Always, freedom of choice leaves some space of confusion between choices. Let's simplify: If you have already GTK+/Hildon application, fastest and easiest way is to get it for N900 is continue using Hildon. It is clear that N900 will be most successful maemo device so you will have a lot of users for your software. There is no reason rewrite existing GTK+ program with Qt for N900 . If you are writting a new application and you like to make your upgrade path to Harmatan as easy as possible or if you would like make your application cross platform also to other Nokia platforms, then yuo should consider Qt as number one option. I also understand that there is many GTK or Qt lovers ones that would write their application with GTK+ or with Qt any case because it is their personal choice and that is their right. My opinion? Well, right now Maemo is Fremantle. Harmattan will come in the future but we don't know when. The N900 has been released two years after the N810 so it wouldn't be unreasonable to think that the next device can take two more years. It's quite a lot of time to wait to see what's going to happen. The N900 hasn't even reached the stores yet but what we've seen so far suggests that this is going to be much more successful than any previous Maemo device. So I _personally_ don't think I'm going to worry _that much_ about Harmattan right now. In the end it depends a lot on the application developers' skills and long-term plans for their software. I 100% agree with this one. No reason to hesitate, we have greatest device Nokia ever made and it is open, use Qt or use Hildon what ever feels best to you. Kate And these are my 2 cents. Berto ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
On Tue, Sep 08, 2009 at 11:24:05AM +0300, Quim Gil wrote: What about a BOF in the Maemo Summit? I have seen several developers registered that are familiar with GTK+ and Hildon and even upstream maintainers. That's a good idea, I'll talk to the rest of the Hildon team to submit a proposal. Berto ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
2009/9/8 Alberto Garcia agar...@igalia.com: On Tue, Sep 08, 2009 at 11:24:05AM +0300, Quim Gil wrote: What about a BOF in the Maemo Summit? I have seen several developers registered that are familiar with GTK+ and Hildon and even upstream maintainers. That's a good idea, I'll talk to the rest of the Hildon team to submit a proposal. Berto This BOF would be really interesting indeed... -- anidel Sent from London, Eng, United Kingdom ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
On Tuesday 08 September 2009 12:02:40 Kate Alhola wrote: One-shot ? Was Diablo also one-shot ? Next version is coming and we have already released direction where we are going in Harmatan. Since I used the term first, I must clarify/expand/reiterate a bit. Except for a few minor points, I very much liked the way the Qt team was implementing Diablo UI elements and procedures in their port, as they really allowed to make something look and feel Diablo-ish with minimal effort and without turning existing code upside-down internally (I daresay in some aspects even easier than hildonizing some GTK+ apps). Kudos for that. I understand a lot of widgets, dialogs and generally UI action can, and will change in Fremantle and even more so in Harmattan. However, for me, as an independent developer, it would be of tremendous help if this can be achieved in a similar fashion like the hildonization of Qt on Diablo, and not by introducing ever more complex version-specific UI elements/procedures that might require the re-thinking of the whole UI just for that particular release (if you rely on widget signals and slots, that can be very-very painful). ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
On Tuesday 08 September 2009 12:50:09 Aniello Del Sorbo wrote: This BOF would be really interesting indeed... As long as it doesn't get to be a Jerry Springer style event... :) ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
karoliina.t.salmi...@nokia.com wrote: If you have custom widgets in every program on a system, users will find it harder to use. They will not know what to expect when they tap on a widget they never saw before... that's the point of having guidelines. Please read my sentences above. I meant about replicating the functionality of the widget done with other technology with another and ending up with exactly the same user experience. It is possible and the guidelines can be followed to create the new widgets. There is nothing that prevents that, it is just some additional work required for the developer as there are hildon widgets lacking from the selection of widgets on the Qt side. Agreed. I've asked Antontio to start a project so we can create a set of hildon-widgets. What would be good would be some collaboration on creating a prioritised list and documenting the required behaviour. http://wiki.maemo.org/Qt4_Hildon#Where_are_the_Hildon_Widgets_for_Qt http://wiki.maemo.org/Qt4_Hildon/Qt_Hildon_Widgets If you compare the kinetic scroll list on the startup wizard to the kinetic scroll list elsewhere, you may find that it functions the same way, despite that is Clutter and elsewhere it is Gtk. Similarly I am sure it can be done also with the Qt in the same way, so that as end user you can't see the difference (except that on different toolkits there may be slight performance differences, e.g. pure clutter can be obviously faster than Gtk and similarly the performance may differ on the Qt version to direction or another depending on the case). It just requires accurate tuning for all the parameters to get the scroll behavior exactly the same and snip What comes to the kinetic scroll list, it has certain little details that are important, otherwise it will feel different (and not right): - edge bounce - easing on edge bounce (the movement decelerates before it stops instead of stopping mechanically) - friction - inertia - scrolling speed (comes from the physics of the friction, inertia, and the initial speed given by the finger) - finger following - item selection sensitivity from touch - item deselection sensitivity from following movement - stoppable movement (despite of high inertia, stopped finger stops the movement immediately) To get these right, it really requires trying out on the device how it feels. When doing the startup wizard we found that some sensitivities (e.g. selection sensitivity) need to be a bit different when operated on mouse than when operated on finger on the device. I (and others) wrote the Qt fingerscroll that we have (had?) in experimental. All those factors are parameters. It also works on any scroll-based widget 'for free' and allows highlighting and drag'n'drop. I completely agree that it needs tuning on the device... sadly I don't have one... but if someone wants to send me one... Once the list is perfected, all the other widgets are easily composited from these lists and other widgets. So it is a good idea to start from making a list on Qt to function exactly like it functions on the Hildon. I've asked Antontio to start a project so we can create a set of hildon-widgets. IIRC we also need to do dbus integration too. David -- Don't worry, you'll be fine; I saw it work in a cartoon once... ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
Hi there, Analizing the hildon widget that people want to have in Qt, I can say that: There are hildon/ized widgets that will be part of Qt itself and Qt hildon widgets that will come from a different lib (not implemented yet). Some essential widgets like Hildon stackable windows and Maemo5 menus will be part of Qt GUI module. They have been already coded and the code is in our git repository. Qt is able to use Hildon Native dialogs (eg: File dialogs). We can support others Hildon dialogs just adding a couple of lines in the style. The rest of hildon widgets that won't be part of Qt itself and they will be part of another project that me, David and maybe other people interested in can do togheter. Ciao, Antonio On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 11:06 AM, David Greaves da...@dgreaves.com wrote: karoliina.t.salmi...@nokia.com wrote: If you have custom widgets in every program on a system, users will find it harder to use. They will not know what to expect when they tap on a widget they never saw before... that's the point of having guidelines. Please read my sentences above. I meant about replicating the functionality of the widget done with other technology with another and ending up with exactly the same user experience. It is possible and the guidelines can be followed to create the new widgets. There is nothing that prevents that, it is just some additional work required for the developer as there are hildon widgets lacking from the selection of widgets on the Qt side. Agreed. I've asked Antontio to start a project so we can create a set of hildon-widgets. What would be good would be some collaboration on creating a prioritised list and documenting the required behaviour. http://wiki.maemo.org/Qt4_Hildon#Where_are_the_Hildon_Widgets_for_Qt http://wiki.maemo.org/Qt4_Hildon/Qt_Hildon_Widgets If you compare the kinetic scroll list on the startup wizard to the kinetic scroll list elsewhere, you may find that it functions the same way, despite that is Clutter and elsewhere it is Gtk. Similarly I am sure it can be done also with the Qt in the same way, so that as end user you can't see the difference (except that on different toolkits there may be slight performance differences, e.g. pure clutter can be obviously faster than Gtk and similarly the performance may differ on the Qt version to direction or another depending on the case). It just requires accurate tuning for all the parameters to get the scroll behavior exactly the same and snip What comes to the kinetic scroll list, it has certain little details that are important, otherwise it will feel different (and not right): - edge bounce - easing on edge bounce (the movement decelerates before it stops instead of stopping mechanically) - friction - inertia - scrolling speed (comes from the physics of the friction, inertia, and the initial speed given by the finger) - finger following - item selection sensitivity from touch - item deselection sensitivity from following movement - stoppable movement (despite of high inertia, stopped finger stops the movement immediately) To get these right, it really requires trying out on the device how it feels. When doing the startup wizard we found that some sensitivities (e.g. selection sensitivity) need to be a bit different when operated on mouse than when operated on finger on the device. I (and others) wrote the Qt fingerscroll that we have (had?) in experimental. All those factors are parameters. It also works on any scroll-based widget 'for free' and allows highlighting and drag'n'drop. I completely agree that it needs tuning on the device... sadly I don't have one... but if someone wants to send me one... Once the list is perfected, all the other widgets are easily composited from these lists and other widgets. So it is a good idea to start from making a list on Qt to function exactly like it functions on the Hildon. I've asked Antontio to start a project so we can create a set of hildon-widgets. IIRC we also need to do dbus integration too. David -- Don't worry, you'll be fine; I saw it work in a cartoon once... ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers -- Mike Ditka http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/mike_ditka.html - If God had wanted man to play soccer, he wouldn't have given us arms. ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
From: karoliina.t.salmi...@nokia.com These things are easier in some toolkits and harder in some others. To my knowledge, Gtk was not really designed for handheld touch user interface with kinetic scroll etc. on mind in the first place - it is a rather a desktop toolkit with the rather traditional mindset - and some of hard core hacking obviously was required to make it function like it functions on the Maemo 5. That is a great achievement and I have watched that with awe and lots of respect to the developers who have made it. I can now enjoy it every day with my N900, lists etc. work as they should and they make this UI very desirable. For any reason all the times that Qt advantages were mentioned, they always talk about the kinetic scroll support as the big advantage. Right now hildon has kinetic support, as a new container general container was added, HildonPannableArea [1]. In the same way this Hard core hacking is more than debatable. Yes, the current gtk used on maemo 5 has some maemo-specific changes (hardcode hacks?) but this are just to support some different requirements here, and maintained in a different branch in order to not interfere with the normal upstream work on gtk. But most of this changes are being constantly integrated on upstream. On the other hand, it was a lot easier to start the same from scratch on Startup wizard with Clutter because there was not the incompatible way of thinking as a barrier between the desired functionality and what is already there because there was nothing there already, just start from grass root level from atomic blocks (start by building a custom ClutterActor) and then figure out how to stack Actors and how to animated them to get e.g. a kinetic scroll list done. As there was no base widget, there was no limitations of the base widget and no associated problems, just putting some lego blocks together and it was done. With some adjustable parameters and then fine tuning the feel with these parameters, it was actually quite efficient to do it. So you are suggesting that starting from almost scratch, with basically a base widget support, *in general*, is better that start with a toolkit with a lot of tools, because you have the control of all that you want to do, and you can avoid the constraints of the toolkit? In this case, why use gtk or Qt or Clutter? You can use directly OpenGL and make your app. After all, the N900 has EGL support. I believe Qt can be in the same position pretty much, if the widget is started from scratch rather basing it on some existing widget which has similar limitations than the equivalent in the Gtk. Qt is more like Gtk + Clutter combined rather than being equivalent of the Gtk alone. Kate said there is some kinetic scroll list already there in the Qt, but I don't know how its parameters match to the Hildon/Gtk version we have on the Maemo 5, but I think that with some work it can be done to function 100% equally, as it works equally on startup wizard despite it is a completely separate implementation with a completely different kind of technology behind it. And despite of that, it still just works, perfectly. ... I believe you (or anybody else) are very welcome to pixel perfect and fine tune the list performances of the Qt equivalent widgets if someone creates the missing few hildon widget Qt equivalents. But that was the question from the beginning in this thread. Please read the previous comments. Most of the developers were concerned because there are some Hildon-Gtk widgets, that provides a specific functionality, but they doesn't exist on Qt. The question was if the official Qt-Nokia support has the intention to develop this widgets, in order to made easier have the same lookrfeel, or if they are supposed to be created by the apps developers. And few is not exactly the adjetive I would use. [1] https://git.maemo.org/projects/hildon/?p=hildon;a=blob;f=hildon/hildon-pannable-area.h;h=51690e5f12b0b49b4144787652d13f41b18e05b3;hb=HEAD === API (apinhe...@igalia.com) ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
On Sun, Sep 06, 2009 at 07:14:22PM +0200, karoliina.t.salmi...@nokia.com wrote: if you want to have the exact same user experience as the preinstalled Maemo 5 applications have (as seen in all youtube videos and the SDK), then you have much easier time and faster development with the gtk-based hildon widgets in Maemo 5. I would caution against too easily dismissing Hildon Pickers as trivial composites that app developers can implement. [...] The combobox in Linux desktops is pretty much a subset of the hildon pickers (in terms of funtionality, not directly in terms of actual UI elements). So if pickers would be trivial, then why would there be a need to provide a combobox in the standard toolkit? These things are easier in some toolkits and harder in some others. To my knowledge, Gtk was not really designed for handheld touch user interface with kinetic scroll etc. on mind in the first place - it is a rather a desktop toolkit with the rather traditional mindset - and some of hard core hacking obviously was required to make it function like it functions on the Maemo 5. From a technological point of view, the new widgets in Hildon are completely traditional and they are based on standard Gtk+ widgets. Of course they are designed to be used on a small, touch screen device, but what this means in terms of implementation is that we avoided using interactions, components and sizes that were too small or too difficult to be used with fingers in a screen like that of the N900. We haven't found any particular limitation in Gtk+ that made this more difficult. Example: HildonAppMenu is basically a window with two groups of buttons. There's nothing strange or unexpected here, and certainly nothing that Gtk+ was not designed to cope with. The work here was about getting the semantics, layout, sizes, alignments, API, etc right, not about fighting with any design limitation in Gtk+. And the same thing applies to all other Hildon widgets. The importance and the goal of Hildon is to provide a set of essential widgets so a) app developers don't have to waste their time in writing them themselves b) there is UI consistency between all applications If there are no Qt equivalents for all Hildon widgets, none of these two problems are solved, no matter how easy it is for developers to write their own widgets or how compact the code is. Berto ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
RE: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
Hi -Original Message- From: maemo-developers-boun...@maemo.org [mailto:maemo-developers-boun...@maemo.org] On Behalf Of ext Alejandro Garcia Castro Sent: 07 September, 2009 13:19 To: Andrea Grandi Cc: maemo-developers@maemo.org Subject: Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt? On Fri, Sep 04, 2009 at 07:48:15PM +0200, Andrea Grandi wrote: Hi, 2009/9/4 kate.alh...@nokia.com: If some of these composite widgets are so big problem, we can collect these examples as widget library. composed widget are not a problem for ObjectOriented-people :D I guess in that case you should ask Orbit team about those 50 mobile user experience widgets they are implementing over Qt ;): # A new Orbit extension library for Qt, which contains more than 50 widgets tailored for mobile user experience, and which will provide a replacement for the existing Avkon widget set. [1] http://www.nokiamobiletalk.com/2009/07/direct-ui-by-nokia-maybe -coming-soon/ Please also note this mentioned avkon and other things they are saying they would be doing there have very little if nothing to do with Maemo. It is a completely different environment solving a different set of problems. The widget set in S60 is quite different from the Maemo 5. You can easily see that if you compare a S60 phone with N900. Maemo has been and is going to different direction, so I think you can't use that in any valid comparison. Best Regards, Karoliina ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
ext Alejandro Garcia Castro wrote: On Fri, Sep 04, 2009 at 07:48:15PM +0200, Andrea Grandi wrote: Hi, 2009/9/4 kate.alh...@nokia.com: If some of these composite widgets are so big problem, we can collect these examples as widget library. composed widget are not a problem for ObjectOriented-people :D I guess in that case you should ask Orbit team about those 50 mobile user experience widgets they are implementing over Qt ;): Orbit is completely different thing, implement 50 new mobile widgets than just building some composite widget equivalent of Hildon widgets using existing hildonized Qt widgets. Kate # A new “Orbit” extension library for Qt, which contains more than 50 widgets tailored for mobile user experience, and which will provide a replacement for the existing “Avkon” widget set. [1] http://www.nokiamobiletalk.com/2009/07/direct-ui-by-nokia-maybe-coming-soon/ ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 15:09, Kate Alholakate.alh...@nokia.com wrote: Same thing to Qt, it is not limitation of Qt. App menus looks exactly same rendered with Qt than rendered with GTK. It just uses exactly same style for elements. And this is one of the things which is being asked for! Can you post a simple example (and screenshot) of a Qt program which looks like a normal Maemo 5 app? What's the Qt AppMenu API? Does Qt do more work on behalf of the user (for good or ill) in terms of rotation support? etc. etc. Cheers, Andrew -- Andrew Flegg -- mailto:and...@bleb.org | http://www.bleb.org/ Maemo Community Council chair ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
RE: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
Hi, On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 15:09, Kate Alholakate.alh...@nokia.com wrote: Same thing to Qt, it is not limitation of Qt. App menus looks exactly same rendered with Qt than rendered with GTK. It just uses exactly same style for elements. And this is one of the things which is being asked for! Can you post a simple example (and screenshot) of a Qt program which looks like a normal Maemo 5 app? Off the record: I was just visiting Kate's and Antonio's office and saw application menu demo. Looks nice and works both in landscape and portrait, is themed with the same graphics and looks just like a Maemo 5 Hildon Gtk app. It is coming together nicely. Best Regards, Karoliina ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
Hi Andrew, Qt AppMenu API is quite simple, but you don' need it at all. It's just for Qt internal use. To have Maemo5 menus in Qt you don't have to code (at least you can.. but using Qt Designer is better:P) Those menus are filled with the QActions available in the QMainWindows. Basically this the standard way to create menus in Qt (except you don't have to put QActions with menus). QMainWindow will take care of creating and showing the Actions as items of the Qt Maemo5 menu. I've picture in portrait and landscape mode of it.. I'll publish them ASA I've the permission. HildonStackableWindowhttps://git.maemo.org/projects/hildon/gitweb?p=hildon;a=blob;f=hildon/hildon-stackable-window.h;hb=HEADare supported by Qt as well. I implemented them in QMainWindows because it is convenient (they supports the menu). To put them in your app you have to create a QMainWindows parent of another QMainWindow, You don't need nothing more. About the Rotation support..it can be enabled with ONE line. But I'll talk more about it next episode! :P Cheers, Antonio On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 5:16 PM, Andrew Flegg and...@bleb.org wrote: On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 15:09, Kate Alholakate.alh...@nokia.com wrote: Same thing to Qt, it is not limitation of Qt. App menus looks exactly same rendered with Qt than rendered with GTK. It just uses exactly same style for elements. And this is one of the things which is being asked for! Can you post a simple example (and screenshot) of a Qt program which looks like a normal Maemo 5 app? What's the Qt AppMenu API? Does Qt do more work on behalf of the user (for good or ill) in terms of rotation support? etc. etc. Cheers, Andrew -- Andrew Flegg -- mailto:and...@bleb.org | http://www.bleb.org/ Maemo Community Council chair ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers -- Joan Crawfordhttp://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/joan_crawford.html - I, Joan Crawford, I believe in the dollar. Everything I earn, I spend. ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
On Mon, Sep 07, 2009 at 05:09:25PM +0300, Kate Alhola wrote: The importance and the goal of Hildon is to provide a set of essential widgets so a) app developers don't have to waste their time in writing them themselves b) there is UI consistency between all applications If there are no Qt equivalents for all Hildon widgets, none of these two problems are solved, no matter how easy it is for developers to write their own widgets or how compact the code is. If you think that if there is not 1 to 1 equivalent for everything, there is nothing. No, I haven't said that. What I say is: * The Fremantle UI style depends heavily on a set of widgets that have been specifically designed for it. * These include some very fundamental widgets such as HildonAppMenu, HildonPickerButton and HildonStackableWindow. * If you take a look at the N900 you'll see that these widgets are used ALL OVER THE PLACE. * Example: there's no application in the N900 using a menu other than HildonAppMenu. * If you want to use a menu in your application you must use HildonAppMenu or a widget designed to mimic its look and feel, else your application will look different. * There's nothing necessarily wrong with that (e.g. Canola), but developers should be aware before starting to write their apps. So: * Do you want to provide Qt libs for developing Fremantle apps? Good * Are all the widgets that have been designed as a central part of the Fremantle UI available in Qt? Good * Aren't they available yet? Fair enough, but then make sure that developers are aware of this. The bottom line: * Telling people that it's completely reasonable to write Fremantle apps in Qt without making clear that some fundamental Fremantle widgets have not been written yet it not a good idea IMHO. It is also other question that which is more wasting time, writing couple of dozen lines when you can save couple of thousand lines in all application by more compact and efficient code with C++ and Qt. I'm not going to start a C vs C++ debate, but I don't think this is an argument here since there are already C++ bindings for Hildon: http://maemomm.garage.maemo.org/docs_unstable/tutorial/html/sec-TouchSelector.html Berto ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
ext Alberto Garcia wrote: On Mon, Sep 07, 2009 at 05:09:25PM +0300, Kate Alhola wrote: The importance and the goal of Hildon is to provide a set of essential widgets so a) app developers don't have to waste their time in writing them themselves b) there is UI consistency between all applications If there are no Qt equivalents for all Hildon widgets, none of these two problems are solved, no matter how easy it is for developers to write their own widgets or how compact the code is. If you think that if there is not 1 to 1 equivalent for everything, there is nothing. No, I haven't said that. What I say is: * The Fremantle UI style depends heavily on a set of widgets that have been specifically designed for it. * These include some very fundamental widgets such as HildonAppMenu, HildonPickerButton and HildonStackableWindow. * If you take a look at the N900 you'll see that these widgets are used ALL OVER THE PLACE. * Example: there's no application in the N900 using a menu other than HildonAppMenu. * If you want to use a menu in your application you must use HildonAppMenu or a widget designed to mimic its look and feel, else your application will look different. * There's nothing necessarily wrong with that (e.g. Canola), but developers should be aware before starting to write their apps. I agree that. Antonio just answered, you have HildonAppMenu and StackableWindow functionality in Qt. They look exactly same than Hildon equivalents. I said already that you will soon see also PickerButton functionality. Qt API is different than GTK+, that's clear to everyone. So: * Do you want to provide Qt libs for developing Fremantle apps? Good * Are all the widgets that have been designed as a central part of the Fremantle UI available in Qt? Good * Aren't they available yet? Fair enough, but then make sure that developers are aware of this. Try to understand difference between functionality and widget. In most of cases you don't need any special widgets. You have StackableWindows and AppMenus but you don't need to have separate widgets for this. Let's get back to roots once again. There is two ways to implement UI for mobile. 1- You can make new widgets ( Hildon) 2- You can enhance existing widgets to support mobile usecase (Qt) The model used in Qt makes much easier to port applications because it minimizes needs to modify your application. The bottom line: * Telling people that it's completely reasonable to write Fremantle apps in Qt without making clear that some fundamental Fremantle widgets have not been written yet it not a good idea IMHO. Telling is very good idea, it leaves freedom of choice to developer. I think that telling about choices and their consequences is allways good idea. Maemo Qt is at the moment as Beta whereas Hildon for maemo 5 is about final. That is one argument. The other argument is that Harmatan will be Qt based, S60 will have Qt, Qt is a cross platform toolkit .Qt has QGraphicsView, animation API etc for eye candy, Qt has OpenGL-ES2.0 support, it has webkit ... It is also other question that which is more wasting time, writing couple of dozen lines when you can save couple of thousand lines in all application by more compact and efficient code with C++ and Qt. I'm not going to start a C vs C++ debate, but I don't think this is an argument here since there are already C++ bindings for Hildon: http://maemomm.garage.maemo.org/docs_unstable/tutorial/html/sec-TouchSelector.html It's just not C++ issue, Qt is written from scratch as C++ classes and it just makes many things like writing derived classes much easier. I know the C++ bindings, I was the one pushing maemo to support C++ . Kate ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
On Monday 07 September 2009 17:21:45 Alberto Garcia wrote: * The Fremantle UI style depends heavily on a set of widgets that have been specifically designed for it. I really don't want to meddle in GTK-vs-Qt discussions, but this particular segment scares me a bit. This sounds to me like saying coding for Fremantle is a one-shot affair - you have these specially designed widgets, which are there only on Fremantle and who knows what their future will be, even if Kate, Antonio et al put together specific widgets/examples for the Fremantle build of Qt. If there is one thing I'm afraid of it's not designing an UI for mobile use, it's redesigning them for each version of the OS (and the snowballing of ifdefs it brings). Just to clarify - I'm not talking about looks, but specific functionality. * Telling people that it's completely reasonable to write Fremantle apps in Qt without making clear that some fundamental Fremantle widgets have not been written yet it not a good idea IMHO. Sigh, I said I won't comment on this, but... I'm not sure what's the developer's alternative. If I use GTK+, I'll happily keep using it in Fremantle and Harmattan, etc. If I use Qt, I certainly won't switch to GTK+ just for Fremantle no matter how essential some widgets might be. If I don't know either of them, the choice is between 'miss some functionality now' and 'miss some functionality later and from there on' (since GTK+ folks will likely be in the same shoes missing out on more and more of the Qt stuff in Maemo 6 and beyond). So unless one plans on writing something trivial and quitting coding before Maemo 6 hits, there is not exactly much choice - for better or worse, these things are IMHO pretty much on ballistic trajectories now. ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
RE: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
On Friday 04 September 2009 18:16:43 kate.alh...@nokia.com wrote: To avoid re-inventing the wheel again we are providing examples how you can do things with Qt. If some thing can be done with dozen lines of Qt code, it just matter of taste, should we provide widget or just example that you can cut-and-paste. The most important thing is that we have all basic widgets like finger scrollable lists etc so that only action needed is to collect them together. It is absolutely NOT a matter of taste! Widgets and examples achieve completely different goals. Examples are good if different applications are expected to work differently (e.g. examples are good for showing how to open a browser window or read a file). Widgets are necessary if different applications are expected to look the same. Widgets are not provided just to reduce the amount of coding the application has to do but to provide a single place to change in order to change the look of all applications, without needing to change the application (or even recompile it)! When porting my applications to Fremantle I have not had to add #ifdef's for all my dialog boxes to cause them to have buttons on the right. Why is that? it is because I used a dialog box widget and the widget has been modified to do that! And maybe some future device will decide the dialog box buttons will need to go at the bottom again (maybe it is portrait oriented, or the fashion changes) -- exactly the same binary will work on that platform and the buttons will be at the bottom. Widgets are extremely important for composites. As important as they are for basics. The more widgets you provide the better the standardisation of the application UI -- no composite widget can be replaced with an example without losing that standardisation at some time in the future when the look needs to change. Note that this doesn't mean that the set of widgets for Qt necessarily needs to be the same as for Hildon. Composite widgets are a simple tradeoff of development time against UI standardisation and the Harmatten team may decide to make that tradeoff differently and choose to implement a different set of widgets. And in different toolkits, different amounts of the required behaviours may be built into some of the underlying widgets directly so there are apparently fewer widgets (but, in fact, the widget behaviour is still there). But we need to remember that each time we choose not to implement some behaviour in the toolkit, but leave it as an example for the application, application behaviour for that function will no longer be standardised. Graham ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
On Mon, Sep 07, 2009 at 08:17:01PM +0200, Attila Csipa wrote: This sounds to me like saying coding for Fremantle is a one-shot affair - you have these specially designed widgets, which are there only on Fremantle and who knows what their future will be That's a very reasonable concern, and one that is shared by many people, including me. Nokia has already announced that they're switching from Gtk to Qt in Harmattan (which has been a confusing move for many users and developers), but I don't know if they plan to keep the same basic widgets and UI style that has been designed for Fremantle or not. If the plan is to keep more or less the same UI style I'd expect a decent, community-supported, release of Gtk/Hildon for Harmattan. If the plan is to redesign the UI all over again then God only knows what's going to happen... :-) * Telling people that it's completely reasonable to write Fremantle apps in Qt without making clear that some fundamental Fremantle widgets have not been written yet it not a good idea IMHO. Sigh, I said I won't comment on this, but... I'm not sure what's the developer's alternative. Since I don't know Nokia's plans for Harmattan, I'm afraid I can't help you much more. It's not that I like the current state of confusion much either, I'm just trying to explain how I see things now and I think that it's up to each developer to decide what to do, but evaluating things first. Many will think that it's OK for them to write applications in Qt, even if they don't have the complete set of Hildon widgets available right now, because that's the future of Maemo. Others will prefer, at least for now, to stick to Gtk/Hildon, which has been much more thoroughly tested in Fremantle, and is the one officially supported and guaranteed to be consistent with the rest of the platform. My opinion? Well, right now Maemo is Fremantle. Harmattan will come in the future but we don't know when. The N900 has been released two years after the N810 so it wouldn't be unreasonable to think that the next device can take two more years. It's quite a lot of time to wait to see what's going to happen. The N900 hasn't even reached the stores yet but what we've seen so far suggests that this is going to be much more successful than any previous Maemo device. So I _personally_ don't think I'm going to worry _that much_ about Harmattan right now. In the end it depends a lot on the application developers' skills and long-term plans for their software. And these are my 2 cents. Berto ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
Graham Cobb wrote: When porting my applications to Fremantle I have not had to add #ifdef's for all my dialog boxes to cause them to have buttons on the right. Why is that? it is because I used a dialog box widget and the widget has been modified to do that! Yes, good example! That's about the _only_ thing that you don't have to change! :-) What about hildon_button_set_theme_size(), that you must call for every button? Ciao, Alberto ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
RE: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
On Sat, Sep 5, 2009 at 08:01 However, if you want to have the exact same user experience as the preinstalled Maemo 5 applications have (as seen in all youtube videos and the SDK), then you have much easier time and faster development with the gtk-based hildon widgets in Maemo 5. This doesn't give much of a transition plan for developers, or the chance to fix things in the Qt API whilst it's in community support mode. Before people start jumping into long term conclusions, I'd rather encourage people to start documenting to wiki.maemo.org, what is known about QT in Maemo 5 and build a better understanding collectively there. I don't know about QT any more than what is publicly informed. Which is very little. Lets move from the guesswork here to documenting what is really known to wiki. Big thanks to Kate for the clarifying post. I'm sorry I misunderstood the purpose of QT mobility. Seems it's not about widgets, but about platform components like Contacts and Services. I would caution against too easily dismissing Hildon Pickers as trivial composites that app developers can implement. At least in Hildon widgets, Claudio, Berto and others have spent huge amount of time to get the pickers work just right. You can see it yourself in the hildon git changelog. The combobox in Linux desktops is pretty much a subset of the hildon pickers (in terms of funtionality, not directly in terms of actual UI elements). So if pickers would be trivial, then why would there be a need to provide a combobox in the standard toolkit? These things are easier in some toolkits and harder in some others. To my knowledge, Gtk was not really designed for handheld touch user interface with kinetic scroll etc. on mind in the first place - it is a rather a desktop toolkit with the rather traditional mindset - and some of hard core hacking obviously was required to make it function like it functions on the Maemo 5. That is a great achievement and I have watched that with awe and lots of respect to the developers who have made it. I can now enjoy it every day with my N900, lists etc. work as they should and they make this UI very desirable. On the other hand, it was a lot easier to start the same from scratch on Startup wizard with Clutter because there was not the incompatible way of thinking as a barrier between the desired functionality and what is already there because there was nothing there already, just start from grass root level from atomic blocks (start by building a custom ClutterActor) and then figure out how to stack Actors and how to animated them to get e.g. a kinetic scroll list done. As there was no base widget, there was no limitations of the base widget and no associated problems, just putting some lego blocks together and it was done. With some adjustable parameters and then fine tuning the feel with these parameters, it was actually quite efficient to do it. I believe Qt can be in the same position pretty much, if the widget is started from scratch rather basing it on some existing widget which has similar limitations than the equivalent in the Gtk. Qt is more like Gtk + Clutter combined rather than being equivalent of the Gtk alone. Kate said there is some kinetic scroll list already there in the Qt, but I don't know how its parameters match to the Hildon/Gtk version we have on the Maemo 5, but I think that with some work it can be done to function 100% equally, as it works equally on startup wizard despite it is a completely separate implementation with a completely different kind of technology behind it. And despite of that, it still just works, perfectly. IMHO good news about composite widgets is that they are very easy to create in Qt. Many things which are very cryptic in Gtk and glib (no flame intended, I know that hard core glib people will disagree, but I don't happen to be very enlightened to the gobject despite having made few custom ClutterActors myself in C/glib) are so simple on Qt, just few lines of very understandable and easy C++ code. I am sure Kate can show examples. Another good news is that the QGraphicsView appears to have almost everything that is in Clutter, and modern mobile user interface widgets can be built with it rather than basing them on the traditional widgets. And what is more, Qt allows extensive embedding of the traditional widgets to the graphics view which may make the task even easier. This sounds so interesting that I may need to look into it someday. I managed to finally get a QT app running (qt-maemo-example from fremantle extras-devel). Based on that experience, I updated the QT wiki page at: http://wiki.maemo.org/Qt4_Hildon#Limitations I hope you guys will make additions and corrections to there, so we have more information easily available. I believe you (or anybody else) are very welcome to pixel perfect and fine tune the list performances of the Qt equivalent widgets if someone creates the missing
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
Hi karoliina.t.salmi...@nokia.com wrote: These things are easier in some toolkits and harder in some others. To my knowledge, Gtk was not really designed for handheld touch user interface with kinetic scroll etc. on mind in the first place - it is a rather a desktop toolkit with the rather traditional mindset - and some of hard core hacking obviously was required to make it function like it functions on the Maemo 5. That is a great achievement and I have watched that with awe and lots of respect to the developers who have made it. I can now enjoy it every day with my N900, lists etc. work as they should and they make this UI very desirable. Of course GTK+ wasn't thought to be used on touch UIs from the beginning! Was Qt or any of the other UI toolkits with more than a couple years designed for touch screen interfaces? On the other hand, it was a lot easier to start the same from scratch on Startup wizard with Clutter because there was not the incompatible way of thinking as a barrier between the desired functionality and what is already there because there was nothing there already, just start from grass root level from atomic blocks (start by building a custom ClutterActor) and then figure out how to stack Actors and how to animated them to get e.g. a kinetic scroll list done. As there was no base widget, there was no limitations of the base widget and no associated problems, just putting some lego blocks together and it was done. With some adjustable parameters and then fine tuning the feel with these parameters, it was actually quite efficient to do it. Sure but the question here is not to make super customized widgets but rather to use widgets the way they should be used in an interface, following the established guidelines to provide the user with a nice experience. If you have custom widgets in every program on a system, users will find it harder to use. They will not know what to expect when they tap on a widget they never saw before... that's the point of having guidelines. I believe Qt can be in the same position pretty much, if the widget is started from scratch rather basing it on some existing widget which has similar limitations than the equivalent in the Gtk. Qt is more like Gtk + Clutter combined rather than being equivalent of the Gtk alone. Kate said there is some kinetic scroll list already there in the Qt, but I don't know how its parameters match to the Hildon/Gtk version we have on the Maemo 5, but I think that with some work it can be done to function 100% equally, as it works equally on startup wizard despite it is a completely separate implementation with a completely different kind of technology behind it. And despite of that, it still just works, perfectly. IMHO good news about composite widgets is that they are very easy to create in Qt. Many things which are very cryptic in Gtk and glib (no flame intended, I know that hard core glib people will disagree, but I don't happen to be very enlightened to the gobject despite having made few custom ClutterActors myself in C/glib) are so simple on Qt, just few lines of very understandable and easy C++ code. I am sure Kate can show examples. Another good news is that the QGraphicsView appears to have almost everything that is in Clutter, and modern mobile user interface widgets can be built with it rather than basing them on the traditional widgets. And what is more, Qt allows extensive embedding of the traditional widgets to the graphics view which may make the task even easier. I'm pretty sure you can do neat stuff with Qt as you can do them with GTK+ and Clutter but I don't think this really counts when writing or porting applications to Fremantle. There are a set of widgets that behave in a certain way in Fremantle and developers should use those to build they're applications. I can't see where *having the possibility to build* those widgets is a great thing comparing to *having the widgets themselves* ready to use. E.g.: It is pretty easy to build up a dialog in GTK+ without using the GTKDialog class. Make a window, add a box, add buttons, ... but it would be a pain if I had to write all the standard widgets I wanna use. Another important thing is that, for Open Source applications, you'd end up having tons of the same composite widgets, written differently, and obviously behaving differently, which would not contribute to code reuse and cripple users' experience. So, please guys, understand that until Qt have the set of widgets that define Fremantle and that developers can use those in a straightforward way, one cannot think of Qt as an intelligent choice to build applications on Maemo 5 nowadays. Cheers, -- Joaquim Rocha This sounds so interesting that I may need to look into it someday. I managed to finally get a QT app running (qt-maemo-example from fremantle extras-devel). Based on that experience, I updated the QT wiki
RE: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
On the other hand, it was a lot easier to start the same from scratch on Startup wizard with Clutter because there was not the incompatible way of thinking as a barrier between the desired functionality and what is already there because there was nothing there already, just start from grass root level from atomic blocks (start by building a custom ClutterActor) and then figure out how to stack Actors and how to animated them to get e.g. a kinetic scroll list done. As there was no base widget, there was no limitations of the base widget and no associated problems, just putting some lego blocks together and it was done. With some adjustable parameters and then fine tuning the feel with these parameters, it was actually quite efficient to do it. Sure but the question here is not to make super customized widgets but rather to use widgets the way they should be used in an interface, following the established guidelines to provide the user with a nice experience. If you have custom widgets in every program on a system, users will find it harder to use. They will not know what to expect when they tap on a widget they never saw before... that's the point of having guidelines. Please read my sentences above. I meant about replicating the functionality of the widget done with other technology with another and ending up with exactly the same user experience. It is possible and the guidelines can be followed to create the new widgets. There is nothing that prevents that, it is just some additional work required for the developer as there are hildon widgets lacking from the selection of widgets on the Qt side. If you compare the kinetic scroll list on the startup wizard to the kinetic scroll list elsewhere, you may find that it functions the same way, despite that is Clutter and elsewhere it is Gtk. Similarly I am sure it can be done also with the Qt in the same way, so that as end user you can't see the difference (except that on different toolkits there may be slight performance differences, e.g. pure clutter can be obviously faster than Gtk and similarly the performance may differ on the Qt version to direction or another depending on the case). It just requires accurate tuning for all the parameters to get the scroll behavior exactly the same and then basically the end result is the same. It is possible, and not even hard, it just needs some work and fine tuning. The Qt port is implemented with the community and the community and community can propose patches to Antonio/Kate instead so that the implemented widgets can be joined to the their port rather than everybody implementing their own versions without contributing them to the port ending up with different results on each program. Of course nobody prohibits people to do that either, this is free software and you have the freedom of choice always to do one way or the another. What comes to the kinetic scroll list, it has certain little details that are important, otherwise it will feel different (and not right): - edge bounce - easing on edge bounce (the movement decelerates before it stops instead of stopping mechanically) - friction - inertia - scrolling speed (comes from the physics of the friction, inertia, and the initial speed given by the finger) - finger following - item selection sensitivity from touch - item deselection sensitivity from following movement - stoppable movement (despite of high inertia, stopped finger stops the movement immediately) To get these right, it really requires trying out on the device how it feels. When doing the startup wizard we found that some sensitivities (e.g. selection sensitivity) need to be a bit different when operated on mouse than when operated on finger on the device. Once the list is perfected, all the other widgets are easily composited from these lists and other widgets. So it is a good idea to start from making a list on Qt to function exactly like it functions on the Hildon. Best Regards, Karoliina ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
The Clutter Project has developed a means for Clutter and Qt to inter-operate: clutter-qt. [1] Given Qt-proper's existing composite widget capabilities and OpenGL integration, clutter-qt may seem somewhat redundant. However, clutter-qt may ease the burden of porting code which heavily leverages Clutter from GTK+ to Qt, if so desired. [1] http://git.clutter-project.org/cgit.cgi?url=clutter-qt/tree/ Peace, Jed Cousin Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. --Antoine de Saint Exupéry -- On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 1:48 PM, karoliina.t.salmi...@nokia.com wrote: On the other hand, it was a lot easier to start the same from scratch on Startup wizard with Clutter because there was not the incompatible way of thinking as a barrier between the desired functionality and what is already there because there was nothing there already, just start from grass root level from atomic blocks (start by building a custom ClutterActor) and then figure out how to stack Actors and how to animated them to get e.g. a kinetic scroll list done. As there was no base widget, there was no limitations of the base widget and no associated problems, just putting some lego blocks together and it was done. With some adjustable parameters and then fine tuning the feel with these parameters, it was actually quite efficient to do it. Sure but the question here is not to make super customized widgets but rather to use widgets the way they should be used in an interface, following the established guidelines to provide the user with a nice experience. If you have custom widgets in every program on a system, users will find it harder to use. They will not know what to expect when they tap on a widget they never saw before... that's the point of having guidelines. Please read my sentences above. I meant about replicating the functionality of the widget done with other technology with another and ending up with exactly the same user experience. It is possible and the guidelines can be followed to create the new widgets. There is nothing that prevents that, it is just some additional work required for the developer as there are hildon widgets lacking from the selection of widgets on the Qt side. If you compare the kinetic scroll list on the startup wizard to the kinetic scroll list elsewhere, you may find that it functions the same way, despite that is Clutter and elsewhere it is Gtk. Similarly I am sure it can be done also with the Qt in the same way, so that as end user you can't see the difference (except that on different toolkits there may be slight performance differences, e.g. pure clutter can be obviously faster than Gtk and similarly the performance may differ on the Qt version to direction or another depending on the case). It just requires accurate tuning for all the parameters to get the scroll behavior exactly the same and then basically the end result is the same. It is possible, and not even hard, it just needs some work and fine tuning. The Qt port is implemented with the community and the community and community can propose patches to Antonio/Kate instead so that the implemented widgets can be joined to the their port rather than everybody implementing their own versions without contributing them to the port ending up with different results on each program. Of course nobody prohibits people to do that either, this is free software and you have the freedom of choice always to do one way or the another. What comes to the kinetic scroll list, it has certain little details that are important, otherwise it will feel different (and not right): - edge bounce - easing on edge bounce (the movement decelerates before it stops instead of stopping mechanically) - friction - inertia - scrolling speed (comes from the physics of the friction, inertia, and the initial speed given by the finger) - finger following - item selection sensitivity from touch - item deselection sensitivity from following movement - stoppable movement (despite of high inertia, stopped finger stops the movement immediately) To get these right, it really requires trying out on the device how it feels. When doing the startup wizard we found that some sensitivities (e.g. selection sensitivity) need to be a bit different when operated on mouse than when operated on finger on the device. Once the list is perfected, all the other widgets are easily composited from these lists and other widgets. So it is a good idea to start from making a list on Qt to function exactly like it functions on the Hildon. Best Regards, Karoliina ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
- Original message - On Fri, Sep 04, 2009 at 07:16:43PM +0200, kate.alh...@nokia.commailto:kate.alh...@nokia.com wrote: What people are asking here (among other things) is whether there are Qt widgets similar to HildonAppMenu or HildonPickerButton -which are absolutely essential for creating Fremantle applications- or developers are supposed to write them themselves. To avoid re-inventing the wheel again we are providing examples how you can do things with Qt. [...] If some of these composite widgets are so big problem, we can collect these examples as widget library. That's what I mean. While it's obvious that you can write apps for fremantle in toolkits other than Gtk/Hildon (e.g Canola), developers will have a hard time to make them fit in with the Fremantle UI style unless they have reasonable replacements for the most basic widgets. So yes, a widget library with equivalents to HildonAppMenu, HildonPickerButton, etc., would be the way to go in my opinion. First, sorry, the place to get hildon is git.maemo.org, as others have said. My bad. Now, on this QT thing, my personal view on the current state of QT in Maemo 5 is: QT is great when you want: - Create desktop (i.e. Home) applets - Create custom UIs like Canola - Create fancy unique animated stuff with your own graphics - Only need stuff to work with Maemo 5 skinning (i.e. Theme), don't care so much about finer details of user experience, as it is in Maemo 5. However, if you want to have the exact same user experience as the preinstalled Maemo 5 applications have (as seen in all youtube videos and the SDK), then you have much easier time and faster development with the gtk-based hildon widgets in Maemo 5. QT is at least equally powerful as GTK, but currently it lacks the Maemo 5 specific hildon widgets. So you would have to implement the most important hildon widgets yourself in QT, which is not easy if what you aim for is seamless user experience with the preinstalled Maemo 5 apps. The equivalent of Hildon (i.e. mobile, finger optimized widgets) is roughly the QT mobility http://labs.trolltech.com/page/Projects/QtMobility, which is not available yet. As you can read from that page, you need more than vanilla QT for mobile UI. In GTK that mobile experience is provided by the new hildon widgets introduced in Maemo 5. BR, Mox ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
On Sat, Sep 5, 2009 at 08:01, ext-mox.so...@nokia.com wrote: However, if you want to have the exact same user experience as the preinstalled Maemo 5 applications have (as seen in all youtube videos and the SDK), then you have much easier time and faster development with the gtk-based hildon widgets in Maemo 5. This doesn't give much of a transition plan for developers, or the chance to fix things in the Qt API whilst it's in community support mode. It's unclear who, exactly, the Qt community who are doing the support are. Is it people like David Greaves (lbt) and others at http://qt4.garage.maemo.org/ or is it Kate and other people at Nokia? Presumably, with Fremantle (almost) out, people at Nokia are now working on Harmattan and the transition to Nokia supported for Qt. Is this being done in the open? Is the Harmattan UI going to be similar enough that the concepts (app menus etc.) are translatable? If so, presumably Nokia are going to need an app menu API; and it seems perfectly reasonable that we should be seeing it sooner rather than later. There's a lot of confusion in this thread, and it risks fueling FUD about the stability and viability of Fremantle as a platform if - when developers are starting writing Fremantle apps - they can't see where the platform is going in 1-2 years. The equivalent of Hildon (i.e. mobile, finger optimized widgets) is roughly the QT mobility http://labs.trolltech.com/page/Projects/QtMobility, which is not available yet. So that raises some obvious questions: * When _is_ it going to be available? * Will it be available for Fremantle? * Will it provide a seamless experience with Hildon on Fremantle? Most of that page is talking about high-level services APIs (multimedia, contacts, location etc.). What if I just want to write a simple calculator app? Thanks in advance, Andrew -- Andrew Flegg -- mailto:and...@bleb.org | http://www.bleb.org/ Maemo Community Council chair ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
RE: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
From: maemo-developers-boun...@maemo.org [maemo-developers-boun...@maemo.org] On Behalf Of ext Andrew Flegg [and...@bleb.org] Sent: Saturday, September 05, 2009 11:47 AM To: Soini Mox (EXT-Movial/Helsinki) Cc: maemo-developers@maemo.org Subject: Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt? On Sat, Sep 5, 2009 at 08:01, ext-mox.so...@nokia.com wrote: However, if you want to have the exact same user experience as the preinstalled Maemo 5 applications have (as seen in all youtube videos and the SDK), then you have much easier time and faster development with the gtk-based hildon widgets in Maemo 5. This doesn't give much of a transition plan for developers, or the chance to fix things in the Qt API whilst it's in community support mode. Let's once again get back to the roots. There is no one-to-one parity between Qt and Hildon widgets but same functionality can be done with both of them. Mox sees a big problem that there are some composite widgets missing and you need to build them from several Qt basic widgets. I don't see it as much problem at all because Qt does make much more compact code and things are easily doable. We in qt4.garage.maemo.org have been concentrating more to fundamental issues that were not easily doable with plain Qt like input method, maemo-style integration, finger kinetic scroll or some hildon dependent window manager properties etc. Because there are several persons that see missing of some ready made composite widgets as big problem, we should also do some solution to this even it is not complicated at all. It's unclear who, exactly, the Qt community who are doing the support are. Is it people like David Greaves (lbt) and others at http://qt4.garage.maemo.org/ or is it Kate and other people at Nokia? Maemo qt port has been done from beginning in full open source fashion anyone can participate open project and anyone can offer support as free or for charge an for any open source software. We have several persons that are Nokia employees, who are doing work with this Qt, we just do it as open. About this supported status, we have plan to to clarify situation in maemo summit. Presumably, with Fremantle (almost) out, people at Nokia are now working on Harmattan and the transition to Nokia supported for Qt. Is this being done in the open? Is the Harmattan UI going to be similar enough that the concepts (app menus etc.) are translatable? We are telling more about Harmatan UI much advance before releasing actual device. There will be also presentations about Harmatan subject in maemo summit. If so, presumably Nokia are going to need an app menu API; and it seems perfectly reasonable that we should be seeing it sooner rather than later. There's a lot of confusion in this thread, and it risks fueling FUD about the stability and viability of Fremantle as a platform if - when developers are starting writing Fremantle apps - they can't see where the platform is going in 1-2 years. We have tried to release key information much advance. First story about Harmatan and Qt was told in LinuxTag 2008, that more than one year from this date. Maemo Qt project were also published as garabe project around same time. We did first Fremantle releases of Qt together with alpha SDK . The equivalent of Hildon (i.e. mobile, finger optimized widgets) is roughly the QT mobility http://labs.trolltech.com/page/Projects/QtMobility, which is not available yet. We have finger optimized widgets already. We did not like to make something different than Hildon but rather we took Hildon style and adapted it to widgets. Then we added missing features listed above. So that raises some obvious questions: * When _is_ it going to be available? * Will it be available for Fremantle? * Will it provide a seamless experience with Hildon on Fremantle? You should rather think Qt Mobility as parallel track. Once again, we have finger friendly basic widgets. About some composite widgets mentioned earlier to get exactly same look and feel layout should be same than Hildon and that's not a problem. You don't need Qt mobility to make Qt apps with Hildon look and feel. Most of that page is talking about high-level services APIs (multimedia, contacts, location etc.). What if I just want to write a simple calculator app? If you would like to write simple calculator app, you just need basic widgets like buttons, labels, text entries, containers etc. We have all of them and they are using Hildon style. You will have exactly same look and feel as you have with GTK The discussion about missing widgets has been has been about some composite widgets like picker button that you can compose from dialog, scrollabele list and buttons. Kate ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
RE: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
On Sat, Sep 5, 2009 at 08:01 However, if you want to have the exact same user experience as the preinstalled Maemo 5 applications have (as seen in all youtube videos and the SDK), then you have much easier time and faster development with the gtk-based hildon widgets in Maemo 5. This doesn't give much of a transition plan for developers, or the chance to fix things in the Qt API whilst it's in community support mode. Before people start jumping into long term conclusions, I'd rather encourage people to start documenting to wiki.maemo.org, what is known about QT in Maemo 5 and build a better understanding collectively there. I don't know about QT any more than what is publicly informed. Which is very little. Lets move from the guesswork here to documenting what is really known to wiki. Big thanks to Kate for the clarifying post. I'm sorry I misunderstood the purpose of QT mobility. Seems it's not about widgets, but about platform components like Contacts and Services. I would caution against too easily dismissing Hildon Pickers as trivial composites that app developers can implement. At least in Hildon widgets, Claudio, Berto and others have spent huge amount of time to get the pickers work just right. You can see it yourself in the hildon git changelog. The combobox in Linux desktops is pretty much a subset of the hildon pickers (in terms of funtionality, not directly in terms of actual UI elements). So if pickers would be trivial, then why would there be a need to provide a combobox in the standard toolkit? I managed to finally get a QT app running (qt-maemo-example from fremantle extras-devel). Based on that experience, I updated the QT wiki page at: http://wiki.maemo.org/Qt4_Hildon#Limitations I hope you guys will make additions and corrections to there, so we have more information easily available. Thanks! Mox ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
On Friday 04 September 2009 12:04:59 Klaus Rotter wrote: Since IMHO it may be at least one year to betas of Harmatan, do you expect huge differences between the Qt 4.4 now (for Maemo) and the Qt then? Why won't Nokia ship the qt 4.4 libs with the N9xx device? This would make the switchover more easier. The current version of Qt in Maemo is 4.5.2 (not 4.4), which is pretty up to date (4.6 hasn't even been released yet :) The libs are available in the extras repository, so the effort to 'switch over' is basically zero. I expect to have 4.6 in Harmattan, but that's just a guess (good as any) as it's pretty far off and I don't even work for Nokia ;) ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
Hi, 2009/9/4 Kate Alhola kate.alh...@nokia.com: Current version is 4.5.2, soon 4.5.3 . Qt is already in Fremantle repository, so installing Qt applications to N900 is already totally transparent to end user because application installer picks up needed dependencies. And also, there are Qt core libraries already in flash. if I write a graphical (with UI) application in Qt, does it look much different from another one written using Hildon? What are the biggest differences or not yet supported UI features? -- Andrea Grandi email: a.grandi [AT] gmail [DOT] com website: http://www.andreagrandi.it PGP Key: http://www.andreagrandi.it/pgp_key.asc ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
ext Andrea Grandi wrote: Hi, 2009/9/4 Kate Alhola kate.alh...@nokia.com: Current version is 4.5.2, soon 4.5.3 . Qt is already in Fremantle repository, so installing Qt applications to N900 is already totally transparent to end user because application installer picks up needed dependencies. And also, there are Qt core libraries already in flash. if I write a graphical (with UI) application in Qt, does it look much different from another one written using Hildon? What are the biggest differences or not yet supported UI features? It will kook same than Hildon. We have as example Hildon style and Hildon imput method there. Kate ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
ext Klaus Rotter wrote: Kate Alhola wrote: ext Klaus Rotter wrote: Hi there! Since Maemo 6 will be based upon Qt, is it reasonable to start new projects (for fremantle and beyond) with Qt? Yes, it is reasonable to start with Qt. We have had maemo qt out in qt4.garage.maemo.org about year and fremantle version about half of year. We will have much more to tell in maemo summit . Upgrade path to Harmatan is much more easier if you are already using Qt. Since IMHO it may be at least one year to betas of Harmatan, do you expect huge differences between the Qt 4.4 now (for Maemo) and the Qt then? Why won't Nokia ship the qt 4.4 libs with the N9xx device? This would make the switchover more easier. Current version is 4.5.2, soon 4.5.3 . Qt is already in Fremantle repository, so installing Qt applications to N900 is already totally transparent to end user because application installer picks up needed dependencies. And also, there are Qt core libraries already in flash. All functionality that we have in 4.5 will be in Harmatan but of cource there will be once again much of new features. As example, animation framework is now separate component but will be standard part in Harmatan. There will be pre-releases about these new features lot before actual product launch. Kate ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
Kate Alhola wrote: ext Klaus Rotter wrote: Hi there! Since Maemo 6 will be based upon Qt, is it reasonable to start new projects (for fremantle and beyond) with Qt? Yes, it is reasonable to start with Qt. We have had maemo qt out in qt4.garage.maemo.org about year and fremantle version about half of year. We will have much more to tell in maemo summit . Upgrade path to Harmatan is much more easier if you are already using Qt. Since IMHO it may be at least one year to betas of Harmatan, do you expect huge differences between the Qt 4.4 now (for Maemo) and the Qt then? Why won't Nokia ship the qt 4.4 libs with the N9xx device? This would make the switchover more easier. -Klaus -- Klaus Rotter * klaus at rotters dot de * www.rotters.de ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
RE: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
ext Andrea Grandi wrote: Hi, 2009/9/4 Kate Alhola kate.alh...@nokia.commailto:kate.alh...@nokia.com: Current version is 4.5.2, soon 4.5.3 . Qt is already in Fremantle repository, so installing Qt applications to N900 is already totally transparent to end user because application installer picks up needed dependencies. And also, there are Qt core libraries already in flash. if I write a graphical (with UI) application in Qt, does it look much different from another one written using Hildon? What are the biggest differences or not yet supported UI features? It will kook same than Hildon. We have as example Hildon style and Hildon imput method there. With all due respect, I would like to see more beef to this claim. For example in terms of links to apps, or just screenshots. There are extremely few QT applications to try out in Maemo 5. And so far, I haven't seen one that would really feel like true Maemo 5 application. ... As a parallel, a standard Gnome/GTK application, when directly ported (minimal effort) to Maemo 5, the UI of the application will feel more like Maemo 4 (i.e. N810 and friends). It takes much more effort to make that application really Maemo 5 - finger usable, with finger sized buttons, hildon picker buttons, edit mode views, pannable dialogs etc. Compare for example screenshots of Modest email client between Maemo 4 and Maemo 5, to get an idea of the differences: http://wiki.maemo.org/Documentation/Maemo_5_Developer_Guide/Porting_Software/Redesigning_From_Maemo_4_to_Maemo_5 Technically, you are able to run the Maemo 4 Modest UI on Maemo 5 too (maybe just a recompilation). However, it really does not *feel* like Maemo 5 application. ... So while _technically_ QT apps work on Fremantle, I'd like to hear and see whether it is really possible to provide a true Maemo 5 user experience when using QT as the toolkit. BR, Mox ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
On Friday 04 September 2009 13:16:32 ext-mox.so...@nokia.com wrote: There are extremely few QT applications to try out in Maemo 5. And so far, I haven't seen one that would really feel like true Maemo 5 application. ... As a parallel, a standard Gnome/GTK application, when directly ported (minimal effort) to Maemo 5, the UI of the application will feel more like Maemo 4 (i.e. N810 and friends). I don't think anyone was talking about that. The question was whether it makes any difference (UI-wise) if you use 'regular' GTK/Hildon or Qt. Maemo 4 to 5 migration is a related, but markedly different issue. The framework can restyle some UI elements or default dialogs, but it cannot change a hardcoded layout or general workflow (nor is it supposed to). ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
Soini Mox (EXT-Movial/Helsinki) wrote: ext Andrea Grandi wrote: Hi, 2009/9/4 Kate Alhola kate.alh...@nokia.com: Current version is 4.5.2, soon 4.5.3 . Qt is already in Fremantle repository, so installing Qt applications to N900 is already totally transparent to end user because application installer picks up needed dependencies. And also, there are Qt core libraries already in flash. if I write a graphical (with UI) application in Qt, does it look much different from another one written using Hildon? What are the biggest differences or not yet supported UI features? It will kook same than Hildon. We have as example Hildon style and Hildon imput method there. With all due respect, I would like to see more beef to this claim. For example in terms of links to apps, or just screenshots. There are extremely few QT applications to try out in Maemo 5. And so far, I haven't seen one that would really feel like true Maemo 5 application. ... As a parallel, a standard Gnome/GTK application, when directly ported (minimal effort) to Maemo 5, the UI of the application will feel more like Maemo 4 (i.e. N810 and friends). It takes much more effort to make that application really Maemo 5 - finger usable, with finger sized buttons, hildon picker buttons, edit mode views, pannable dialogs etc. Qt takes exactly same styles that are for Maemo5 GTK applications including button sizes etc, There is kinetic finger scroll. Compare for example screenshots of Modest email client between Maemo 4 and Maemo 5, to get an idea of the differences: http://wiki.maemo.org/Documentation/Maemo_5_Developer_Guide/Porting_Software/Redesigning_From_Maemo_4_to_Maemo_5 Technically, you are able to run the Maemo 4 Modest UI on Maemo 5 too (maybe just a recompilation). However, it really does not *feel* like Maemo 5 application. So while _technically_ QT apps work on Fremantle, I'd like to hear and see whether it is really possible to provide a true Maemo 5 user experience when using QT as the toolkit. Toolkit, either GTK or Qt can't fix the UI design. If you don't make finger friendly design, tool kit can't make your application to do it. I just don't see any reason why you can't make least as good UI design with Qt than you can do with GTK+/Hildon. As addition of these traditional widgets, in Qt you also get QGraphicsview and animation framework that allows you to do similar effects in application that are provided by Clutter. Kate BR, Mox ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 12:25, Attila Csipama...@csipa.in.rs wrote: On Friday 04 September 2009 13:16:32 ext-mox.so...@nokia.com wrote: There are extremely few QT applications to try out in Maemo 5. And so far, I haven't seen one that would really feel like true Maemo 5 application. I don't think anyone was talking about that. The question was whether it makes any difference (UI-wise) if you use 'regular' GTK/Hildon or Qt. Maemo 4 to 5 migration is a related, but markedly different issue. The framework can restyle some UI elements or default dialogs, but it cannot change a hardcoded layout or general workflow (nor is it supposed to). Putting aside the issue of whether stuff happens automatically or manually; is it possible to show some screenshots of Qt apps on Maemo 5 looking like a Maemo 5 app, particularly in the areas of: * Dialogue boxes (at bottom, buttons at right) * Kinetic scrolling/panneable areas * Finger-friendly app menus Thanks in advance, Andrew -- Andrew Flegg -- mailto:and...@bleb.org | http://www.bleb.org/ Maemo Community Council chair ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
RE: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
From: Alhola Kate (Nokia-FNDC/Tampere) So while _technically_ QT apps work on Fremantle, I'd like to hear and see whether it is really possible to provide a true Maemo 5 user experience when using QT as the toolkit. Toolkit, either GTK or Qt can't fix the UI design. If you don't make finger friendly design, tool kit can't make your application to do it. I just don't see any reason why you can't make least as good UI design with Qt than you can do with GTK+/Hildon. As addition of these traditional widgets, in Qt you also get QGraphicsview and animation framework that allows you to do similar effects in application that are provided by Clutter. Ok, let me be more specific then. Since QT is not just a language binding to gtk/hildon, but rather an independent toolkit in it's own right... Is there equivalent and finger sized QT widget for the following hildon widgets? - hildon banner - hildon confirmation note - hildon dialog (with buttons on the bottom right side in landscape) - hildon app menu (i.e. two column finger sized view menu) - hildon time picker (not the legacy one) - hildon date picker (not the legacy one) - hildon picker button - hildon touch selector - hildon stackable window - hildon entry (including the possibility for placeholder text) - hildon edit toolbar (as used in the edit mode view) See https://projects.maemo.org/svn/af/projects/hildon-widgets/trunk/src/ for details of the hildon widgets. BR, Mox ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
On Fri, Sep 04, 2009 at 03:00:05PM +0200, Murray Cumming wrote: One small example that's been mentioned already in this thread: How do we create a HildonAppMenu with Qt? How do we create a HildonTouchSelector, and/or any of the specific selectors for time or dates, etc. I believe the answer is that we can't. The Maemo Qt developers have not yet even decided whether they will add API to Qt for Maemo-specific UI features, let alone implemented it. It's OK to like Qt, but there's no need to avoid the actual problems faced by actual developers. That is very important, since some of those widgets are completely essential for Maemo 5. If people take a look at the N900 videos that have been uploaded to YouTube lately and see how the applications look and feel, it's obvious that it's not possible to obtain a similar result without Qt equivalents for these new widgets. Berto ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
ext Alberto Garcia wrote: On Fri, Sep 04, 2009 at 03:00:05PM +0200, Murray Cumming wrote: One small example that's been mentioned already in this thread: How do we create a HildonAppMenu with Qt? How do we create a HildonTouchSelector, and/or any of the specific selectors for time or dates, etc. I believe the answer is that we can't. The Maemo Qt developers have not yet even decided whether they will add API to Qt for Maemo-specific UI features, let alone implemented it. It's OK to like Qt, but there's no need to avoid the actual problems faced by actual developers. That is very important, since some of those widgets are completely essential for Maemo 5. If people take a look at the N900 videos that have been uploaded to YouTube lately and see how the applications look and feel, it's obvious that it's not possible to obtain a similar result without Qt equivalents for these new widgets. Let's get some amount bag to roots. Qt is not GTK+, Qt has it's own widgets but adopts GTK style. Buttons etc looks exactly same Lot's of Maemo 5 user experience like task switching is done by window manager. Qt has kinetic scroll etc. I have used Maemo 5 and N900 since early prototypes and i don't see lot of important frequently used functionality missing from Qt. I admit that some rarely used widgets like earlier mentioned date and time picker are missing etc. We are working to do more examples how to do certain actions with Qt. Some features like compositor bypass etc non standard X11 window manager extensions require few line of code in application to activate these features. Kate ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
ext Claudio Saavedra wrote: El vie, 04-09-2009 a las 17:37 +0300, Kate Alhola escribió: I have used Maemo 5 and N900 since early prototypes and i don't see lot of important frequently used functionality missing from Qt. I admit that some rarely used widgets like earlier mentioned date and time picker are missing etc. Rarely used widgets? Come on, these are used all throughout the platform. Moreover, even if the time and date pickers were not so commonly used, their style, user experience, and base API (through HildonPickerButton, HildonPickerDialog and HildonTouchSelector[Entry]) are central to the Fremantle UI, and certainly the most recommended starting point for anyone writing an application for Fremantle. As I said before, we are doing examples how to do many of these things with Qt . I can put this on the list to make example. At the moment i just wrote example how to make desktop applets and desktop applets with Webkit . More is coming ... Kate ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
RE: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
Am Freitag, den 04.09.2009, 13:47 +0200 schrieb ext-mox.so...@nokia.com: See https://projects.maemo.org/svn/af/projects/hildon-widgets/trunk/src/ for details of the hildon widgets. Not accessible. Keep in mind that Nokia is a paranoid company, hence there is only some limited info available for public at http://wiki.maemo.org/Using_Fremantle_Widgets and http://wiki.maemo.org/Talk:Using_Fremantle_Widgets . ;-)) andre -- Andre Klapper (maemo.org bugmaster) ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
From: Andre Klapper aklap...@openismus.com Am Freitag, den 04.09.2009, 13:47 +0200 schrieb ext-mox.so...@nokia.com: See https://projects.maemo.org/svn/af/projects/hildon-widgets/trunk/src/ for details of the hildon widgets. Not accessible. As Claudio just said, hildon development was moved to a public repository (git.maemo.org) some months ago: https://git.maemo.org/projects/hildon/gitweb?p=hildon;a=summary Keep in mind that Nokia is a paranoid company, In fact the previous projects.maemo.org link has just a old copy of hildon inside the paranoid-Nokia-repositories. The git one is just updated. hence there is only some limited info available for public at http://wiki.maemo.org/Using_Fremantle_Widgets and http://wiki.maemo.org/Talk:Using_Fremantle_Widgets . ;-)) === API (apinhe...@igalia.com) ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
ext-mox.so...@nokia.com wrote: Since QT is not just a language binding to gtk/hildon, but rather an independent toolkit in it's own right... Is there equivalent and finger sized QT widget for the following hildon widgets? - hildon banner - hildon confirmation note - hildon dialog (with buttons on the bottom right side in landscape) - hildon app menu (i.e. two column finger sized view menu) - hildon time picker (not the legacy one) - hildon date picker (not the legacy one) - hildon picker button - hildon touch selector - hildon stackable window - hildon entry (including the possibility for placeholder text) - hildon edit toolbar (as used in the edit mode view) Not AFAIK, but one reason I asked for a gallery of hildon widgets back at the Danish weekend event was so we (the community) could create a similar set of widgets for Qt (where needed) See https://projects.maemo.org/svn/af/projects/hildon-widgets/trunk/src/ for details of the hildon widgets. Is that the maemo.org credentials? I can't get access :( Is it related to this bug: https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4625 We have these figures from the maemomm project: http://maemomm.garage.maemo.org/docs_unstable/tutorial/figures/ David -- Don't worry, you'll be fine; I saw it work in a cartoon once... ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
El vie, 04-09-2009 a las 17:37 +0300, Kate Alhola escribió: I have used Maemo 5 and N900 since early prototypes and i don't see lot of important frequently used functionality missing from Qt. I admit that some rarely used widgets like earlier mentioned date and time picker are missing etc. Rarely used widgets? Come on, these are used all throughout the platform. Moreover, even if the time and date pickers were not so commonly used, their style, user experience, and base API (through HildonPickerButton, HildonPickerDialog and HildonTouchSelector[Entry]) are central to the Fremantle UI, and certainly the most recommended starting point for anyone writing an application for Fremantle. Claudio ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
El vie, 04-09-2009 a las 15:48 +0100, David Greaves escribió: See https://projects.maemo.org/svn/af/projects/hildon-widgets/trunk/src/ for details of the hildon widgets. Is that the maemo.org credentials? I can't get access :( The hildon toolkit was moved long time ago to git.maemo.org https://git.maemo.org/projects/hildon/gitweb?p=hildon;a=summary Is it related to this bug: https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4625 We have these figures from the maemomm project: http://maemomm.garage.maemo.org/docs_unstable/tutorial/figures/ Dave Neary had volunteered for that, haven't seen any progress on it. Claudio ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
On Fri, Sep 04, 2009 at 06:18:37PM +0300, Kate Alhola wrote: I have used Maemo 5 and N900 since early prototypes and i don't see lot of important frequently used functionality missing from Qt. I admit that some rarely used widgets like earlier mentioned date and time picker are missing etc. Rarely used widgets? Come on, these are used all throughout the platform. Moreover, even if the time and date pickers were not so commonly used, their style, user experience, and base API (through HildonPickerButton, HildonPickerDialog and HildonTouchSelector[Entry]) are central to the Fremantle UI, and certainly the most recommended starting point for anyone writing an application for Fremantle. As I said before, we are doing examples how to do many of these things with Qt . The question is not whether similar widgets can be created using Qt. Of course they can. What people are asking here (among other things) is whether there are Qt widgets similar to HildonAppMenu or HildonPickerButton -which are absolutely essential for creating Fremantle applications- or developers are supposed to write them themselves. Berto ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
Kate Alhola wrote: As I said before, we are doing examples how to do many of these things with Qt . I can put this on the list to make example. At the moment i just wrote example how to make desktop applets and desktop applets with Webkit . More is coming ... Cool - what's the gitorious url ;) We have: http://gitorious.org/qt-maemo So: http://gitorious.org/qt-maemo/hildon-widgets sounds good Antonio ... want to set it up? (I can't) David -- Don't worry, you'll be fine; I saw it work in a cartoon once... ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
RE: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
From: maemo-developers-boun...@maemo.org [maemo-developers-boun...@maemo.org] On Behalf Of ext Alberto Garcia [agar...@igalia.com] Sent: Friday, September 04, 2009 7:38 PM To: maemo-developers@maemo.org Subject: Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt? On Fri, Sep 04, 2009 at 06:18:37PM +0300, Kate Alhola wrote: I have used Maemo 5 and N900 since early prototypes and i don't see lot of important frequently used functionality missing from Qt. I admit that some rarely used widgets like earlier mentioned date and time picker are missing etc. Rarely used widgets? Come on, these are used all throughout the platform. Moreover, even if the time and date pickers were not so commonly used, their style, user experience, and base API (through HildonPickerButton, HildonPickerDialog and HildonTouchSelector[Entry]) are central to the Fremantle UI, and certainly the most recommended starting point for anyone writing an application for Fremantle. As I said before, we are doing examples how to do many of these things with Qt . The question is not whether similar widgets can be created using Qt. Of course they can. What people are asking here (among other things) is whether there are Qt widgets similar to HildonAppMenu or HildonPickerButton -which are absolutely essential for creating Fremantle applications- or developers are supposed to write them themselves. To avoid re-inventing the wheel again we are providing examples how you can do things with Qt. If some thing can be done with dozen lines of Qt code, it just matter of taste, should we provide widget or just example that you can cut-and-paste. The most important thing is that we have all basic widgets like finger scrollable lists etc so that only action needed is to collect them together. If some of these composite widgets are so big problem, we can collect these examples as widget library. Kate ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
Hi, 2009/9/4 kate.alh...@nokia.com: If some of these composite widgets are so big problem, we can collect these examples as widget library. composed widget are not a problem for ObjectOriented-people :D anyway, thanks for any example you'll release. Regards, -- Andrea Grandi email: a.grandi [AT] gmail [DOT] com website: http://www.andreagrandi.it PGP Key: http://www.andreagrandi.it/pgp_key.asc ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
On Fri, Sep 04, 2009 at 07:16:43PM +0200, kate.alh...@nokia.com wrote: What people are asking here (among other things) is whether there are Qt widgets similar to HildonAppMenu or HildonPickerButton -which are absolutely essential for creating Fremantle applications- or developers are supposed to write them themselves. To avoid re-inventing the wheel again we are providing examples how you can do things with Qt. [...] If some of these composite widgets are so big problem, we can collect these examples as widget library. That's what I mean. While it's obvious that you can write apps for fremantle in toolkits other than Gtk/Hildon (e.g Canola), developers will have a hard time to make them fit in with the Fremantle UI style unless they have reasonable replacements for the most basic widgets. So yes, a widget library with equivalents to HildonAppMenu, HildonPickerButton, etc., would be the way to go in my opinion. Berto ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
Hi, 2009/9/3 Klaus Rotter kl...@rotters.de: Hi there! Since Maemo 6 will be based upon Qt, is it reasonable to start new projects (for fremantle and beyond) with Qt? Any comments on this? I'll give you a personal hopinion, but please take this with care since I don't know anything about the current state of Harmattan. I think you can use almost all classes of the Qt libraries, except the UI :) I suppose the UI is going to change a lot... maybe we'll have QtButton, QtTextBox ecc... but they could be named in a different way, we don't know yet I suggest you to separate the UI code from the functional code in your app, so you'll be able to re-use a lot of your code without changing anything. When Harmattan will be out, you'll be able to re-use your code and adapt the UI part to the new widgets. At least this is what I'm going to do for a my own app. Regards, -- Andrea Grandi email: a.grandi [AT] gmail [DOT] com website: http://www.andreagrandi.it PGP Key: http://www.andreagrandi.it/pgp_key.asc ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
2009/9/3 Klaus Rotter kl...@rotters.de: Since Maemo 6 will be based upon Qt, is it reasonable to start new projects (for fremantle and beyond) with Qt? David Greaves (lbt) and others can give a better answer. Qt is community-supported in Maemo 5; whilst Gtk+ is Nokia-supported. In Maemo 6, those roles are reversed: Qt is Nokia-supported; whilst Gtk+ is community-supported. There should be enough disk space on the upcoming devices to have both runtimes side-by-side, and you can even use Qt on Maemo 4: http://qt4.garage.maemo.org/ Hope that helps, Andrew -- Andrew Flegg -- mailto:and...@bleb.org | http://www.bleb.org/ Maemo Community Council chair ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: New apps for fremantle with Qt?
ext Klaus Rotter wrote: Hi there! Since Maemo 6 will be based upon Qt, is it reasonable to start new projects (for fremantle and beyond) with Qt? Yes, it is reasonable to start with Qt. We have had maemo qt out in qt4.garage.maemo.org about year and fremantle version about half of year. We will have much more to tell in maemo summit . Upgrade path to Harmatan is much more easier if you are already using Qt. Kate ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
