Re: Cross-Platform Windows plus Mac

In comp.sys.mac.programmer.help Steven Fisher <steve@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> In article <1193091951.878011@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
> Michael Ash <mike@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> 
>> Would you happen to know of any downloadable Qt apps which look and
behave 
>> like native Mac apps? I would love to see one. I think it would be
great 
>> if there were a viable cross-platform application framework, but so far

>> every single application I've seen which was written in one completely 
>> failed to look or act the way I expected. If there are proper apps
written 
>> in Qt then perhaps my *****sment is wrong.
> 
> Qt3 apps look horrible, and it's probably largely these you've seen. Qt4

> apps look pretty decent. The behavior is largely up to you, though. My 
> product isn't ****pping yet for Mac, but as a Mac developer (currently 
> being held captive in a "Windows first" workplace), I've been able to 
> achieve most of what I wanted.

I have no doubt that a sufficiently comprehensive cross-platform framework

would allow a developer to implement Mac-like behavior, and that there are

such frameworks out there. The real question is how feasible it is. Every 
time I put out such a request, the responses are terrible in many ways. 
I'm forced to conclude that either everyone who uses these frameworks just

doesn't care enough to put in the requried effort, or that the amount of 
effort required to add all the expected Mac behavior is just too large. I 
think it's the latter, because the number of complex behaviors that Cocoa 
(and to a somewhat lesser extent Carbon) provides is enormous, and I'd 
hate to think of having to do all that on my own. And the stuff that you 
don't get for free is often at odds with how other platforms work; for 
example, the Mac preference for sheets over modal dialogs whenever 
possible has large consequences for code flow.

> The places Qt4 falls down are Mac only widgets rounded edit fields (i.e.

> the search type) and progress animations (the "spinning arrows"). I've 
> seen solutions to the rounded edit fields, but they were inelegant for 
> developer and user alike.

I personally don't care very much if your app is using square text fields 
instead of rounded ones. Visual defects don't bother me *that* much unless

it looks like the entire app has just come out of the Ugly factory like 
Google Earth does. What bothers me about text fields is stuff like missing

sup****t for standard keybindings, odd selection and dragging behavior, 
weird context menu items, and other such things. Behavior counts for much 
more than appearance.

> It also doesn't sup****t spell checking in edit fields yet, but I've seen

> some evidence that may be coming soon.
> 
> At this point, I think I would use Qt4 to target a single platform. 
> Project management alone is worth it: you maintain a simple text file 
> (think Makefile, although it's much simpler) with a text editor instead 
> of an XML file that's manipulated with Xcode.

A minor nitpick: Xcode project files aren't XML, they're old-style 
OpenStep property lists. Doesn't make it any easier to edit with a text 
editor though.

How tightly are the Qt build tools tied to Qt? Seems like you ought to be 
able to use them to build native apps too, if you like them that much.

>> If you could elaborate a bit on your reasons for thinking that 
>> Objective-C itself is a problem without resorting to FUD words like 
>> "obscure" and "virtually unknown", I would very much like to know what 
>> they are.
> 
> For me, it's that even now as is poor integration with C++. If I want to

> cross platform business logic, it's going to be in C++. We're almost in 
> 2008, and exceptions can't be passed easily from C++ to the Objective C 
> UI code. That's a very big deal to me.

You use Objective-C++ for the code that has to call into C++, and you wrap

the C++ calls with exception handlers, just like you would do if the GUI 
code were C++. Seems no harder than it would be in something like Qt. Am I

wrong?

-- 
Michael Ash
Rogue Amoeba Software