Now that Qt is LGPL. That means Qt Jambi (Java binding for Qt) is also LGPL. This makes it very attractive for Java GUI developers. Do you think it can stand up against Swing, SWT, or JavaFX?
Let's be honest, the majority of Windows users don't care about anything but the native toolkit.
I'd say that at least 80%, probably more, doesn't even know that Qt exists. In the remaining 20% there are sure to be a great number who don't want to install yet another toolkit just to run some application; the application must be really good for that.
It's like GTK. The only really big prorgam I know that uses it under Windows is the GIMP. That qualifies as "really good".
You don't have to install an additional toolkit to run QT Jambi applications. It's just some native libraries that can be jar'd up and distributed with your application. I think QT Jambi is quite attractive to Java developers, especially those already familiar with QT. In fact, I actually prefer the signal/slot method over Swing's event listener method.
More than that is the fact that people who have already spend eternal time to learn and master Swing may not cherish the idea of switching to a new toolkit, that to specially now, given that Java 1.6 comes up with huge suprises for Swing developers, the Gray Rect fix and HW/LW mixing to name a few
Suraj Chandran wrote:More than that is the fact that people who have already spend eternal time to learn and master Swing may not cherish the idea of switching to a new toolkit, that to specially now, given that Java 1.6 comes up with huge suprises for Swing developers, the Gray Rect fix and HW/LW mixing to name a few
You should do some research. The community by and large is not happy with Swing. It is what it is. A decade old API that hasn't been improved like it could have been. And now Sun pushes effort into JavaFX.
It doesnt matter.
Becuase now most people are already stuck hip deep in Swing, and although people may try to be vociferous about trying new technolgies, you must understand that Swing has been here for almost a decade now, and though there is definetly some issues in it as far as ease for developers is concerned, but the amount of legacy code written voer Swing will always outweigh anything else, until a new miracle technology comes up, and trust me QT Jambi is not that mircale.
Actually there are quite a number of killer applications, such as Google Earth and Adobe Photoshop Elements that use Qt and run in Windows. Check
this out. Even Nokia is porting Qt to S60. The only reason why people don't like to use Qt is because the commercial license is so expensive whereas with Swing, SWT, or JavaFX, you get it for free.
Suraj Chandran wrote:It doesnt matter.
Becuase now most people are already stuck hip deep in Swing, and although people may try to be vociferous about trying new technolgies, you must understand that Swing has been here for almost a decade now, and though there is definetly some issues in it as far as ease for developers is concerned, but the amount of legacy code written voer Swing will always outweigh anything else, until a new miracle technology comes up, and trust me QT Jambi is not that mircale.
Who said anything about QT Jambi being "that miracle"? I'm just saying that QT Jambi can most definitely stand up against the existing tool kits. QT has a huge following as does Java. QT being open source now opens a lot of doors for QT, especially on Windows.
And it always matters. I'm neck deep in Swing right now and if I thought the reward is worth the risk I'd move to a new toolkit. In fact, we are considering alternatives right now, including QT Jambi.