Re: Free QT?

[Joel Dillon <emily cornholio new ox ac uk>]

> A library that helps people port qt apps to gtk(--) needs the following parts:
> * signal-slot system (exists already in gtk--)

  True - it would be nice if FreeQT could use that mechanism somehow.

> * moc -replacement to convert Qt's signal-slot format to gtk--'s syntax for
>   same thing (I expect this to be very easy to do - I volunteer for doing this)

  Hmm..the moc might be quite complex; the documentation seems to suggest
that it actually parses C++. Still, I'd be happy to hear how you get on;
the moc doesn't actually need to be done anytime soon because (I presume)
translating code with it doesn't make that code subject to QT's copyright;
indeed code translated with the moc, and thus not needing it to compile,
would be free software.

> * wrapper that implements interface specified in Qt's documentation and
>   which uses gtk--'s widgets/signal system to implement the functionality. 
>   (I expect this to be very thin wrapper, as gtk-- already implements very 
>   similar interface - much like what gtk-- is currently compared to gtk).

  True :) The trouble might occur, however, when widgets descended from
QT inherit their ancestor's functions and use them to do complicated
things. There are already a few minor problems with inheritance in
gtk-- and that's sitting directly on top of gtk+ ;) I think it might
be necessarily, unfortunately, to actually write FreeQT as a new widget
set and make it Gnome-compliant by making its default look exactly
like GTK's (plus giving it theme support, .gtkrc reading support
etc)

> Since there seems to be interest in creating one, I'll make a web page
> for it soon to organize things aliitle. watch for url
> www.iki.fi/terop/freeqt/index.html (Is there somewhere else such
> projects already? url?) Mail me any suggestions and I'll
> put them to the web page.

  I've asked the FSF to see what's going on; FreeQT is actually on
their urgent task list so we might be able to get some GNU support,
which would be cool.

> So, need volunteers for the following things:
> * setting up mailing list (we need this quickly, I expect freeqt mails in
>   gnome/gtk-list/kde lists be annoyance to people who read those lists
>   => do not followup to this message, instead mail me about your opinion until
>   we get someone set up mailing list)
> * start implementing classes starting from the base classes (learn to use
>   gtk--'s signal system before doing this - I'll help if you get problems 
>   with this)

  Better work out how the signal handling is going to work first ;)

> Ok, now its only about if people want free qt enough to actually do it.

  True - QT ain't small (although it's probably less code than gtk,
and we needn't do /all/ of it to start with - just the GUI stuff).
If QT->gtk can be done quickly and well that might be the best way to
do it, but I fear that it's going to be hard to do it properly without
actually writing from scratch, although we should be able to use lots
of gtk code/ideas/experience.

	Jo