Re: GNOME in the press

[Paul Seelig <pseelig goofy zdv Uni-Mainz de>]

tromey@cygnus.com (Tom Tromey) writes:

> Paul> I really do like the Qt Motif style which is IMHO very much
> Paul> better than what gtk+ currently has to offer.
> 
> I'd find it useful if you posted some specific ways in which Qt's look
> is better.  Perhaps the differences can be addressed in some way.
> 
Carefully, i'm *not* referring to "looks", but to "functionality".
Personally i don't bother how it looks like, but i care a *lot* about
how something works.  Just look at MS-Windows to see how pretty looks
(argueable) and functionality can exclude each other. ;-> While there
are some concerns on my part about the looks of gtk+ (and even Qt)
applications, they are definitely *not* as important as the
functionality aspect.  Actually i consider Motif to be rather hideous,
but then again it really works great, which is why i do prefer it.

The specific way in which Qt's funcionality in regards of Motif
emulation surpasses gtk+ is the scroll bar handling with a three
button mouse.  Motif allows different actions on a scroll bar for
every MB and this is pretty convenient.  What gtk+ is still missing is
the middle mouse button action when clicking right inside the scroll
bar field.  In Motif (and Qt) the scroll handle (sorry, i don't know
the correct technical terms in English) jumps into the place where the
mouse event has been and if one keeps the middle MB pressed it can be
used to manually move the scroll handle and the window content as one
pleases.  I think the Motif functionality is far superior to the
MS-Windows way of doing things in regards of mouse useage and should
really be copied closely.  And then there is the issue both in Qt and
gtk+ of the senseless tear off menu bars versus useful tear off
menus...

> Paul> Another point is that one can extensively use the keyboard
> Paul> instead of the mouse for traversing and using Qt apps, which
> Paul> very unfortunately is practically still largely impossible with
> Paul> any gtk+ app including the famous gimp.
> 
> I think this is a known problem.  I don't know if anybody is working
> on it, though.
> 
I'm really hoping for this to come true someday.  IMHO even Qt still
leaves quite a lot to be desired in this regard.  The measure here is
probably MS-Windows which can be used without a mouse quite well so
far.  This should be considered a major advantage.

                             Thank you, P. *8^)
-- 
   --------- Paul Seelig <pseelig@goofy.zdv.uni-mainz.de> -----------
   African Music Archive - Institute for Ethnology and Africa Studies
   Johannes Gutenberg-University   -  Forum 6  -  55099 Mainz/Germany
   --------------- http://www.uni-mainz.de/~pseelig -----------------