Qt 6.4

https://www.qt.io/blog/qt-6.4-released

by pyprism • 4 years ago

128 144 4 years ago

qt.io

firecraker• 4 years ago

Qt in the browser sounds cool.. but feels reminiscent of shockwave..

323• 4 years ago

It's inevitable.

The only way for Qt to compete with Electron is to become Electron.

Jenk• 4 years ago

That feels like to opposite, though. Electron brought the browser to offline/"native" apps. It literally packaged webkit in a way for web tech to be used as a desktop app, whilst Qt in the browser (and Shockwave, Java Applets, ActiveX et al) were bringing the desktop to the browser.

IshKebab• 4 years ago

Yeah I don't think anyone would really choose to write a new web app with Qt. I assume the target market is people that want to port their existing Qt code to the web. It could also be useful for demoing Qt apps.

jcelerier8• 4 years ago

Yep, I do it with https://ossia.io (https://ossia.io/score-web) to make the occasional demo ; it's pretty alpha and drag'n'drop still seems to kill it but every Qt release has made it better without me having to do anything.. looking forward to updating!

aljgz• 4 years ago

Don't underestimate people's reluctance to learn new stacks.

ravenstine• 4 years ago

I think the better use case for having Qt in the browser is if a web app could benefit from sharing code with a mobile or desktop Qt project. Other than that, yeah, I'm not sure why anyone would use Qt for web apps besides preference.

pjmlp8• 4 years ago

While some people were too busy cheering the death of plugins, they were being bought back to life thanks to the rejuvenating powers of WebAssembly and WebGL.

All of them already have some kind of support in WebAssembly.

bobajeff2• 4 years ago

Still, overall better than the situation of having to install a plugin that may or may not be available or working fully on your system. Plus security concerns of running sometimes obscure binaries on your system to access web content.

qwerty4561273• 4 years ago

Is there a tutorial of how to make a desktop GUI app using only QML/Quick/whatever, without C++ or Python? I want to build a desktop app and will gladly offload the work logic to a separate app to be invoked in background via CLI.

pavlov• 4 years ago

Why do you want to build a desktop app with the mobile framework rather than the desktop one?

I’m not saying it’s necessarily a bad idea, Apple enables the same nowadays with Catalyst (iOS APIs on macOS). But it doesn’t seem very popular. Just curious why you want to go this way.

qwerty4561273• 4 years ago

1. I consider Qt (incl. the "modern" part) a desktop framework (arguably the best one) with mobile support (perhaps very good support), not a mobile framework. Or would you say KDE is "for some reason made with a mobile framework rather than a desktop one"?

2. I am a solo developer and want one framework to write once, run everywhere (still looking for which will do the best job for me).

nu11ptr4• 4 years ago

AFAIK, QML is now their full strategy for desktop and mobile. QtWidgets is still supported but is considered somewhat legacy I believe. New projects are typically encouraged to use QML I think.

qutierust3• 4 years ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33021550

Rust works fine but with qml technically there is very little programming code except the in app js-logic

numlock862• 4 years ago

Tried to use QT for a new product based on a STM32F769 MCU some time ago. I got laughed at and waved off when asking for the budget needed to buy/licence QT stuff. To be fair, they need a business model, but the target audience seems just to be automotive or anyone who's planning to roll out something with at least a million pieces in mind.

arinlen4• 4 years ago

I got laughed at and waved off when asking for the budget needed to buy/licence QT stuff.

This.

Regardless of Qt's technical merit, it's licensing automatically takes it out of the table of most of all potential projects.

https://www.qt.io/pricing

ihaveajob• 4 years ago

They work really hard to hide this, but they do have a LGPL license that applies to most of the framework, and only some parts (charts, etc.) are GPL/commercial only. For those old enough to remember, this license issue was at the heart of the Gnome/KDE schism.

From their site <https://www.qt.io/download-open-source>: LGPL – Any modification to a Qt component covered by the GNU Lesser General Public License must be contributed back to the community. This is the primary open source Qt license, which covers the majority of Qt modules.

If you're not familiar, in practice, the difference between GPL and LGPL is that LGPL does allow dynamically linking a library with a closed source program, without requiring that the program also becomes GPL/LGPL. This is compatible with most development as long as you either don't modify Qt, or are ok with those modifications becoming open source.

dark-star2• 4 years ago

it's licensing automatically takes it out of the table of most of all potential projects.

maybe consider licensing that "potential project" under a license that allows you to use the OpenSource Qt version?

77pt772• 4 years ago

You can use almost all of QT even in close source, provided you only link dynamically.

pjmlp8• 4 years ago

I see it diferently, when I want to enjoy the work of Qt devs as free beer, my work is also free beer.

When I want to get paid for stuff I develop with the work of Qt devs, then like in other profession, I pay the creators of tools I get money to put bread on the table.

They also need to buy bread, so it is only fair we share the same conditions.

omgmajk2• 4 years ago

Woof, those prices are so enterprise.

DannyBee5• 4 years ago

It is also very in your face. Went to go install the SDK on windows - have to create an account, click a ton of stuff in the installer to convince it that it's okay to give me the free version, etc

It then proceeds to install 20+ gigabytes (yes) of stuff, including their ide that you can't actually uncheck.

No thanks, i'm out.

yellow_lead2• 4 years ago

I think you can get by with 5gb or so if you're only building for one platform. But if you select Android, iOS, sources, etc it can get big

nottorp3• 4 years ago

The ide is actually decent. Or was in the Qt 4 days. The rest... as the OP in this thread says, the only thing we're using Qt for is something something automotive (and paid).

We don't bother going near the LGPL version for small things. Too many threats.

secondcoming2• 4 years ago

QTCreator is one of the best C++ IDEs for Linux. I'd imagine Visual Studio is better but I haven't developed on Windows in years.

jcelerier8• 4 years ago

you can install it from vcpkg or conan (or https://github.com/miurahr/aqtinstall if you really want the official Qt binaries) and it'll be much less

llornkcor8• 4 years ago

You give up too easily. Do you know you can download the sources via git? You can even pick and choose which Qt modules you want. No account needed.

sorenjan• 4 years ago

Maybe Slint could be an option? From former Qt developers.

https://slint-ui.com/

nu11ptr4• 4 years ago

Doesn't yet have a table or tree control - would only work for very basic UIs in this limited state. Also, GPL and all that entails (with rare exception that you can petition for a free license if a very small entity or open source).

numlock862• 4 years ago

There's no pricing indication other than "contact our sales", which is a common wording for "just as expensive (or even more) as the competition". Also their licence and subscription (yuck) model seems awful. Pay a monthly fee per device as long as I sell my product? No thanks. I got laughed at for presenting QT as a possible solution. This will just make me look like a tryhard clown.

didgetmaster3• 4 years ago

Has anyone tried slint? How does it compare to Qt v5 or v6?

api3• 4 years ago

The inconvenience of software licensing and license management and the potential legal issues that incorporating third party licensed software can create for a project are a much bigger impediment to the use of commercial developer tools and libraries than the cost.

If the cost is reasonable for what you're getting, most companies wouldn't think twice about paying for a library or a dev tool if it'll help them ship faster or better products... and if they didn't have to think about it much anymore after that decision. You can see this by the willingness of companies to shell out for SaaS tools like GitHub paid accounts and commercial CI/CD services. There isn't really much lock-in there. If you need to abandon GitHub you can move to GitLab or stand up your own instance of something like Gitea. Might lose some meta-data but your main code (product) is intact.

Instead the nature of licensing means that the license of the library you're incorporating contaminates your project and you have to get legal involved. Even having to contact legal is generally the kiss of death.

It also raises questions about whether the vendor can rug pull you in the future and kill your product. To be fair this can sort of happen in open source if you rely on a complex project that gets abandoned and don't have the resources to adopt it, but at least there you have some recourse and you can keep using what already exists until you have a long term solution.

This complexity is really why we can't have nice things, since things as powerful as Qt really do require funding in one form or another.

robomartin2• 4 years ago

Yes, the Qt licensing model is the reason we have not touched it. Not interested in the ramifications it creates. For example, imaging you are selling your company and, during due diligence, the buyer discovers you have to release your source code. Yeah. Talk about having a bad day.

In addition to this, I have exactly zero interest in any licensing model that requires a per-device fee. First of all, the fee, at least last time I looked, is completely opaque. My guess is they try to squeeze you for all they can. Second, and often more important, I have zero interest in Qt having an internal view of our business --which is what they get when you have to account for how many devices you made, sold and when.

I don't mind the per-developer or site licenses. Per-device licenses are intrusive. They also get to tap into your profit margin. No, thanks.

We have subscriptions with JetBrains for their excellent tools. If JetBrains turned around and said "You have to pay a fee for every unit sold", we would drop them like a hot potato. Everyone understands that example, yet somehow people don't recoil at this idea of per-device licensing. Hardware is hard enough as it is; adding a blood-sucking vampire to the equation doesn't make it easier.

Think about it. Is the work Qt does more complex than what JetBrains do? Not at all. I can actually see JB's work being massively more difficult, particularly when you consider the array of tools they have to evolve and maintain. Why is it that Qt think they are entitled to poke a needle into your arm and suck blood out of every device you make?

Even better, the open source license demands contribution of any enhancements back to Qt. They, in turn, take those advances and sell them through their commercial licensing program. Do the contributors get a piece of the action? Why not?

Also, I believe that, until recently, if you stopped paying your developer licenses you were prohibited from selling your product. In other words, if I created a product using Qt five years ago and never touched it again, I'd have to pay them a developer's license for the life of the product. Once again, blood-sucking vampire behavior. That said, I believe I read something about this policy changing. Since I have not found a way to care about Qt, I didn't bother to read that article in detail.

Another analogy: It's like what's going on with modern "smart" TV's. You go buy a TV and the manufacturers somehow feel entitled to harass you with advertising and all sorts of data gathering. Intrusive and wrong.

How could Qt change my mind?

I don't have a problem paying a reasonable per-developer annual license fee. What's reasonable? A few hundred dollars, say, $300 or so. After that, no per-device fees, get your microscope out of my ass and the license isn't tied to released products in any imaginable manner.

I very much doubt this will happen.

didgetmaster3• 4 years ago

It seems like Qt is trying to walk that 'license tightrope' that many tool makers do...how do you make your product affordable for small developers without making it possible for big businesses to pay you a pittance for helping them reap $millions or even $billions in product sales.

I would love to pay Qt a reasonable license fee once my product that uses it starts generating some decent revenues. I want them to succeed and keep building better versions. But I also don't want to have to shell out outrageous license fees when I am just getting started. This goes for any tool or library I choose to use.

LtWorf8• 4 years ago

For example, imaging you are selling your company and, during due diligence, the buyer discovers you have to release your source code.

You have to do that process if you use electron… except that there you have 30000 libraries and each one of them has to be vetted and approved.

Your legal costs estimations is way off.

zxspectrum19825• 4 years ago

When I was a developer and engineering manager, we used Qt for many desktop and embedded (not microcontroller) applications for many years. It was a bit cheaper than today (~3K EUR/seat) but it paid by itself due to the increased productivity. It was a no brainer.

With mobile platforms, I can imagine the same is true: you can save a ton of development time money.

llornkcor8• 4 years ago

Perhaps you could choose this license? https://www.qt.io/pricing/qt-for-small-business

zac23or• 4 years ago

I love Qt, technology-wise. But the business model... Distribution Licenses? Come on!

obdev• 4 years ago

How viable is LGPL'd Qt, in its current situation, for closed-source desktop applications?

nottorp3• 4 years ago

Can you afford a lawyer on retainer?

stjohnswarts3• 4 years ago

What? It's doesn't take a genius to understand it. They clearly label what is and what is not LGPL. It doesn't hurt to double check the source files of course and have redundant confirmation. You don't need a lawyer for everything in life.

LtWorf8• 4 years ago

Just so you know, webkit is LGPL, because it got forked from KDE (KHTML).

nu11ptr4• 4 years ago

As long as you dynamically link and don't use the non-free components (charts, etc.), I think it would be just fine for a C++ or Python app. However, personally, I am leaning towards Flutter atm. They have decent emulated native looking controls for Windows/Mac, seems to have a strong cross platform focus, strong Rust integration via a bridge library, and has a better license with good free charting options.

dark-star2• 4 years ago

You will be missing a few modules/plugins/tools which are commercial-only (I cannot seem to find the actual list right now though) but other than that, the LGPL was made exactly for that reason to allow linking an open-source library (Qt) into a closed-source program.

As long as you don't modify the Qt source (or you modify and re-distribute it per LGPL) you should be safe (IANAL obviously)

detaro2• 4 years ago

Very. That's almost the point of LGPL.

didgetmaster3• 4 years ago

I have a project I built using Qt version 5. It seems to work pretty well. I didn't upgrade to version 6 because it was initially missing some modules I was using, but it sounds like they have now ported those to their version 6 code. When I get some cycles, I will have to look into upgrading.

yellow_lead2• 4 years ago

Check out qt5compat module :)

samsaga2• 4 years ago

The LGPL license allows you to make closed applications without problems if you comply with the rules. But the Qt guys will call you and make threats (very nicely). Real case.

seego• 4 years ago

See https://doc.qt.io/qt-6/qtmodules.html#gpl-licensed-addons for the few GPL/commercial only modules

stagger873• 4 years ago

Super viable. I'm aware of several companies using the LGPL license for their closed source desktop applications, including my own. Don't let the other replies scare you. No one will call and threaten you and you don't need a lawyer. For cross platform native desktop applications, Qt is far and away the best option. QtCreator is pretty awesome too.

qutierust3• 4 years ago

Qmetaobject-rs crate makes it very easy to write qt with rust.

I've said it before and i will say it again. A good gyi toolkit and that too cross platform is an incredible amount of work. Rust would be better off funding qt support than trying 20 different things because somehow anything less than "pure" rust is filthy.

gilrain• 4 years ago

“Rust” isn’t trying 20 different things. Various independent teams and developers are working on their own projects for various reasons.

api3• 4 years ago

I tried some Qt WASM demos here: https://www.qt.io/qt-examples-for-webassembly

Nice idea but the problem is that these literally run as a foreign app in the browser. You can't cut and paste or highlight text. They are not web pages.

There is a niche for this, probably in business and industrial uses or for making legacy apps available over the web, but it's not something I'd consider for a new system that had to in any way be "web-like" or that was primarily used over the web.

llornkcor8• 4 years ago

Actually you should be able to cut/paste. Highlighting text also works. https://lpotter.github.io/textedit/textedit.html

api3• 4 years ago

Hmmm maybe it has to be enabled programmatically.

mwcampbell• 4 years ago

And still no accessibility as far as I can tell. It's kind of amusing and kind of sad that one of the demos on that page is "Pizza Shop", given that there was a recent infamous accessibility lawsuit against Dominos Pizza.

Qt 6.4

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