Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Programming Discussion : Cross Platform Programming

[Emil]

Hey, hey

I am looking for some type of technology that would allow me to deveop cross-platform desktop applications in a RAD environment.

The only one I´ve seen so far that proves to be interesting is XUL, however, I do have some reservations about using it because it seems to be a bit slow, and XRE isnt up to speed just yet.

Any ideas?

PS: I have tried Java as well, however, building graphical interfaces with it is definately a pain..

Thanks for any suggestions!

[Craig Edwards]

Not had any personal experience with cross platform gui programming, however have you had a look at Python + wxPython?

Did you have a look at Swing for Java?

Are you looking for an IDE to create the actual interfaces? Or an API?

[mno]

I've also heard that QT is a nice library, although I've never used it. Although you mention that Swing is a pain, I must point out that there are quite a number of well-made Swing GUIs out there (example: Eclipse).

[Emil]

Thanks for the suggestions..I did take a quick look at QT, and GTK and will most likely use one of them to produce some applications.

As far as Swing, the classes there are large, and documentation or rather good, practical books on the subject (or even online resources) are hard to come accross. The only books out there seem to just go over the methods in a dry fashion that is not very useful.

Yes, I am looking for an IDE, as it goes hand in hand with RAD..QT has QT Designer which will allow me to make the forms and such..which will definately be a time saver.

If anybody has any other sugestions Id like to hear them though!

[Burhan]

For RAD and cross platform compatibility, the best option is to deploy rich internet applications.

Examples would be Flex applications, or applications that run on an application server (such as JBoss, Tomcat, 9iAS) and then use a web browser as the client interface.

I don't know what you are talking about when you say that documentation is hard to come by wrt Swing. Obviously you haven't searched very well. I know of quite a few good books regarding GUI design that talk about Java and the swing toolkit.

Having said that, there are other options than Swing when it comes to Java UI design.

On the IDE side, it really comes down to personal preference. I have worked with a lot of different IDEs (for different programming languages). Almost all share a common feature set (like code completion, for example).

For Java GUI building, IDEA from IntelliJ really shines.

[Emil]

Well it really depends on the type of application that is being built..I am not a great fan of rich Internet applications because usually that turns out into a browser compatibility issue, which is again tied into the cross platform issue. XUL, which is what I was loking at, provided a unified way, however, Mozilla has to be installed and its performance is relatively slow.

As far as documentation on Swing.. It is definately possible I did not look in all the places..A couple of links, or book reccommendations would be nice. Still, I will not be be using it for upcoming projects, as Swing has a high learning curve and would probably take a bit too much time too become fairly proefficient in writing it.

I decided on QT..mainly because of the great signals and slots (just binding one method to another in simple terms), the stable QT Designer, an active developer community, and detailed documentation.

[Burhan]

If you like Java and want an easy way to create user interfaces, I would highly recommend Flex.

It has a XML-based user interface design language, and has a Java api (requires a Java app server to host the applications).

[pnorilsk]

Java obviously is the only single cross-platform technology I can think about. The varieties of documentation on Java is, IMHO, too overwhelming actually. The number of IDE is too large (as compare it with .NET) and available frameworks and reusable, prepackaged artifacts are in thousands.

my 2c.

Peter Kinev.

P.S. Where have you been, fyrestrtr, when I needed your help with Java promotion on this forum?

[Emil]

Java obviously isn't QT, GTK, and wx* can fill in the void as I've found out after some research (mainly on QT though).

QT is great..especially after getting the "Programming with QT3" book which comes with the free version of QT for Windows (although I will do most of my programming in KDE). I've also gotten some books on C++, and various other fields so I can grasp a better, more varied understanding of cross platform programming.

Just what I needed!

[krumms]

Java obviously is the only single cross-platform technology I can think about. The varieties of documentation on Java is, IMHO, too overwhelming actually. The number of IDE is too large (as compare it with .NET) and available frameworks and reusable, prepackaged artifacts are in thousands.

Those are such weak arguments (an abundance of third party libraries is a problem how??) I'm not going to bother feeding that troll

Anyway, I would recommend Python + PyGTK. Deployable to KDE/GNOME or Win32 environments and themeable (so it is able to look native on Windows). IIRC it's GPL though, so it licensing might be a problem.

wx is alright, but it's pretty ugly in comparison.

XUL is interesting too, but from my experience with it security restrictions have been a pain. If you don't mind using it in cahoots with SOAP/XML-RPC with XMLHTTPRequest to communicate with a remote server it might be worth looking into. From what I hear XUL as a whole is meant to be buggy, so YMMV.

One more thing to look into is Java and SWT. SWT renders natively under Win32 and GTK+. I've not had much experience with SWT however, so I'll leave the research up to you.

[pnorilsk]

Originally posted by krumms
Those are such weak arguments (an abundance of third party libraries is a problem how??) I'm not going to bother feeding that troll

I know it's a waisting of my time. But, I hope 6B soon to be Java enabled handhandled devices (phone, some PDA) would be a sufficient argument for you. Would it be?

Peter Kinev

[krumms]

Originally posted by pnorilsk
I know it's a waisting of my time. But, I hope 6B soon to be Java enabled handhandled devices (phone, some PDA) would be a sufficient argument for you. Would it be?

Peter Kinev

Oh right, so you're arguing FOR Java?

The varieties of documentation on Java is, IMHO, too overwhelming actually. The number of IDE is too large (as compare it with .NET) and available frameworks and reusable, prepackaged artifacts are in thousands.

(emphasis mine)

From that post it seemed like you were complaining there was too much documentation, too many IDEs and too many frameworks. Perhaps I misinterpreted what you were trying to convey.

I agree wholeheartedly, Java is one option. The original poster didn't like Swing though, so in my previous post I suggested SWT as an alternative. Less portable, but perhaps portable enough to be worth his while. Or maybe it was just GridBagConstraints that was pissing him off. In that case, I would suggest an alternate layout manager. Or perhaps it's time to start looking for a toolkit that generates Swing user interfaces from XML documents? The possibilities are endless.

I'd also like to add Mono and GTK# to the list of cross-platform options I mentioned earlier. You may wish to check out Nant too. Spot the GTK enthusiast

[pnorilsk]

Originally posted by krumms
Oh right, so you're arguing FOR Java?
I

Absolutely.