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Re: Ultimate++ vs Wxwidgets for desktop linux/windows/mac app [message #57281 is a reply to message #57277]

Thu, 24 June 2021 09:57

mirek
Messages: 13980
Registered: November 2005

Ultimate Member

germandiago wrote on Wed, 23 June 2021 15:18

Hello everyone,

I know this project for a long time. I always thought of it as a good project, but not sure why it does not get used more, compared to, let us say, wxWidgets.

So here I have some questions:

1. For a Mac/Windows/Linux desktop app, does Ultimate++ fit well? I just want to use the GUI part, mainly.

You will probably be able to tell the difference from native apps if looking very carefully. You could probably do a tiny bit better with wxWidgets (which is native GUI, meaning it is using host platform widgets), but not with Qt (which is emulated, meaning it renders widgets itself, but U++ is about as good).

What U++ is to detect target platform look&feel as accurately as possible (color, shape of buttons etc...) and then use "Chameleon" system to adjust its look and feel.

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2. In case I need to add other external dependencies, an sqlite orm or sqlpp11 for example and others, and since I use Meson for projects, will the package system get in the way for adding/removing dependencies? I want to have meson invocation as my top-level command, use theIDE for layout creation and have everything else run from Meson. I will not use TheIDE for anything else, since I use CLion mostly.

With TheIDE, should not be that much of trouble.

Then if using external editor, you might consider using "umk" for building (means it will still be using U++ modular system).

You can also build U++ GUI as library - it is definitely doable and tested, but we never went beyond that (in the end, everybody ends using theide or umk and we really have limited resources). You can check the corresponding discussion here: https://www.ultimatepp.org/forums/index.php?t=msg&th=112 72&start=0&

BTW, theide can be used as editor of layout files - if you specify the file on commandline, it will simply be open for editing (e.g. "theide mydialogs.lay")

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3. Can I streamline my layouts from the GUI into my build system or I have to stick in some way to TheIDE?

Layouts (and images) are in fact compiled with C++ compiler, so no problem there.

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4. How well tested is Ultimate++ in Windows/Mac/Linux?

Win/Linux production (in sense there are applications that sell for money).

Mac is less used and probably less matured. Definitely works, but I am not aware about any production apps there.

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5. Is it possible to show/embed OpenGL and the like?

Not 100% sure what you mean by that, but there is "GLCtrl" widget, perhaps this answers the question.

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6. What are your perceived advantages/disadvantages compared to WxWidgets, limited to desktop app development for GUI only? I do
not care about any other thing such as sockets or db access, since I will be using other projects for that.

About the same as C++ vs C... Smile

U++ is battle tested for really huge complex applications (think about application with 1000 dialogs as one of metrics). From maintainance standpoint, it is always easier to maintain smaller codebase.

Mirek

Mirek

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