Qt Support
This is an outctopping from the Native SDK suggestion (http://wpdev.uservoice.com/forums/110705-app-platform/suggestions/1755203-native-sdk). Please use this suggestion to vote and comment on your want/need for Qt support on the Windows Phone platform.
AdminCliff Simpkins
(Sr Product Manager, Windows Phone Developer)
shared this idea
This is an outctopping from the Native SDK suggestion (http://wpdev.uservoice.com/forums/110705-app-platform/suggestions/1755203-native-sdk). Please use this suggestion to vote and comment on your want/need for Qt support on the Windows Phone platform.
163 comments
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Alexandre Souza commented
100% of my applications is write on Qt, at this time i'm working with necessitas for android and i think that Windows Phone can open for many programmer to use this plataform.
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Ahmed F Al-Shebli commented
Sorry for English mistakes, am writing on my phone
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Lets think why android us growing, basically you can just do what you want, even if you want to code using your android tablet, there is a way :) why windows is successfull, you can program the way you like, you can download the app you want, customize it, many people are changing from IOS to other systems due to restriction, android is not good, but at that time, its a better choice, am using wp7 now, and I see a lot inside this is amazing, but I miss a lot, some apps, for Qt, if Qt wasn't good, why Skype is developed using Qt, why google earth is developed using Qt, why big companies uses Qt, why flight software inside the planes is built on Qt, why medical devices software is built with Qt in top of windows CE?
I hope that day won't come where I move to something other than Qt
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Qt is great for making games, I don't mean any metro Apps, but basically, it's needed for easier C++ games
Great
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tonys
commented
Everytime also don't know what line can be support wp7 anti-virus and firewall support's......
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Benjamin Zeller
commented
@Leonard, Apple did not forbíd Qt on IPhone, what they did was to forbid the useage of shared libraries, but you can surely work around that.
MFC and COM are not really a good example for code libraries btw.
Using Qt for cross platform dev becomes only more difficult for UI code, and QML can fix this. This way you can have one backend and multiple QML based frontends.
The way companies try to lock in people is , in my opinion, the wrong way to bind their customers to their products. Instead they should do it by providing a good product so people don't WANT to go away. Locking them in does only work for a short time until the pressure to move to a better different product got high enough.
If the future of windows is bound to be proprietory it might be a bad future, because open standards and opensource is a big player these days. -
Anonymous
commented
Leonard, you should realize that Qt developers are familiar with not just qt but also other dev platforms and operating systems. Many of them do come from Microsoft development platforms. Yet they want Qt on all MS OSes.
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Leonard
commented
@ Anonymous, we have to realize that it's 2012, not 2002. Creating cross-platform app using middle-ware libraries like Qt becomes more and more difficult. It's not because Qt is not good, instead it's impressive. It's because proprietory companies tend to lock in users and developers and therefore hate cross-platform technologies that easily may transfer resources from one platform to another. Take MS for example, it won't stand to let a third-party dev tool to become popular on its platform, so it beat Borland. The same can be said to Apple. There is nothing wrong with that as it's business and shareholders are there.
You claim Qt is the ultimate solution to support cross-platform compatibility. How could that happen? The reality is Qt is getting irrelevant on nearly all major platforms, even on Linux where GTK is more preferred. AFAK, WinRT is not a Win32 replacement, it's more like .NET with managed C++ re-engineered. The future of Windows is bound to be managed and proprietory. To ensure this, MS sacrificed MFC and COM, the popular technology in 90s of last century when Qt is no where to be found. -
Leonard
commented
@achipa, it makes no sense to port Qt-faked metro styled app to other platforms such as Android or iPhone because on these platforms metro is not popular and widgets or icons rule. There's tons of reasons to use Metro directly, performance, stability, less buggy, better support and documentation, quick update and so on.
It's safe to say that Qt is irrelevant in iOS that require XCode and Obj C. -
Leonard
commented
@minimec, I've read that post and guess you did not get author's idea. It is not MS techonology vs. open source technology, it's not proprietory vs. open. Indeed the author just grew mature to concentrate more on his specialties or products than on tools used to build the products.
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Anonymous
commented
Qt gives you that abstraction layer on which your applications are based. With Qt, the programmer shouldn't really care if user has WinCE, Embedded, or Mobile 6.
Also, WP7 maybe the last Win32s based phone OS, if WinRT will be the heart of the future WP8 or WP9, than Qt is the ultimate solution to support cross-platform compatibility. -
achipa
commented
@Leonard QML is not (just) a UI guideline implementation language - AFAIK there is nothing preventing you from writing a (real, WinRT-based) Metro component set for QML, so that you have all your Qt / C++ backends working, while using a bit of QML magic to easily interface the two together. One might ask why bother with a component set and not use Metro directly - and the good reason is that you can just swap the QML and insta-port to other supported platforms. On another note - I don't think Qt is banned in iOS (there have been misunderstandings in the *Mac* app store, but that's more to default paths and such, not an 'ideological' issue).
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minimec
commented
@Leonard: I am not (yet) a developer, but following this interesting discussion, I searched the Web for additional information on the subject. I stumbled upon these two interesting blog posts... Worth reading... The future is open! ;)
http://realworldsa.blogspot.com/2011/11/microsoft-moved-my-cheese-again-and-i.html
http://www.kotancode.com/2011/11/29/microsoft-and-the-movement-of-cheese/ -
Leonard
commented
@Benjamin, the Metro style is just a concept or UI guideline and there may be several implementations of it from different vendors. MS of course has to provide one implementation called Windows runtime. Qt communicty has come with up an implementation called QML. And someone else might offer her own implementation e.g. myMetro. The problem is, will all these implementations give the same user experience? I quite doubt it and am sure WinRT is the best. This will bring some disastrous aftereffects to WP7/Win8. For one thing, users might complain the poor performance of some "metro" app that are indeed written in non-MS implementation. For the other, the porting of the metro style to other platforms will undermine one of the selling points of WP7/Win8.
You mentioned that Qt did a good job in warping desktop widgets. I admit it but desktop UI technology has remained stagnant for a long time on nearly all computing platforms (Win/Unix/Mac). On emerging UI technologies such as Metro, Silverlight, that on iOS (sorry I do not know how to name it), all Qt community can do for now is to imitate. Apple clearly do not allow this practice and forbid Qt in iOS. And now MS follow the same strategy. I don't see anything wrong with it. -
Sreejith
commented
I develop in Qt as well as in VB. So the newer applications can be developed with much more rich GUI with VB. But I don't want to redo the whole thing that I have done for all the Qt based applications developed for Symbian based Nokia phones. It will be a waste of time. More over many of my fellow developers are more comfortable with Qt, I dont think it will be a big difficulty to support Qt on windows phone, since it runs beautifully on the orignal desktop version of Windows. So whats wrong in giving support for Qt on Windows Phone...it should be just a piece of cake for you people.
Please DO support Qt apps on windows phone mobile, with an additional plugin (like a flash player installer or something), if you have difficulties in accepting for a native support.
Please note that, giving this freedom to choose your platform, definitely will bring great apps on Windows phones.... Also keep in mind that there are some good Qt developers who are being forced to move to Android only because WP doesn't support Qt and Android does (with necessitas).
Than playing the politics , lets make this more user and developer friendly, that will help all of us to bring a bright future for Windows Phone,Microsoft,Nokia,We the developers & we/our friends who are the end users....! Come on lets put a smile on everybody's face.....!
Yes... VOTE for Qt on Windows Phone 7.5 and +
Thank you,
Sreejith Mani -
Benjamin Zeller
commented
Leonard, why should it bring inconsistency? If it looks like Metro noone will be able to tell the difference. Qt already did a good job on hiding itself on every Desktop Platform it is running on and with some polishing that can happen as well for metro.
In fact i doubt you could tell the difference between a native windows app and a Qt appl on Win7. -
Leonard
commented
Eero, that demonstrate is just a fake Metro style. This foreshadows two problems. Either your app is rejected, or brings inconsistent user experience.
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Rob Scott
commented
It would be a valuable tool to have. Is there some valid reason (as in other than simply being proprietary) that Qt shouldn't be available to developers?
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Eero Penttinen
commented
Take a look into this demo - "How to Create Qt Applications with Metro Style" - http://www.digia.com/en/Blogs/Qt-blog/Sami-Makkonen/Dates/2012/1/2012/
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Lauri Tarkkala
commented
I will develop for WP if it supports Qt and QML.
