Your best library for create GUI ( gtk, qt, win32 api, etc )? [closed]

Answer 1

Let's see.

• Win32 is very low-level, C based, and awkward to use.
• MFC is considered obsolete.
• C# (or C++) with .NET is probably your primary choice for Windows-specific development.
• • There are even semi-limited ways to port that code to other platforms (Mono).
• Java is great for very platform-independent code that "just runs". Sorry, you said C++.
• QT is relatively platform-independent.
• GTK+, of course, although I personally don't have much experience with it.

Personally, if I do something Windows-specific, I use .NET - the tools in Visual Studio are very powerful, and it's a great all-encompassing suite.

For platform-independent stuff, I use Java, but that may not be your tool of choice. I've seen QT used a lot for that purpose.

Answer 2

Personally I prefer Qt, but it really depends on what kind of user interfaces you want to make.

Against Win32:

• low-level, high complexity to accomplish trivial things. You have to do EVERYTHING

• if you go this route I would recomment a book like the one from Petzold.

Pro Qt:

• Good looking GUIs

• Can change the look and feel very easily by creating stylesheets

• Signal and slots mechanism notifies you of UI events such as "button clicked" etc.

• Nice layout system

• Integrated with Visual Studio IDE

• Modern object oriented c++ code, easy to understand and use

• Qt Assistant (Very good documentation)

• Relatively liberal licensing (LGPL)

• Qt Designer - WYSIWYG design tool you can use for form design

• Comes with a wealth of other c++ functionality including XML, networking, eventloops, threading, database access, etc

Against Qt:

• Intermediary step of using MOC compiler

Pro WPF:

• if you want the new WPF capabilities of the new Windows platforms, WPF is the way to go.

Answer 3

If Linux (or Mac) compatibility is your concern, then Qt. Else Win32.

Answer 4

For platform independent development, I would recommend Qt instead of the current GTK. GTK2 drawing was very slow compared to Qt as well as Win32. If you love native look feel, wxWidgets is made for you.