View Poll Results: Do you use QT Designer?

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  • Yes, all the time! I cant live without it!

    32 46.38%
  • Sometimes, when I feel like it...

    16 23.19%
  • Only to visualize the final product before coding it.

    5 7.25%
  • Hell no! I can code it myself!!

    16 23.19%
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Thread: QT Designer? Coding by hand?

  1. #1
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    Default QT Designer? Coding by hand?

    Do you people use QT Designer?
    Or are you coding ur entire interface by hand?

    Euh, there was supposed to be a poll here, but i got an error message:

    You can only add a poll 2 mins after posting the thread...


    Check the other thread.... Ill try to type faster!
    Last edited by lewis; 21st July 2006 at 21:38.

  2. #2
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    Question QT Designer? Coding by hand?

    Do you use QT Designer?
    Or do you prefer good old coding?

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    Default Re: QT Designer? Coding by hand?

    It depends on :
    • the complexity of the interface
    • the time you give yourself to create the interface
    • the complexity of the program
    • the type of interface
    Personally I use Qt Designer only for complex dialogs and I never tried to use it for anything else because most of the time I subclass widgets to fit particular purposes. In such a case, using designer would be an overkill, unless your custom widgets is reusable which justify the creation of a designer plugin...

    P.S: Double threading is a bad practice but maybe the poll-error is a decent excuse...
    Current Qt projects : QCodeEdit, RotiDeCode

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    Default Re: QT Designer? Coding by hand?

    well, I suppose its stupid to only allow 2mins to create a poll... What if you really have to go to the bathroom!?

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    Default Re: QT Designer? Coding by hand?

    thx for removing the other thread...

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    Default Re: QT Designer? Coding by hand?

    Quote Originally Posted by lewis
    well, I suppose its stupid to only allow 2mins to create a poll...
    Usually people create polls when opening the thread and not after a meditation in a bathroom...

    What if you really have to go to the bathroom!?
    Do it before opening a thread with a poll...


    About the issue with Designer. I think Designer is there for you to use it. It generates a very good code, you won't be able to write a better one yourself. And using it doesn't mean you don't know how to code a widget manually, but saves a lot of time.

    Maybe my opinion will sound a bit too strong, but I think that lame people are not the ones using Designer (because "real programmers code everything themselves"), but the ones not using it. Otherwise we'd be all stuck with binary code, perforated cards or in the best case assembly.

    To be honest I am thinking of writing a set of macros which would relieve me of writing the same standard things all the time (what a waste of time it is), like:
    Qt Code:
    1. #include <QWidget>
    2. #include <QApplication>
    3.  
    4. int main(int argc, char **argv){
    5. QApplication app(argc, argv);
    6. QWidget wgt;
    7. wgt.show();
    8. return app.exec();
    9. }
    To copy to clipboard, switch view to plain text mode 

    It'd be better to write for example:
    Qt Code:
    1. #include <QWidget>
    2. Q_START
    3. QWidget wgt;
    4. wgt.show();
    5. Q_END
    To copy to clipboard, switch view to plain text mode 

    There are many things like the one above... Qt already has some nice things like forever() or foreach() and of course Tulip (although real h4x0rs would say they always implement their own vectors or lists... because using COTS solutions is lame ).

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    Default Re: QT Designer? Coding by hand?

    Back in the 1.x days, I used Qt Architect. But as I got used to Qt I started doing all my layouts by hand. In 2.x I tried using Designer, but I didn't like it, and so stuck with hand coding. I improved enough in 3.x that I started using it. But I only used it to generate boilerplate code, which I would cut-n-paste into my own code.

    In 4.x, however, I'm using Designer for all my layout, even my menus. I'll still hand code tiny layouts, however.

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    Default Re: QT Designer? Coding by hand?

    When I started with Qt, I always used Designer, because I thought coding a GUI by hand would be very difficult. The bad part was that every time I wanted to subclass a widget to add some functionality, I had to do a lot of work to make it play well with Designer. That's when I started reading the GUI code in the Qt examples and I noticed it wasn't that difficult. Also, I noticed that the GUI behaves more the way I want it when I code "by hand". With the arrival of Qt4 it has become even easier, because they simplified the layout classes.

    So maybe it takes me a bit more time, but I prefer coding by hand.

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    Default Re: QT Designer? Coding by hand?

    I started very recently using the designer for main windows as well. With Qt4 and the auto connection mechanism, the code you need to write for making a usable application is much smaller. This leads to less mistakes and clearer code.

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    Default Re: QT Designer? Coding by hand?

    Are there people that don't use it? If there are, I think they should get a hobby or something... and not spend the time sitting and code things by hand.

    According to this poll 25% of the votes so far say that they don't use it. But I can't see any replies that states why. So I suppose that they're joking... I would really want to understand why they don't like Designer. I've always hated writing GUI code and it's the most important part of the program if you want the user to like you. It doesn't matter if your program is the best around if it's impossible to use. Without programs like Designer I would produce really bad programs, only because they would have a really crappy GUI.

    But at the moment I use Designer to make the widgets and then inserts them by hand. But that is not because I think that it's better. It's just because I don't really know how to make a nice workflow when using a lot of custom widgets and the fact that I don't have Designer for Qt4...
    So I insert a dummy widget instead of the custom widget in Designer and replaces it later by hand with my custom one. It's not optimal, but even by working this way I save a LOT of time and get far better results than doing everything by hand.
    But there seems to be a lot better to use those ui files directly, makes it a lot easier to make changes later on if I've understood it correctly.
    Last edited by pir; 25th July 2006 at 10:17.

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    Default Re: QT Designer? Coding by hand?

    Quote Originally Posted by cristianbdg
    When I started with Qt, I always used Designer, because I thought coding a GUI by hand would be very difficult. The bad part was that every time I wanted to subclass a widget to add some functionality, I had to do a lot of work to make it play well with Designer. That's when I started reading the GUI code in the Qt examples and I noticed it wasn't that difficult. Also, I noticed that the GUI behaves more the way I want it when I code "by hand". With the arrival of Qt4 it has become even easier, because they simplified the layout classes.

    So maybe it takes me a bit more time, but I prefer coding by hand.
    so there are people don't using the designer..

    i am using the designer.
    first to have a concept: how will the program look like and how do you use it.. it is easier to think about the program when you see the gui. you know which elements you need etc..

    second it's much easier to start coding for me.

    regards..
    aman..

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    Default Re: QT Designer? Coding by hand?

    When I was new to Qt I got sent to a training seminar where they suggested that Qt was going away from the designer and going more towards hard-coding everything. A coworker told me the same thing. I guess that didn't happen?

    A problem I have with hard-coding is that tweaking the sizeHint, min / max size stuff can be very tedious and slow-going. Designer makes it look good. Not "good-looking" like Apple computer good looking, but nice.

    One of my friends only hard codes and his basic argument is that it's macho (but he uses eclipse to do Java ... hmm ...). IMHO there's nothing wrong with being macho (I prefer vi as an example), but laziness pays off now

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    Default Re: QT Designer? Coding by hand?

    Quote Originally Posted by mhoover
    When I was new to Qt I got sent to a training seminar where they suggested that Qt was going away from the designer and going more towards hard-coding everything. A coworker told me the same thing. I guess that didn't happen?
    I think they meant the change that happened between Qt3 and Qt4 -- the idea of writing code inside Designer was dropped and the tool evolved to become only a GUI layout editor which is meant to be integrated with real IDE software.

    One of my friends only hard codes and his basic argument is that it's macho (but he uses eclipse to do Java ... hmm ...). IMHO there's nothing wrong with being macho (I prefer vi as an example), but laziness pays off now
    I prefer being 'smart' (h4x0r1sh?) over 'macho'...

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    Default Re: QT Designer? Coding by hand?

    Hi

    Quote Originally Posted by wysota
    ...

    About the issue with Designer. I think Designer is there for you to use it. It generates a very good code, you won't be able to write a better one yourself. And using it doesn't mean you don't know how to code a widget manually, but saves a lot of time.

    ...
    I can not second you about "no better code yourself" : there are unuseful and annoying lines especially for SizePolicy's and fonts where the default are better than explicit settings that, more often than never, are unwelcome.

    I don't want to tag myself as reactionnary, so I have to say that even if you have to get used to QtDesigner before you can feel how to do what you want, it is better than many gui designer I've used so far.
    Still, I am suspectful towards "clickodroms" for such things,
    I prefer powerful layouts that permit "straightforward" tweaking (they achieve flexibility with as few (orthogonal) parameters as possible, for example).
    But for some sub-parts specialized of a rich panel QtDesigner can be ok. But integration of parts is easier for me by hand.
    By the way, the possibility to change a "common" property among a multiple selection would be convenient : selecting several widget that are not all in the same "containers" and are not all the children of the topmost widget and being able to set the font boldness at once, these kind of thing, would be very practical. To be constructive
    My2c.

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    Default Re: QT Designer? Coding by hand?

    Quote Originally Posted by lauranger
    By the way, the possibility to change a "common" property among a multiple selection would be convenient
    Yes, hopefully it will work soon: http://www.trolltech.com/developer/t...entry&id=87181

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    Default Re: QT Designer? Coding by hand?

    Quote Originally Posted by wysota
    I think they meant the change that happened between Qt3 and Qt4 -- the idea of writing code inside Designer was dropped and the tool evolved to become only a GUI layout editor which is meant to be integrated with real IDE software.
    And this is a good idea! But it would be even better i f the Trolls have given more docs about Designer integration and not restricted it to M$VC

    Quote Originally Posted by wysota
    I prefer being 'smart' (h4x0r1sh?) over 'macho'...
    Do you? I thought it was the last adjectives millionaires giving a tiny part of their fortunes chose to describe themselves... I wouldn't like to be a 'smart' guy! I fit better in something like 'neo-baba'...
    Current Qt projects : QCodeEdit, RotiDeCode

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    Default Re: QT Designer? Coding by hand?

    Quote Originally Posted by fullmetalcoder
    I wouldn't like to be a 'smart' guy! I fit better in something like 'neo-baba'...
    In Polish too?

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    Default Re: QT Designer? Coding by hand?

    Coding by hand makes shorter, more straight forward, easier to understand and better code. Also, it helps understand how QT really works.

    I do use QTdesigner sometimes, when I really cant visualize the final result because its a huge interface, but only to figure out how I will layout the objects.

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    Default Re: QT Designer? Coding by hand?

    Quote Originally Posted by lewis
    Coding by hand makes shorter, more straight forward, easier to understand and better code. Also, it helps understand how QT really works.
    Not really. With the exception of iterative constructs, the generated code from UI files is about as straightforward and easy to understand as you can get.

    I agree that handcoding helps you understand how to do that code, but once you understand the principles, you're just wasting you time with hand-coding where it can be better employed elsewhere. With handcoding, the design loop is code->compile->test->tweak->compile->test ... etc.
    Using designer, you can tweak and test to your hearts content in a fraction of the time.

    This is vital for complicated layouts and enhances productivity immensely.
    nowadays, I just drop into hand-coding when I have something that Designer can't do (runtime changes to UI, layout changes, etc).
    Save yourself some pain. Learn C++ before learning Qt.

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    Default Re: QT Designer? Coding by hand?

    Coding by hand is about as fast for me... except when I forget many functions name and have to look them up all the time.

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