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0 pointsrootlocus8y ago0 comments

> Qt/swing/gtk apps tend to look like shit

You couldn't be further from the truth. Have you seen the Blizzard app (Qt) [0]? The JetBrains Toolbox app(Qt) [1]?

Also, here's a small app I wrote in kotlin and swing for my GF who wanted to download music from youtube without installing crapware downloaders [2]. You'll notice it has a custom window frame, support for drag and drop, and fully customized table and buttons. I spent about 5 hours styling the UI, and half a weekend writing the entire app.

Yes, I agree, dowloading music from youtube is immoral and illegal, but I'm showcasing the UI so please ignore the underlying purpose of the app.

[0] http://l3.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/v.xvnI7eUsLskyHopY6Kkg--/Y...

[1] https://www.jetbrains.com/help/img/idea/2017.2/rm_py_toolbox...

[2] https://imgur.com/J29HJJk

0 comments

mynewtb8y ago

> Yes, I agree, dowloading music from youtube is immoral and illegal, ...

It is neither! Enjoy your music :)

pvg8y ago

The Jetbrains toolbox UI (and your downloader) do very little. Blizzard's app does a great deal more but is a terrible, sluggish, battery-hogging mess, which also includes web UI elements of some sort. Even Blizzard knows this which is why the app has a setting to hide its windows after launching a game. It doesn't feel like an example of a quality Qt app at all, if such a thing exists.

rootlocusOP8y ago

> The Jetbrains toolbox UI (and your downloader) do very little.

That's true, but the argument was never about how complex applications are. It was about how they look. If you want an `idea` how well a swing look and feel scales with the complexity of the application, look at the IntelliJ IDEs.

Not to mention the irony of complaining about performance, when the promoted alternative is electron...

pvg8y ago

Well, I don't think your app looks better than an Electron app, in fact, you've styled it in a very web-like fashion. The Blizzard app does not look good and its performance is vastly worse than most Electron apps I've tried, so the irony eludes me.

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