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141 Comments
- SamSlater, on 02/14/2009, -5/+69I'm glad to see they're taking the Linux version seriously.
Can we get a 'proper' Linux version of Picassa soon? Pretty please?! - Darkhacker, on 02/15/2009, -10/+70Chrome is horribly mismanaged. They did good to choose WebKit as their rendering engine but they had a sudden outbreak of NIH when they decided to use Skia instead of the Cairo/GTK+ or Qt ports. Ben Goodger needs to be fired. Can he really sit there with a straight face and talk about Qt "speaking with a foreign accent" when Chrome basically gives the middle finger to the look and feel on Windows? And how much do you want to bet that they port Skia to Linux instead of using WebKitGtk? Does anyone see how completely ass-backwards that is? They ignore WebKitGtk but will still use GTK+ for the interface of the browser. WTF?
- zephc, on 02/15/2009, -7/+62WebKit is in C++ and comes from KHTML, which originated with KDE (which is implemented Qt), so in essence, their decision to use GTK+ over Qt seems ass-backwards to me
- beautifulbeast, on 02/14/2009, -1/+32I don't care for Picassa, but I have to agree; "ports" running under Wine look scary.
- Onestone, on 02/14/2009, -15/+44I don't. Each element of the current Chrome interface can be easily implemented using Qt 4.
I also find the decision to use Gtk+ instead of Qt is a poor one. The current Gtk+ is outdated and is going to be rewritten in the near future, breaking compatibility. Besides it's C and is more inconvenient to use from a C++ project such as Chrome (except if they use gtkmm, but I doubt they will).
P.S. The quoted statement by Ben Goodger was in response to my question. This is the thread: http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-dev/browse ... - Anobyl, on 02/15/2009, -5/+33Hopefully someone takes up the task of developing a Qt version
- Vadi0, on 02/14/2009, -23/+44"Goodger explains that Google "[avoids] cross platform UI toolkits because while they may offer what superficially appears to be a quick path to native looking UI on a variety of target platforms, once you go a bit deeper it turns out to be a bit more problematic." Your applications end up "speaking with a foreign accent", he adds. In addition, Goodger claims that using something like Qt "limits what you can do to a lowest common denominator subset of what's supported by that framework on each platform.""
I wholeheartedly agree. - ethana2, on 02/15/2009, -1/+21Ends up 'speaking with a foreign accent'? You mean like the butt-ugly Google Earth and half functional Sketchup in WINE? That kind of foreign accent? When are those going gtk?
- Onestone, on 02/15/2009, -2/+22Spot on, except for the "port Skia to Linux / WebKitGtk" part. Skia is already crossplatform (Android uses it).
- solarwind24, on 02/15/2009, -7/+27GTK is aging and seriously feature lacking. QT is the future.
- amfantasy, on 02/15/2009, -5/+23I don't care what you use, just hurry up with the damn browser.
- HorseloverFat8, on 02/15/2009, -7/+25I'm convinced the only serious Qt browser for Linux will be Konqueror, which is all the more reason why its development should be supported.
- Hydrogen, on 02/15/2009, -9/+25How could they possibly take a look at the gtk file dialog for more than half a second and think that it would be a good addition to their browser? Every time I try to use it it gets worse, I've taken to navigating to a local file in dolphin, and dragging the url to the dialog... it's quicker.
- phaedrusiszen, on 02/15/2009, -8/+24GTK+? Well, so much for being interested in Chrome. I barely tolerate Firefox being GTK, and at least they're working on a QT toolkit version of that.
- inactive, on 02/15/2009, -7/+23GTK+ is far more limited than Qt is sadly.
GTK is a good thing, it really is - but it sucks ass... Sorry. They aren't willing to make changes, break things. Their team doesn't seem to have what it takes to do this. - Pxtl, on 02/15/2009, -0/+15Normally, I'd agree, but Chrome already speaks with a foreign accent under Windows. Just look at it. It goes out of its way to be wierd. Now, the UI decisions behind Chrome are part of the reason I like it - I like not wasting a whole row of space on a useless title bar. However, I'm using Chrome on Vista right now, and the only thing I see that looks like standard Windows widgets are the scrollbars and the control box and the "Save Reply" button.
- DiggerT, on 02/15/2009, -1/+15Hey what about Opera? it is also a QT Browser and available on linux.
- ligyron, on 02/15/2009, -1/+14Picasa, people. PICASA
- nkassi, on 02/15/2009, -0/+12hum... you must be new here
- sexybobo, on 02/15/2009, -9/+20The reason most people use gnome over KDE is that Qt apps are constantly broken because they can't make up there ***** minds on how they want it to work.
- Pxtl, on 02/15/2009, -3/+14This, to me, is the most massive failing of Gnome. Whenever I boot into Gnome to work, the one thing that always trips me up and smashes my flow is the file dialog. Seriously, Microsoft did it better a decade ago.
- buggu, on 02/15/2009, -2/+12I would rather Chrome uses QT on Linux. Gtk apps just feel slower (Firefox on Linux doesn't seem as snappy as on Windows or FF in Wine) plus the only full featured native QT browser is Konqueror which uses KHTML and does a terrible job of rendering sites.
- DreadKnight, on 02/15/2009, -7/+16GTK MUST BE KILLED! USE QT DAMNIT!
- Hydrogen, on 02/15/2009, -3/+12Have you ever tried to type in a path? The auto complete functionality is terrible, it's a complete guess as to when it's going to decide to complete something, so you need to stare at the dialog and hope you can stop typing before it completes multiple parts for you that are nothing like the path you want to use. It also doesn't recognize such standard items as ".." (if you type .. and press enter it decides that thats clearly the url you want..)
In addition, the default sizing of the dialog is usually errible, and looks a lot like something that I just excreted...
Note, this is all based on the firefox file picker dialog, Don't even get me started on the gimp's dialog... - zopu, on 02/15/2009, -4/+12Ben Goodger needs to be fired? This is quite an extreme claim considering how the rest of your post shows how well you have (not) been following the development of Chrome.
I don't work on Chrome, but as far as I understand:
Due to the multi-process architecture, Chrome's renderers live in a low-privilege process, stopping them from directly interacting with the native windowing system. This means that most of the code responsible for rendering widgets, etc. cannot (yet) be shared between chrome and the existing WebKit ports, which assume that WebKit can directly make calls to the native window system. - stewacide, on 02/15/2009, -0/+7I disagree. Since OSX isn't theme-able a well 'faked' app-drawn UI can do the trick, and Firefox 3.x is the best I've seen (that I know of). Besides the non-functioning Services menu and no access to the system spell-checker and dictionary I don't see how you could spot it for a non-native app. The work they've done making the default theme look fully native, while maintaining the themeable and expendable underpinnings, is really incredible.
If Firefox's UI was a problem people would use Camino, but they don't and that project seems to be dieing (I think the main developer was hired to work on Chrome?)
Firefox 2.x was indeed a mess on OSX (and I used to use Safari because of it), but 3.x is light-years beyond. - Giga, on 02/15/2009, -1/+8"It is an api and application are written to use the functionality of the API so when those functions get renamed or removed for no apparent reason the application stops working."
It is a good thing they don't just remove them for no reason for a given series. Qt 3 -> Qt 4 for example introduced some breaking changes (with good reasons) but nothing broke while upgrading a Qt 3 installation. The application doesn't have to move to Qt 4 (although it is a very good idea to do so), the Qt 3 libraries are still available. - jadrian, on 02/15/2009, -1/+7You may agree but it's retarded. Even if they don't want to use Qt in all platforms, even for Linux only Qt would still be a much better choice.
Not only Qt is much better than Gtk+, it continues to evolve much faster (just compare the future plans for Gtk and Qt). And Qt provides excellent support for Webkit! I really cannot understand this decision. - t0x2c, on 02/15/2009, -3/+9I agree with the quote you pulled. I'm curious, as to why after that quote, they went with GTK+.
- pentiumii, on 02/15/2009, -0/+6I really don't see why Linux user like my self would even care about chrome
there is allready a few dencent webkit browser out for linux
from just litte bit of playing i have done with it on my vista machine and xp machine
it's not all that great seam to render a page fast but out side of that i don't see this giving what linux user crave in there browser/ computer in general and that is controll
ill stick with FF myself so my web pages will load 1 or 2 sec slower but ill trade that for more functional feature that i can tweak my self
but i guess if you're a huge social networker and all u do read email and check your face book status then this would be the way to go for you
other wises i don't care what they build it from
we Linux user got enough browser to meet any need don't see chrome as being needed
But wouldn't mind seeing a decent version for my older mac book as safari and firefox both suck ass on leopard
ill have to check out the new mac version
mac in my opinion lacks a good browser - behavedave, on 02/15/2009, -4/+10This logic isn't exactly what I'd call logical but in the end you are right but for an entirely different reason.
GTK is slow, ugly and awful, QT is sooo much better, Konqueror would be more than good enough if it used webkit as it feels the fastest browser in Linux and don't start on me with Javascript results just normal regular HTML that the mojority of the web is in. - pben, on 02/15/2009, -4/+10Chrome is based on webkit which Apple based on Konqueror the browser from Linux KDE. KDE is based on Qt. So now they can't use Qt because it is not native Linux?
Are things really this screwed up at Google? Too many people selling ads not enough people wh know the tech. - gavintlgold, on 02/15/2009, -0/+5Why is Picasa "spyware" in your opinion? It's photo management software.
- yuanzhoulu, on 02/15/2009, -2/+7ideally, they should use GTK, and GTK should improve their damn file selection dialogue, so that all applications can benefit from it.
- khaosx2030, on 02/15/2009, -1/+6Juuuuuuuuuuuuuune!
- Giga, on 02/15/2009, -0/+5The "spyware" dusanmal was trying to refer to is Chrome.
- Peterix, on 02/15/2009, -1/+6You know what using GTK means? It means that chrome will have the same problem as every other GTK app on KDE4 - they never work with dark themes. It will have the same ***** dark gray text on black background and all the UI elements will break when I'll use the Oxygen widget theme. It's the same with Firefox...
Besides, only good chrome-based browser is SRWare Iron. The official google thing won't let my drives spin down - it constantly messes with some phishing/malware database crap I don't care about. - Darkhacker, on 02/15/2009, -0/+5>"This is quite an extreme claim considering how the rest of your post shows how well you have (not) been following the development of Chrome."
I haven't been following Chrome development specifically, but I have been following WebKit (in particular WebKitGtk) very closely.
>"Chrome's renderers live in a low-privilege process, stopping them from directly interacting with the native windowing system. This means that most of the code responsible for rendering widgets, etc. cannot (yet) be shared between chrome and the existing WebKit ports, which assume that WebKit can directly make calls to the native window system."
This claim is flat out wrong. Midori (a WebKit browser which uses GTK+) did this for several months before we decided to go back to a single process design. Returning to the SP design was our choice and not because of any shortcomings with WebKit. - fucter, on 02/15/2009, -6/+11i totally agree with you
- srg13, on 02/15/2009, -1/+5"Firefox on Linux doesn't seem as snappy as on Windows or FF in Wine"
There are two reasons for this, and neither have to do with GTK. First, Firefox is not a GTK application - it has its own system (XUL). I'm not sure if XUL actually uses GTK to render the controls, and then does everything else itself, or if it just uses the theme and icons, but it's not a native GTK app, and XUL adds overhead. Then there is the thing about PGO (profile guided optimisations) being used for some Windows builds, but not for Linux ones yet. - inactive, on 02/15/2009, -0/+4I hope they write it to take advantage of transparency when used with supporting engines, such as Murrine.
- sexybobo, on 02/15/2009, -3/+7It is an api and application are written to use the functionality of the API so when those functions get renamed or removed for no apparent reason the application stops working.
- alexweej, on 02/15/2009, -0/+4If Firefox was really GTK it might actually be good.
- stewacide, on 02/15/2009, -5/+9Chrome is pointless. It has one outstanding feature in the tab and plug-in sand-boxing, but once that is implemented in other browsers - notably Firefox - I don't see any reason anyone would use it over the more mature competition.
Even the goal of platform native-ness, while laudable, is being rapidly accomplished by Firefox. - inactive, on 02/15/2009, -0/+4perhaps they'll be smart like Mozilla, and add an option such as "ui.allow_platform_file_picker"
- CrudOMatic, on 02/15/2009, -3/+7Yeah, but Qt has a better grasp on user friendly experience, albeit being a little on the heavy side. If it is losing mindshare, then linux users are more ignorant that I though.
Enjoy chasing dialogs around with your mouse, as they just pop up "wherever" under GTK. Microsoft mastered this years ago, why is it so hard for the GTK developers to understand? - ThantiK, on 02/15/2009, -0/+3I'm actually starting to get fed up with all the fight between GTK+/Qt libraries. Primarily because when I build my Arch installs with X - you get stupid ***** like "pacman -Syu mousepad" - the command to install a simple ***** notepad/editor, requiring 17mb worth of libraries when it goes through its dependency checks.
Don't get me wrong, I love linux to death - Love everything it stands for, I develop for it, I use it as my primary desktop but seeing eleventy-gajillion libraries for a simple X program has got to be the stupidest thing ever.
The problem with this is that soon I'll be developing primarily for the Pandora (www.openpandora.org) and it's got 512mb of NAND flash + 256mb of memory - all this library ***** means I'm going to have to sift through dependency hell, and rework a bunch of ***** to get what I want working. Oh well - even that being as much of a pain in the ass as it is...Windows users don't even have the option. I feel sorry for them. - ruskie, on 02/15/2009, -0/+3You obviously, making a point and all.
- CrudOMatic, on 02/15/2009, -2/+5"""enough with all these damn cops!"""
Yeah... it's so horrible to have monitoring built in....
"""GTK applications launch MUCH faster."""
GTK is also primitive, and just like Linux, it's written in Dinosaur code (C), and really with my experience, it depends more on the app itself than just GTK alone - GiMP starts slow as hell. - CrudOMatic, on 02/15/2009, -1/+4The funny thing is, that when I used Linux, Qt apps had no problem starting and running under Gnome (The admin preferred Gnome - don't get me started) I've even had Qt apps run under twm (Tom's Window Manager)
As long as Qt is installed, there shouldn't be a problem. -
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