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GUI Networking Open Source Software IT

Wireshark Switches To Qt 79

Posted by Soulskill from the changing-horses dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Beginning with version 1.11.0, open source packet analyzer Wireshark is switching its user interface library from GTK+ to Qt. 'Both libraries make it easy for developers [to] write applications that will run on different platforms without having to rewrite a lot of code. GTK+ has had a huge impact on the way Wireshark looks and feels and on its popularity but it doesn't cover our supported platforms as effectively as it should and the situation is getting worse as time goes on.'"
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Wireshark Switches To Qt More

Wireshark Switches To Qt

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  • Meh (Score:3)

    by MBGMorden ( 803437 ) on Friday October 18, 2013 @02:19PM (#45167509)

    I can't say that I really mind. I like to try to use mostly GTK based apps but it still falls down to the quality of the app. I use qBittorrent as my Torrent client because it works better than Deluge or any other GTK client I've found. Particularly when set to the same theme QT is just fine.

    • The quality of applications is all I've come to care about. I used to be the same about trying to use GTK, but I just can't bring myself to ditch a superior program for an inferior one just because of which toolkit they use. License for their code? Sure. GTK vs QT? Meh.

  • There goes another one (Score:4, Interesting)

    by krkhan ( 1071096 ) on Friday October 18, 2013 @02:21PM (#45167547) Homepage
    VLC, Maemo, TwimGo, LXDE; I for one would like to see a future where GIMP is the only major application left using GTK. Poetic justice.

  • Props to all sticking it out and trying Qt out! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dino ( 9081 ) * on Friday October 18, 2013 @02:37PM (#45167769) Homepage

    This is a big win for the Qt ecosystem. Between KDE libraries reworked into portable Qt modules [slashdot.org] and official iOS and Android support [slashdot.org] even with support from Digia [slashdot.org]-- Qt is gaining momentum. They even managed to survive being gobbled by Nokia [slashdot.org], then being sold [slashdot.org] to Digia [slashdot.org]-- it has been a bumpy ride.

    I recently tried out the latest Kubuntu and have been loving it installed on an old Dell D410 (12inch, 1.8Ghz SC Pentium, 1.5G RAM) laptop and it runs well and does everything I need (which in this case is Qt related application development :-)

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by TopherC ( 412335 )

      You're running Kubuntu 13.10? How is it so far?

      I've long enjoyed KDE and pyqt programming. It's nice to see the underlying library move forward so successfully. I've found that, at least with pyqt, the QT libraries are rather large to ship around. I hope this doesn't increase the size of wireshark too much. It's nice to be able to easily install and run it on platforms like raspbian.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Dimwit ( 36756 )

        Someone really needs to explain the appeal of Kubuntu and KDE to me. I just don't get it. It's so *busy*: everything is huge with glowing drop shadows and spinning cursors and animations everywhere. It's also the only desktop environment I've ever sat down at that I couldn't just use immediately - I tried "creating an activity" and was left with a completely blank desktop, not even any panels or anything. There may have been keyboard shortcuts to get out of that situation, but I didn't know them and shouldn

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Dino ( 9081 ) *

          Activities are just workspaces. They might offer a little more customization than a workspace-- but that's all they are.

          I used XFCE for many years on this same machine-- without compliant. What I liked about KDE is that it ran as well as XFCE and came with everything I needed for Qt development. Also I don't need to double-load application frameworks. Iv'e been able to use KDE or pure Qt apps for everything I need.

          As for drop-shadows, bouncy cursors and business-- that's both accepted and came be done ta

        • Haha yeah those glowing drop shadows are hideous. Thank goodness we're not stuck with them. The great thing about KDE is it's extremely customizable and actually rather performant, considering how all-encompassing it is.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by richlv ( 778496 )

          Someone really needs to explain the appeal of Kubuntu and KDE to me. I just don't get it. It's so *busy*: everything is huge with glowing drop shadows and spinning cursors and animations everywhere.

          hmm. i stare at the animations a couple of days after my first install, then disable them all :)

          It's also the only desktop environment I've ever sat down at that I couldn't just use immediately - I tried "creating an activity" and was left with a completely blank desktop, not even any panels or anything. There may have been keyboard shortcuts to get out of that situation, but I didn't know them and shouldn't have had to.

          i'll admit that as a kde user since kde 2 (and it being my primary platform since kde 3.0), i do not use activities. i kinda understand the concept, but don't fully embrace it. the great thing is that i don't have to use them ;)

    • It's probably due in part to the whole KDE Free Qt [kde.org] thing. It keeps Qt free in the event Qt isn't...um...kept free. It's pretty nice.

  • GTK+ is ugly. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 18, 2013 @02:40PM (#45167817)

    There you go, "Gnome" with all your bullshit misunderstanding of how a GUI is intended to look like. Go Qt!

  • Gnome tool kit (Score:5, Insightful)

    by caseih ( 160668 ) on Friday October 18, 2013 @03:03PM (#45168095)

    Gtk used to stand for the gimp toolkit, but more and more it's the gnome toolkit. I wouldn't be surprised to see it merged into the gnome framework entirely at and future date. Even the mailing list is now renamed to gnome-list.

    It's still a great toolkit, and still somewhat cross-platform. It's still being actively worked on on Windows and Mac osx. But with the focus mainly on gnome and Linux (gnome 3 has little support for other platforms now) they are not as advanced or stable ports.

    I think wireshark's move to qt is a good one. Will definitely lead to better apps on Windows and Mac.

    • Gtk used to stand for the gimp toolkit, but more and more it's the gnome toolkit. I wouldn't be surprised to see it merged into the gnome framework entirely at and future date. Even the mailing list is now renamed to gnome-list.

      They did? I still receive email to gtk-list.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by caseih ( 160668 )

        That's true. gtk-list is still gtk-list@gnome.org, but my e-mail client shows "Gnome list" as the long name.

    • Well with GTK+ being cross platform, Wireshark on MacOS still required using the X Windows interface. So will the move to Qt finally make it a native app?

      • Well with GTK+ being cross platform, Wireshark on MacOS still required using the X Windows interface. So will the move to Qt finally make it a native app?

        It will make it an app that doesn't use X11 on OS X.

        It won't make it an all-Cocoa app (although it will, modulo issues with QtMacExtras, use the native toolbar widget, at least, and, time permitting, it'll use the native file dialog sheets rather than the definitely-doesn't-look-like-OS-X Qt file dialog).

        It won't be sufficient to make it an app following the OS X "one process for all open windows" model; that would require, for example, replacing all the static variables holding dissection state with per-

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by caseih ( 160668 )

        Yes Qt will make it a non-X11, more native application on OS X (carbon, though if I recall correctly).

        • Yes Qt will make it a non-X11, more native application on OS X (carbon, though if I recall correctly).

          Newer versions of Qt support 64-bit programs, so they don't run atop Carbon.

      • Well with GTK+ being cross platform, Wireshark on MacOS still required using the X Windows interface. So will the move to Qt finally make it a native app?

        Wireshark doesn't require X11, GTK2 does.
        So when you've installed GTK2 via Macports like this
        gtk2 @2.24.21_0+no_x11+quartz+universal
        then wireshark isn't using X11 and feels like a native MacOS-Application:
        - Wireshark-Dockicon
        - No X11 is started
        - The menubar is on top, like in any other mac-applcation

        regards

  • I'd like to see it ported to WINGs [wikipedia.org]. It's simple, fast, pretty and not married to C++.

  • Status of QT? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    When last I heard, a few years ago, QT had been acquired by Nokia. More recently, it seems that Nokia is being acquired by the borg(Microsoft).

    It would seem that QT is to be owned by Microsoft. Is this correct? If so, what does that hold for QT? I realize that QT is LGPL or some such, but that doesn't mean that Microsoft won't ruin it or snuff it out. See Oracle and MySQL for a road map. Hopefully I am wrong.

  • GTK+ community is declining (Score:3)

    by jcdr ( 178250 ) on Friday October 18, 2013 @07:07PM (#45170703)

    GTK+ was outrageously superior to anything out there about 5 years ago and today it's a declining community without clear goals and without strong support from developers that need this kind of library. I don't fully understand all the details that make this happened, but I clearly remember that about 2 or 3 years ago, something changed radically when Nokia changed the Qt license and when the Gnome leaders started to act against there own community with the suicidal Gnome 3 project.

    There nothing to hope when a few peoples take the power to deny the criticisms from a large part of there community. The community simple change to get away from the toxic. That's the strong power of the open source, and it's a shame that leaders from leading open source project don't understand that simple rule.

    In a ideal world GTK+ and QT should have merged there most valuable features in a new neutral project as soon as QT was fully open source. Real developers don't car about the name of the project as long as the quality and the community are driving the project up to the edge of there expectations.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Desler ( 1608317 )

      The only thing Nokia changed was adding an LGPL option. It was already dual licensed under the GPL.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jcdr ( 178250 )

        LGPL vs GPL was the key point for non-free projects that instead was forced to use the commercial license.

  • I fired up wireshark and did a data capture just to test the software. But what I was looking for was the way you could watch a interface pre 2000 like with blackice. Anyone know what software you could do that with today?

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