TMW using QT and ...SFML?

[Bertram]

Hi,

As the current will seems to get the use of an higher level library (QT to not name it) in order to help us devs to focus more on features than on nasty limitations and workarounds,

I wondered if the fact of using SFML would do the trick for a simple 2D (+OpenAL) framework?

What do you think ?

Regards,

[Jaxad0127]

We'll likely loose Guichan if we do move. Though it says it works with QT.

[Bertram]

Sorry, I don't understand your answer...

SFML is some kind of OpenGL wrapper + more extras...

Switching to QT means we're no longer using Guichan, that for sure, but I don't see
why it's related to SFML...

[Jaxad0127]

I was reading on their site. They support using SFML with some gui technologies, like QT, GTK+, etc.

[Rotonen]

No one will miss Guichan if we can clone Firefox tab behaviour with Qt for the chat tabs.

So far I suspect Jaxad, Kage, Bertram and Mr. TrollTech himself would be rather interested.

Yay for the second eternity project of TMW to be born. (Tiled-Qt is not technically TMW related.)

[Bertram]

Hi Rotonen,

As far as I can see, porting TMW to use QT is seriously envisaged.

HedgeWars are doing it (for instance) and can mostly used as template.

The only annoying thing is how we're gonna use (or remove) Enet protocol in the client.

That's why I was hesitating in putting strength in the theme manager using guichan.
I shall let Bjorn answer on this one.

QT would indeed bring many features for no cost, just the theming facility is missing, for now.

In TMWserv, Bjorn was even in favor of removing the DAL and make use of QT, but I'm completely against
this thought, cutting much of the DB flexibility of the server and bringing heavy dependence to it.
Bjorn should beware of himself sometimes: He's getting formatted to think QT all the time

Regards.

[Bjørn]

In TMWserv, Bjorn was even in favor of removing the DAL and make use of QT, but I'm completely against
this thought, cutting much of the DB flexibility of the server and bringing heavy dependence to it.
Bjorn should beware of himself sometimes: He's getting formatted to think QT all the time

Regards.

Well, the thing is that due to having limited time, I hate to see duplicated effort. I personally don't see the big difference between our DAL and QtSql, which is really a DAL too anyway, only one with more features and supporting more databases. So why spend effort developing our own DAL further, if we could just take QtSql and be done with it?

About the theming, we do still need that for the next release of the client, which won't be based on Qt yet. I've created issue http://bugs.manasource.org/view.php?id=3 for this. It's currently assigned to me since I planned to work on it.

[Bertram]

Hi,

That's an old mess-bringing attempt for a topic of mine

As far I got to know QT, it could replace Guichan, SFML and the DAL.

But if you want a themeable client, you'll have to do it against guichan, I guess

Regards.

[Jaxad0127]

As far I got to know QT, it could replace Guichan, SFML and the DAL.

And libxml, all of sdl, maybe physfs, zlib, libcurl, and pThread.

But if you want a themeable client, you'll have to do it against guichan, I guess

QT is easily themeable.

[Bjørn]

QT is easily themeable.

Well, it's not that easy, and only possible for QWidget based applications, and widgets don't serve the needs of games very well. We'll be using a QGraphicsView, and so far graphics widgets don't have theming capabilities. Still, it's not really harder to implement custom graphics widgets than it is to theme a Guichan widget.

[Bertram]

Humm,

It still means you'll have to theme guichan widgets, am I right?

Regards.

[Bjørn]

Humm,

It still means you'll have to theme guichan widgets, am I right?

Regards.

No, when we're using Qt we're not using Guichan.

[Bertram]

Hi Bjorn,

I think I may poorly missing the point:

When I meant we'd still have to make the guichan gui themable, I refered to this:

About the theming, we do still need that for the next release of the client, which won't be based on Qt yet. I've created issue http://bugs.manasource.org/view.php?id=3 for this. It's currently assigned to me since I planned to work on it.

Now, of course, when the switch to QT will be done, there will no longer be a need for guichan.

Plus, I saw you assigned the above issue to me :

Well, not being lazy, (or just a little, like every dev ), but still having to kill the movement problem with a nice last fixing commit, then seeing how to remove the #ifdef in logic code and make it more generic, and then only start a particle editor, I may not be able to work on this until some time.

Now, what should we do?
Several possibilities:
The good:
- Take back the theme manager issue to someone free to take it, hoping that my try for templates will be helping.
The bad:
- Turns back to the previous theme, and post-pone the themeability until the next release, or until the QT client is ready.
And the Ugly:
- Enforce the new theme, promising (or not) that a theme manager will be out in a maybe-to-come next release.
Or any other walk-ons I haven't been thinking about.

Regards.

[Bjørn]

Bertram, I assigned it to you because I thought you said you wanted to work on it. If you don't have time, then I'll just take it back.

[Bertram]

Hi,

Thanks, and regards.