Is Qt Quick the way to go to build a modern GUI for a C++ application?

Question

After 4 years of absence I'm finally coming back to Qt development again. I'm quite impressed by the development it has gone through, but also a bit confused by Qt Quick, which got just introduced in Qt 4.7

For me it seems like something to build a quick, appealing GUI with some logic in Java Script. However, if I'm going to build a C++ application, is Qt Quick also the modern way of building a GUI for that or should I follow the classic path by using the .ui files?

Answer 1

Qt Quick should fill a much needed gap but whether that means it will become the way to build applications will largely be determined on the type of applications you intend to build.

Qt has provided .ui files for a long time. These files are easy to work with when you need to create applications based on standard widgets. Designer makes it easy to layout the widgets and do other basic operations.

Qt 4.2 introduce style sheets (qss) that made it possible to style existing widgets. These styles are convenient ways of styling the standard widgets to get away from the standard widgets' look-and-feel, while retaining basic functionality.

But sometimes you need to create custom widgets, widgets that don't exist. Before Qt quick, the only way to do this was to write native code (be it C++ or, with language bindings, Python or Ruby). With Qt Quick it's now quite possible to write widgets and full blown UIs that would otherwise be somewhat painful to write in code. Because Qt quick's focus is on the UI, it's becomes a better development language for that goal. The Qt Quick paradigm also transcends the idea of strict standard widgets, adding support for transitions and boundary-less widgets.