Any Toolkit for designing VisualStudio-like GUIs?

[burn2themax]

Hi Folks,

does anybody know of a toolkit (free or commercial) for designing applications with a "Visual Studio like user interface"? The toolkit should be based on QT4.

Examples for MFC are:
- codejock extreme suite pro
- BCGSoft BCGControlBar
- DotNetBar
- The Ultimate Toolbox
- DotNetMagic

Thanks for your hints!

[fullmetalcoder]

a "Visual Studio like user interface"

What is that supposed to mean? :confused:

Do you want an abstraction layer that sets up such an interface an give you some control on it? A Visual Studio look'n'feel with same icons, color palette and stuff ? Just a few classes that creates widgets looking and behaving like VC ones? Something else? A mix of all these?

[wysota]

does anybody know of a toolkit (free or commercial) for designing applications with a "Visual Studio like user interface"?


Please note that Visual Studio is an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) -- a tool for developing software. Are you asking about widgets which are parts of the application look&feel? If you resolve those wonderful magic names you have listed to something more descriptive, maybe we'll be able to find mappings for them in Qt world.

BTW. You use three different terms here -- Visual Studio, MFC and DotNet... so are those controlls for MFC or .NET? Or are they MFC controlls which look like their .NET counterparts?

[gfunk]

I think he's looking for toolkits of widgets that look exactly as if they came straight out of the latest MS VS2005 or MS Office products, more than what the basic Qt widgets provide, so that he can put them straight into his application with a minimum of change. Sure, Qt has docking windows, tree views, WindowsXP styles, etc., but there are still some tiny differences that a trained eye can spot between Qt and Windows widgets. And Qt has lots of power to further customize the look and feel like that, but I think he is looking for someone who has already done the work. Are there such toolkits built on top of Qt? It seems like a potentially lucrative market, if there aren't any...

[burn2themax]

The intention is NOT to build an IDE like VS, the main intention is to mimic the look'n'feel of VisualStudio. Maybe some dialogs like the "properties"-dialog, office-like menus, outlook style navigation bar, ...
The idea is to go beyond what QT can offer. No concrete plans, but just to get an idea what's possible or already available.

The mentioned tools are for MFC or .net - as far as I know. But this is not important. I found these tools when searching for "visual studio gui toolkits". But I didn't find anything based on QT, so that's why I'm asking.

Here are the links for these toolkits (if you like to have a look on them):
http://www.codejock.com/products/suite/
http://www.bcgsoft.com/FeatureTour/tour29.htm
http://www.devcomponents.com/
http://www.theultimatetoolbox.com/
http://www.dotnetmagic.com/

[wysota]

The intention is NOT to build an IDE like VS, the main intention is to mimic the look'n'feel of VisualStudio. Maybe some dialogs like the "properties"-dialog, office-like menus, outlook style navigation bar, ...
Does Visual Studio really use outlook navigation bar and office-like menus in its user interface?



The idea is to go beyond what QT can offer.
Hopefully you are talking about QT and not Qt, as for Qt we don't know what is beyond what it can offer as its boundaries are yet to be discovered.


No concrete plans, but just to get an idea what's possible or already available.
Depends if you are willing to pay for those widgets...


The mentioned tools are for MFC or .net - as far as I know.
There is no "or", only "exclusive or" -- MFC and .net are totally different techniques. And BTW you can use both MFC and .NET aside Qt in your application.


But this is not important. I found these tools when searching for "visual studio gui toolkits". But I didn't find anything based on QT, so that's why I'm asking.
I think you misinterpreted the "visual studio" stuff and you do not understand the slight alusions we are giving you all the time -- visual studio is just a tool for making programmer's life easier and not some kind of framework (like .NET).


http://www.codejock.com/products/suite/
Xtreme PropertyGrid -- Property Browser (http://www.trolltech.com/products/qt/addon/solutions/catalog/4/Widgets/qtpropertybrowser/)
Xtreme ReportControl -- I don't know what it does so it's hard to say if there's anything like it available
Xtreme ShortcutBar -- If this is the so called "outlook navigation bar", then there is QToolBox built into Qt and some threads on forums (probably both here and on QtForum) with working examples of such a widget
Xtreme TaskPanel -- Again, I don't know what it does, so...
Xtreme SkinFramework -- QStyle and QStylePlugin


http://www.bcgsoft.com/FeatureTour/tour29.htm
I don't think anything like this exists for Qt and I can hardly think of a use for such thing. It's more of an example of "never do it like this kids". Especially that bottom-up direction of the menu...


http://www.devcomponents.com/
I don't know what is a "ribbon control" something and it's not explained on this site... but most of the rest of the functionality of this set is already built into Qt.


http://www.theultimatetoolbox.com/
All that is already included in Qt4.


http://www.dotnetmagic.com/
Same here, I guess (at least from what I see on the screenshots).

[gfunk]

Here's a gallery of the Windows XP widgets, which I think is the best that you'll get from Qt out-of-the-box, with a minimum of work:
http://doc.trolltech.com/4.0/gallery-windowsxp.html

If you're looking for more exact VS or Office look-and-feel, you'll have to do the customizing of it yourself, or perhaps try to hire someone to do it for you, like what this poster did in this forum (if you know exactly what you need):
http://www.qtcentre.org/forum/f-jobs-12/t-job-description-3-qt-widgets-needed-3171.html

As previous poster says, the power in Qt is there, the question is whether you have the time to code it.

[wysota]

This might help too: The widget gallery (http://www.digitalfanatics.org/e8johan/projects/widgets/)

[Brandybuck]

...but there are still some tiny differences that a trained eye can spot between Qt and Windows widgets.
A trained eye could, but the same trained eye would spot similar tiny differences between POW32 (plain old Win32), MFC, .NET 1.0, .NET 1.1, .NET 2.0, as well as between various versions of Outlook, Office, etc. And that's JUST from Microsoft! They are the king of the inconsistant interface.

In reality, the vast majority of Windows users don't care. Some of the *functionality* of these advanced controls can be useful, however. For example, the Outlook toolbox (which Qt has), or the "personalized" menus (which I hate but other people love), or Visual Studio's sliding/grouping dock windows.

[wysota]

or Visual Studio's sliding/grouping dock windows.
If I understand the feature correctly, Qt4.2 introduces it to our world too.

[gfunk]

I apologize if I'm defending Microsoft, but I don't know of any desktop/OS that has not continually evolved the look of their UI (Windows, MacOS, KDE). Especially when you're the heavyweight in your segment, it's great for marketing and selling more units of software.

I think some users do care - which may explain why I don't see many apps written in Java even though it has lots of support for it, a much larger programmer base (than Qt) - those java widgets have their own peculiar, unfamiliar look (well, there are probably other reasons why as well). At least Qt makes a decent attempt at emulating different OS's styles.

[wysota]

I apologize if I'm defending Microsoft, but I don't know of any desktop/OS that has not continually evolved the look of their UI (Windows, MacOS, KDE).
All the systems you listed above did a very hard (and great) job to develop their looks... Have you seen early versions of MacOS? For example compare MacOS 6, 8 and 10 (X), the difference is astonishing. So is the difference between KDE 1 and KDE3 (of course it is a wrapper over Qt so that enforces a simmilar look if we don't take skins into consideration).


At least Qt makes a decent attempt at emulating different OS's styles.
I can't agree here. Qt doesn't "emulate" styles. With WindowsXP and Macintosh (Aqua) styles the native renderer is used so that applications follow the style (theme) of the system, there is no emulation here. Of course for other styles the display is rendered using own routines, but they don't use skinns, so that's not a very big problem here.