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Thread: Creating a "windowless" software

  1. #1
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    Default Creating a "windowless" software

    What would be the most efficient way of creating a software (UI actually) that has no (and does not generate or show) windows with QT 4.0.1?

    The software itself should have no visible frames, caption nor menus. The looks should be as simple as in basic linux terminal on full screen (again with no caption bar, menu or other bars), and the screen should not show anything from the background, so as user will see only black screen with text in certain locations of the screen. So it actually reminds linux with no GUI, or as a DOS as in the past years. The software is interacted with keyboard, no mouse will be used.

    So basically I want to take advantage of the QT features without having the windowed looks.

    The OS will be linux.

    Can you guide me to the right direction on how to create this kind of interface? How should I create the background frame and the text fields?

    I'll specify this even more:
    The main window could be the "blank" UI window shown to user, and user controls the software via keyboard. User does not have to be able to input text via the UI. User has no ability to shutdown the UI.

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    Default Re: Creating a "windowless" software

    I think qt is not the solution you should think of in this situation.
    There are tools more suitable for this thing (consider ncurses). There are plenty of things that will do the job w/o using qt. Anyway, if you want that functionality, make a normal qt application w/o any widgets, it IS possible, but if you want windows, buttons, list views, etc. in text mode, QT won't help you.

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    Default Re: Creating a "windowless" software

    Actually it may be acceptable that the caption bar and borders are shown, so QT would still be a choice. The main window just has to be full screen then with minimal border width.

    Possibility for changing background and text colour would be nice too. I dont have need for the QT-buttons as is, as there is no mouse in the system.

    Any suggestions how to implement this?

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    Default Re: Creating a "windowless" software

    Quote Originally Posted by Yorma
    Actually it may be acceptable that the caption bar and borders are shown, so QT would still be a choice. The main window just has to be full screen then with minimal border width.
    Why do you want to make a character based application on top of a X server environment? It'll not work on terminal if you show any captions/borders/etc.

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    Default Re: Creating a "windowless" software

    Quote Originally Posted by wysota
    Why do you want to make a character based application on top of a X server environment? It'll not work on terminal if you show any captions/borders/etc.
    Basically because the system has no mouse or other input method besides keyboard.
    So is it more an QT/E issue, is this again a wrong part of the forum? As the system is reserved only for this software, no X server is even needed. You may move the topic to the right forum if needed, I'm sorry for the mishap.

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    Default Re: Creating a "windowless" software

    But do you have an X server there? If so, you can create a regular Qt app and operate it with your keyboard or touchscreen.

    Anyway you can use Qt to help you operate on data, etc. but you should use ncurses library (or simmilar) for the text display if you don't want to use Xserver.

  7. #7
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    Default Re: Creating a "windowless" software

    Quote Originally Posted by wysota
    But do you have an X server there? If so, you can create a regular Qt app and operate it with your keyboard or touchscreen.

    Anyway you can use Qt to help you operate on data, etc. but you should use ncurses library (or simmilar) for the text display if you don't want to use Xserver.
    No X server, running on frame buffer. I'll check out the ncurses lib.

  8. #8
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    Default Re: Creating a "windowless" software

    I think that Qt 4 QtCore will provide a solution for you.

    ==> http://doc.trolltech.com/4.0/qtcore.html

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