Meeting Notes: SLUG Mon 12 Jun - Qt and Qt Designer

[Ben Scott]

  I went to tonight's (er, last night's) SLUG meeting on Qt and Qt
Designer, presented by the one and only Rob Anderson.  Informative,
interesting, and educational.  I learned some stuff about Qt, and some
stuff about Python.  Did you know Qt has bindings for C++, Python,
Perl, and Ruby?  Neither did I.  Rob noted that the Python and C++
bindings are very similar, and using both languages together can be
powerful.  Neat.

  Qt includes an online hypertext documentation system called
"assistant", which is handy.  The docs are also available on the
Trolltech website.  Rob emphasized the Qt docs are very good.

  Rob showed off a couple different versions of Qt Designer, which is
a GUI layout tool for Qt.  If my understanding is correct, Qt Designer
builds generic UI designs.  You then use a UIC tool to build a source
file which, when run, will build the UI you designed.  There are UICs
for C++, Python, and prolly some others.

  One thing I took away was that a good practice is to build UI
layouts using Qt Designer, but don't put your own code in the UI
layout.  Subclass the UI layout stuff in separate files, and put your
own code there.  That means the UI designer won't screw up your code,
and makes the implementation (and language) independent of the UI.

  There was lots more good stuff, which I won't try to put into an
email.  If you want to know, you should have gone.  ;-)

  Thanks to Rob for putting on the meeting, and for putting up with
pestering questions from me and the
guy-sitting-across-from-me-whose-name-I-forget (nothing personal, I
forget everybody's name).

  Attendance: About 10.

-- Ben