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Developing a Beautiful and Performant Block Editor in Qt C++ and QML

rubymamistvalove.com

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Re: Developing a Beautiful and Performant Block Editor in Qt C++ and QML

#4

Post by pjmlp »

isodev wrote: post #3

This is brilliant work and I love the Qt ecosystem. Can’t help but imagine the things we could’ve had if Apple wasn’t pushing the horror of Swift down everyone’s throat by blocking alternatives in so many tiny ways.

If you mean due to lack of C++ for doing GUIs, Google and Microsoft have also long left C++ to the dust, in what concerns GUI frameworks.

Even Microsoft, for all its C++ use, has never produced anything better than MFC to this day, and only Windows team cares about XAML C++, others rather use React Native or Webview2 alongside C++.

It is up to third parties to use frameworks like Qt.

Re: Developing a Beautiful and Performant Block Editor in Qt C++ and QML

#9

Post by dleeftink »

Great write-up! It would be useful if various PKMs would settle on a similar format for recording (nested) tasks, dates and metadata, as it seems to have become the standard way to store kanban boards and similar 'enhanced' views. Currently there exist various strategies ranging from embedding JSON as comments to esoteric (non-markdown) formats, often trailing at the end of each task. This makes the source look cluttered and difficult to edit/navigate.

IMO, metadata (such as date ranges) could instead be stored as empty links leading each task (or by showing a custom placeholder symbol such as '@'), paving the way for a 'linked' data format while resulting in a same-width list for easy lookups and editing:

  - [x] [@](/2025/12/30..31.md (15:30:21)) task 1
  - [ ] [@](/2025/12/29..30.md (16:20:31)) task 2
  - [ ] [@](/2025/12/28..28.md (14:20:31)) same day task
    - [ ] undated nested task
For instance, the above tasks would link to the virtual '30..31.md' and '29..30.md' files which collect all backlinked tasks for the provided daterange (akin to Obisidan/Logseq/etc).

In an ideal world, the task marker could hold a custom symbol and linked metadata itself, but would result in non-standard (GFM) markdown:

  - [@](/2025/12/30..31.md (15:30:21)) task 1
  - [ ](/2025/12/29..30.md (16:20:31)) task 2
    - [ ] undated nested task
It would be up to the editor to render this metadata accordingly.

Re: Developing a Beautiful and Performant Block Editor in Qt C++ and QML

#10

Post by noodletheworld »

I've worked with QtWidgets and I have mixed feelings about the extensive (1) documentation about integrating C++ with QML and QtQuick.

Here's a quick history lesson (as I understand it):

- QtWidgets the original C++ QT graphics library.

- Around 2008 or something, they introduced QML and QtQuick. This was basically declarative UI + javascript for logic.

- QtWidgets is considered 'done' and all new features and dev is basically happening in QML / QtQuick.

- ...as described in this post, the current recommended 'best practice' is to avoid writing a pile of javascript spaghetti and bridge between C++ for logic and QML for UI.

So, long story short: We've moved from a robust C++ framework, to a javascript backed framework to 'appeal to the masses', but it's kind of hard to build a whole application that way, and so 'best practice' is to go back and write your logic in C++.

Does that seem weird to anyone else?

> While powerful, Qt Widgets lack some essential modern features, in my opinion, such as declarative UI, bindings, behaviors, anchors, and more. These features enable the creation of beautiful, animated UIs simply and quickly, as seen in QML.

Hum. QML is certainly declarative.

I'd love to see a breakdown of specifically what features you can't do with widgets, and why having a js c++ bridge is better than not having one.

Don't get me wrong; if you want to write a 100% javascript QML application, that's cool. Go for it... but when you're writing a C++ application and choosing, deliberately, to implement you UI in another language and communicate with that UI via a bridge...

...well, let's just say, if you had another option (eg. just use C++), wouldn't that make sense?

Couldn't you do the the same thing with react native components and logic in C++? (You could) Why is this any better than just writing a react native UI? Or a flutter UI?

You could do any kind of UI, even fully native, if you're implementing the application is c++ and then just doing cross language to the ui.

Right?

[1] - https://doc.qt.io/qt-6/qtqml-cppintegration-overview.html

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