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Porting the Unity Editor to Linux: Stuff I Wish We’d Done Then

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Re: Porting the Unity Editor to Linux: Stuff I Wish We’d Done Then

#31

Post by zanny »

throwaway24242 wrote: post #17
cwyers wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because native GUI on Windows and OSX is better for those users and already exists?

I think native UIs are overrated and just cause headaches for developers. E.g. take the most popular UI system: HTML/CSS/JS: users have no problem with the fact that all their favourite websites look different. IMHO it is a better idea when the application enforces the same UI across platforms (like QT) than the platform expecting the same UI for all programs. On top of that QT does support native look&feel.

Theres a major difference between a website and a native application. I'm used to websites having no consistency and having elements all randomly over the page. I'm only there for a few minutes, after all.

A lot of productivity software uses Qt. If it were not using native look and feel it would piss everyone and their grams off when system level keyboard shortcuts didn't work, when menu bars weren't oriented system native, when it didn't use the system file dialog, etc. Integrating with the OS is essential to workflow unless the application literally is your entire workflow.

Re: Porting the Unity Editor to Linux: Stuff I Wish We’d Done Then

#32

Post by jebblue »

wtbob wrote: post #26

Wow, I wouldn't have thought that folks would be sloppy about case, but I guess it makes sense if all one's used to is a case-insensitive system. > Same policy as with our runtime; in order to keep our own sanity, we will officially support Ubuntu Linux. … > Installer will (most likely – it’s one of the things we didn’t do yet) just be a .deb package. I really wish folks would support Debian first, and let Ubuntu sup…

I agree in both cases. There would be no Ubuntu today without Debian (although I've never installed it because I tried years ago and found it to be too difficult which is why I went with Ubuntu after becoming less than enchanted with RedHat) and really I thought case issues were a thing of the 90's, early 2000's at the latest. I've read that Debian has gotten easier to install though but I'm not sure from their web site which one. They need to get someone with a marketing background to help them with their web site.

Re: Porting the Unity Editor to Linux: Stuff I Wish We’d Done Then

#33

Post by zanny »

cwyers wrote: post #12
JupiterMoon wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious. Why not go for QT for the whole GUI on all platforms?

Because native GUI on Windows and OSX is better for those users and already exists?

There is some insane technical debt maintaining three versions of your application with platform specific plumbing. It almost never is worth the investment to become portable after the fact, but when you start out it always strikes me as incredibly shortsighted to lock yourself into a native toolkit in the first place when Qt is so good nowadays.

Re: Porting the Unity Editor to Linux: Stuff I Wish We’d Done Then

#34

Post by hga »

hyperion2010 wrote: post #5

> it’s the place where case sensitivity problems really show up Who made the decision to have case insensitive file systems? If I had a time machine they would be high on the list of people to visit and give a stern talking to.

If I had a time machine they would be high on the list of people to visit and give a stern talking to.

Problem is that this goes back a long ways, e.g. back to the days of 36 bit computers.

Why 36 bits? Because that was just enough to encode 10 decimal digits, the standard back then for scientific computation.

Back then as in the days before core memory was used, so not much main memory either, and it was still expensive and painful after core was developed. So with that limited a budget, 6 bit character systems were common, that's enough to get things done and you can fit 6 in a word. One reason mainline Lisp doesn't use '?' in function names, why old languages like it and FORTRAN are or were case insensitive.

Re: Porting the Unity Editor to Linux: Stuff I Wish We’d Done Then

#36

Post by jebblue »

JupiterMoon wrote: post #6
ianlevesque wrote: post #2

Gtk does sound like a better choice than raw X11, particularly as Wayland, Mir, and friends continue to grow.

Just curious. Why not go for QT for the whole GUI on all platforms?

It seems Gtk has won, why don't the QT developers and supporters move to the Gtk camp and work to make it better rather then keep QT alive which just wastes efforts.

Re: Porting the Unity Editor to Linux: Stuff I Wish We’d Done Then

#37

Post by felixgallo »

azakai wrote: post #13
carussell wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we kill off the Mono libel already? Mono changed the license so that it could be used in Unity to begin with . Mono was available under a copyleft license. To everyone. Including Unity. Unity couldn't/wouldn't accept it under those terms, so folks at now-Xamarin said, "We'll offer it to you under a commercial license if you won't take the copyleft offering." That's standard fare. Unity said, "Okay, deal." Mono co…

That seems like a very unfair description of the situation. Do you know the specific licensing terms that Xamarin offered to Unity? Probably none of us here do. Given that, why would you assume Unity was the unreasonable party, and not Xamarin? Regarding the copyleft license, while it is an option for everyone in general, it isn't an option for Unity, which needs to ship on platforms that do not allow such licenses (…

I'm aware of the terms, and they were ridiculous. Unfortunately, I can't disclose them, but they didn't make sense, and that's why Unity is on the path it's on now.

Re: Porting the Unity Editor to Linux: Stuff I Wish We’d Done Then

#38

Post by Retra »

hyperion2010 wrote: post #5

> it’s the place where case sensitivity problems really show up Who made the decision to have case insensitive file systems? If I had a time machine they would be high on the list of people to visit and give a stern talking to.

That crap is so frustrating. Especially since you can't fix it easily when working between multiple file systems.

    mv: ‘test’ and ‘Test’ are the same file
Thanks, mv. Brilliant.

Re: Porting the Unity Editor to Linux: Stuff I Wish We’d Done Then

#39

Post by matt_kantor »

jdub wrote: post #18
JupiterMoon wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm new to GUI programming and foreign to both Windows and OSX so please forgive my ignorance. In what way are the native GUIs better? Are they faster/more responsive or do they look better? Which would be more work over the e.g. 1,2 and 5 year period maintaining three guis or one? (Or is QT not quite cross platform so one ends up maintaining three inferior versions anyway?)

They behave exactly the way you'd expect, because they don't attempt to copy the expected behaviour. They define the expected behaviour.

Not in this case. Unity's editor has a very "unique" UI. It doesn't try to follow OS-specific conventions most of the time.

https://youtu.be/DEumkKjE2YQ?t=8m15s

Re: Porting the Unity Editor to Linux: Stuff I Wish We’d Done Then

#40

Post by JupiterMoon »

jebblue wrote: post #36
JupiterMoon wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious. Why not go for QT for the whole GUI on all platforms?

It seems Gtk has won, why don't the QT developers and supporters move to the Gtk camp and work to make it better rather then keep QT alive which just wastes efforts.

I'm new to this but I thought that QT is more convenient to use on windows and osx?
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