Qt/GTK Skinning

[Lakin Wecker]

On Tue, 2005-26-07 at 01:30 +0200, Soeren Sandmann wrote:
> Fabian Zeindl <fabian at xover.htu.tuwien.ac.at> writes:
> 
> > Is there a possibility to skin QT-Application to look the same way
> > GTK-Apps do? Just like the gtk-qt engine, but the different way?
> 
> It is basically a bad idea to skin applications using different
> toolkits to look similar. If users see two applications that _look_
> identical, they will expect them to _behave_ identically. But GTK+ and
> Qt do behave differently in a lot of ways, and there is no way that
> any "theme" can change that.

I agree that having hidden caveats of the different behaviors may
surprise many people, however I can't see this as conclusive evidence
that skinning Qt/Gtk applications to fit with each other is "basically a
bad idea".

> The differing looks is a feature, not a bug, IMO.

I completely disagree with you on this front.  For both periods of time
that I used only one of the desktops, I would find myself using
applications built for the other desktop and wishing that they were
skinned to "fit" my desktop theme.  

It's not only annoying, but extremely unuseable to start up a KDE/Gnome
application and have the font size be extremely different than the size
of the font you use with your theme. 
Also Having the scrollbar buttons are only on the bottom of the
scrollbar etc. when you expect them at either end, etc.  These are the
types of things that could be fixed with a common skinning engine, and
would greatly benefit each desktop's killer applications, by allowing
them to be used by a wider audience.  


Lakin