Practical GUI toolkit?

Question

I am thinking about cross-platform with nice programming language bindings (Java, Ruby and Python). What would be the \"flattest\" learning curve but yet enough powers to p

Answer 1

If you're considering Java, SWT is an excellent cross-platform GUI toolkit.

Answer 2

Honestly, I've built things with Tk, wx, and Qt, and I hate them all equally. Qt's visual editor is the least obnoxious of the three I think.

Answer 3

If Java is your preferred language, consider Groovy. It is a really nice dynamic language that sits on top of Java, and has some really nice features (SwingBuilder) with respect to writing GUIs. If it wasn't for the fact I'm highly productive in Tcl/tk, I think Groovy would be my personal second choice even though I'm not a big fan of Java or Swing per se. Groovy looks to take a lot of the tedium out of both of those.

For more information see GUI Programming with Groovy.

Answer 4

I just want to mention that Qt is much much more than just a GUI toolkit. You get so much more with it, all nicely integrated into the framework, that it would be well worth using it if you are considering crossplatform development. The only issue is that if you want to use it via its Python binding PyQt, you'll either have to pay for a PyQt commercial license (expensive) or GPL your code.

Answer 5

I recommend Gtk. It is a nice, cross-platform, good-looking toolkit. It is designed with language bindings in mind and allows create nice language bindings (pygtk, ruby/gtk2, java-gnome, gtk# and more). Gtk+ is quite easy to learn.