Modern GUI development

Question

Long long time ago was a Delphi, and any developer can rapidly build win32 GUI application. Delphi was a king (long life to king...) but now delphi and win32 has gone away.

So question is - what a preferred platform to rapidly build cross-platform GUI applications at present days? I'm have a good knowledge of Java and C#, and i'm looking for compare

Java (Groovy) + SWT
Java (Groovy) + Native GTK (cross-platform?)
Java (Groovy) + QtJambi
.NET/Mono + Gtk#
.NET/Mono + WinForms 2.0 (very bad look&feel on linux)

Any real-world usages welcome.

Delphi may have gone away, but Win32 is still *the* Windows UI API. GTK and other such things just build upon that and provide a common interface to it. — Felix, Oct 13 '09 at 20:13
Delphi provides you ALL you need to build cross-platform GUI applications (targeted platforms: Windows 32/64, Linux, Android, OSX, iOS. http://www.dnabaser.com/learn%20Delphi%20programming%20language/ — Gabriel, Feb 11 '20 at 12:25
Delphi also has Delphi Super-Duper Strings: http://blog.marcocantu.com/blog/delphi_super_duper_strings.html — Gabriel, Feb 11 '20 at 12:25

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 13 '09 at 18:01

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You're not limited to C#/Mono or Java... there's also Python/GTK:

http://www.pygtk.org/

answered Oct 13 '09 at 18:01

Randolpho

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Not trying to be disagreeable, but for someone who's used to Delphi it's not likely that any of the Python RAD tools are going to cut the mustard. In Delphi (and the open source clone FreePascal/Lazarus) the UI building is generally done at level or two higher leevel of abstraction than what's offered by any of the Python-related stuff. I'm not saying that pygtk, wxpython, glade aren't great. Just that they're not likely to be what someone coming from Delphi (or .net) is looking for. – Herbert Sitz Oct 13 '09 at 21:13
All good points; I was merely commenting that he was not limited to Java or C#. – Randolpho Oct 14 '09 at 01:43
I'm know python reaaly great, but after years Java development i'm choose groovy as alternative to Jython and JRuby. I'm don't have enough time to learn absolutely new paradigms of this languages. – Alexey Sviridov Oct 14 '09 at 02:44

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 13 '09 at 18:06

4

Delphi is pretty much alive http://www.embarcadero.com/products/delphi, also if you like there is C++ Builder which is my personal favorite (if I where into C++). But if you want to try new RAD technologies I'll go with wxPython and SQLAlchemy.

answered Oct 13 '09 at 18:06

Juparave

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Don't get me wrong, Java is great and is what I currently use on major developments, but is not as "RAD" as wxPython IMO – Juparave Oct 13 '09 at 18:07

knoopx · Accepted Answer · 2009-10-13T18:28:18.553

4

I was asking this myself a year ago. Finally I went with Mono/GTK# and I'm very satisfied. Monodevelop feels like Delphi, following the "rapid application development" philosophy.

Mono runs on major platforms and GTK feels more or less native on them (as opposed to Java GUIs, they look ancient).

C# is also a major player on rapid development.

Another choice would be C++/QT. Google and many more big companies uses it on their products.

edited Oct 13 '09 at 18:28

answered Oct 13 '09 at 18:08

knoopx

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I've never had a problem with Java GUIs, as long as I use `UIManager.setLookAndFeel(UIManager.getSystemLookAndFeelClassName());`. – Thomas Owens Oct 13 '09 at 18:15
take a look at Eclipse or Netbeans on another OS rather than Windows. They look more or less good, but they still lake the feel... – knoopx Oct 13 '09 at 18:23
Then why limit yourself to GTK/QT when you can get the real deal? The VCL library is huge, more mature, better design, more flexible. – Gabriel Feb 11 '20 at 12:31

Herbert Sitz · Answer 4 · 2009-10-13T19:06:53.733

As someone else said, Delphi is still alive and kicking. But standard Delphi is still just Win32, not really a cross-platform solution although a number of people use WINE successfully with Delphi apps. Embarcadero does have their relatively new .NET based ObjectPascal variant ("Delphi Prism"), though. Delphi Prism/.net/mono may be slightly better than c#/.net/mono for cross platform, but it's also more expensive and not from Microsoft.

Former Delphi users who want to do cross platform can use the mostly-Delphi-compatible FreePascal open source ObjectPascal compiler in its Lazarus IDE, which has become fairly solid and replicates most of Delph's IDE and the VCL. It compiles desktop apps to Windows, Linux, OSX, and other platforms, both 32 and 64 bit.

TO me it seems at least worthy of a look if you liked Delphi in the past: http://www.freepascal.org http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org

As a user of Delphi 1-7 i'm of course track delphi destiny, and know about Embracadero Delphi, FreePascal and Lazaurus.Delphi loose a moment and now stay away of worlds programming mainstream, this is only reason for not include pascal to my list... — Alexey Sviridov, Oct 14 '09 at 03:10

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Feb 11 '20 at 12:29

Delphi is pretty much alive and kicking (hard).

Want rapid GUI development? Then none can beat Delphi. The VCL library has over 500 visual components!
It provides ALL you need to build cross-platform GUI applications (targeted platforms: Windows 32/64, Linux, Android, OSX, iOS)

All this without those nasty:

   {IFDEF Linux} code      
    {IFDEF Windows} some_other_code  
      {IFDEF Mac} some_other_other_code

Delphi also has Super-Duper Strings

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Oct 13 '09 at 19:21

0

There a three Python-based projects that fit into the same space that Delphi was in.

Pythoncard, Dabo and Glom

In addition, consider building web applications that run locally and use a single-url browser such as Mozilla Prism or xulrunner to access it.

answered Oct 13 '09 at 19:21

Michael Dillon

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score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Feb 11 '20 at 14:35

You can use GtkSharp on .NET Core, or you can use Avalonia on .NET Core. Avalonia is inspired by Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and uses XAML.

Personally, I prefer .NET Core over Java.

There is also the Glade user interface editor for designing GTK user interfaces in XML.

Qt is a cross-platform widget toolkit with bindings for many languages including Java and C#.

Modern GUI development

7 Answers7