Cross Platform C library for GUI Apps?

+7 A:

If you are looking for a C++ library, then Qt basically does what you are looking for. If you want to stick to pure C, than Qt is not an option.

As a C framework you could use GTK+, it works on Linux, Windows and OS X.

sth 2010-01-07 07:30:34

OK, so what will work with c then?

Moshe 2010-01-07 07:31:32

@Moshe, yes GTK+ is written in C.

Luca Matteis 2010-01-07 07:40:13

Doesn't QT require payment for commercial use? Not that he said it's commercial, but he talks about mac/win/lin and iPhone.

phkahler 2010-01-11 19:07:46

@phkahler: No, it doesn't, you can use it as LGPL (so you can use it in commercial closed source projects as long as you make modifications of the QT library itself available). There also is a commercial license if you want to make modifications to QT itself that you wouldn't want to make available under LGPL.

sth 2010-01-11 19:32:26

GTK support for Macs is not very good unless you want to run X11, and that has its own downsides.

mikerobi 2010-06-15 15:52:59

+1 A:

Qt is a C++ library. Other cross platform libraries that you might consider are wxWidgets (C++), and GTK (C).

All three of the presented libraries are fully cross platform. You can also look at Tcl/Tk, but that's a toolkit :).

Kornel Kisielewicz 2010-01-07 07:33:27

GTK is C++, really?

Alex B 2010-01-07 07:36:35

Nope, corrected.

Kornel Kisielewicz 2010-01-07 07:37:34

wxWidgets is C++, GTK+ is C.

Ken 2010-01-07 07:46:00

gtkmm is C++, so you could say that GTK is C++. As is Qt Python, Ruby, php, etc. When providing bindings it is hard to bind downwards, so C++ is not (conveniently) C, as C can (roughly and quite unfairly) be seen as a subset of C++.

e8johan 2010-01-07 08:45:44

A:

I'd strongly suggest questioning why your project would need to be in C. There are many benefits to C++, and the idea that C performs intrinsically better is mostly a myth. For some hard data on that, check out Bjarne Stroustrup's Learning C++ as a New Language.

If for some strange reason you feel you must use C and not C++, then Qt is not for you. It was designed from the ground-up as a C++ library. But if at all possible you should give it a try, it has a pleasing design and is well-documented!

If you must stick to C then there's always GTK. The underlying API of GTK+ is C, but bindings also exist for C++ called GTKmm. I'm not a big fan of it from a design perspective, but it does power the Gnome desktop (Ubuntu's default)...and Google is using it for their version of Chrome for Linux. So it has some cred.

Hostile Fork 2010-01-07 07:36:31

Got some "hard data" that comes from someone besides the author of the language? Stroustrup is the single least objective observer possible on the question of C vs. C++.

mcl 2010-01-07 11:47:01

@mcl. Agreed.@Hostile Fork : Bit of a sweeping statement! All depends on what your doing, the compiler you are using and the target hardware. C++ can ( but not always) lead to single object centric approaches which can limit performance by cache-thrashing. We've learnt this the hard way in the games industry

zebrabox 2010-01-07 13:13:01

C'mon though, the question is "Cross platform GUI framework"...I've heard this a couple times before from people who know C and just don't want to learn C++. And the Stroustrup paper stands on its own merits regardless of who wrote it. Did you *read* it?

Hostile Fork 2010-01-07 16:51:51

@HostileFork: Do you troll other language tags informing them that C++ would be a better alternative than C#, Perl, Ruby, Python and Lisp?

mcl 2010-01-07 20:59:41

@mcl: I follow the #qt tag and the OP asked specifically about Qt. I suppose one can say "NO! Qt is C++ you want GTK+" and leave it at that, and you are free to answer that way if you like. But I personally don't feel GTK is that good, and I'd hate for someone to avoid Qt because they hadn't taken the time to consider if their reasons for using C instead of C++ were based on incorrect assumptions. So I include some discussion of that with my answer.

Hostile Fork 2010-01-07 21:27:35

+1 A:

Another option is Tk, which is a GUI library written in C. It comes with Tcl, a scripting language also written in C. These were designed from the ground up to be embedded in C programs.

Bryan Oakley 2010-06-14 17:51:19

A:

Take a look at the IUP Toolkit. It is written largely in C, and is also easily bound to Lua.

RBerteig 2010-06-14 23:15:04

A:

To complete this post Allegro has to be here =)

http://www.talula.demon.co.uk/allegro/ Allegro Game Library, have many graphics functions and a basic GUI library

And an explicit gui (and very simple) Allegro based library

http://cgui.sourceforge.net/index.html

Both multi-platform

Hernán Eche 2010-06-15 15:45:06

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Cross Platform C library for GUI Apps?

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