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[Guide] Migrate from GTK+ to Qt
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migrate_gtk_to_qt.md

Migrate from GTK+ to Qt

From LXDE.org (mirror gist)

Contents

Introduction

Qt is a nice platform for GUI application development. More and more people are using Qt. One of the famous Linux distros, Ubuntu, is also moving from Gnome/GTK+ to Qt. Normally, people start learning Qt from reading the Qt tutorial/books and the "hello world" example. For those who already know GTK+, learning Qt is much easier since most of the GTK+ concepts still applies. Only some "translation" is needed. This document focuses on translating your existing GTK+ knowledge and experience to Qt. So you can start to develop with Qt "immediately".

  • If you don't know what's GTK+ or Qt, this doc is not for you. Go to find a Qt tutorial and read it.
  • If you're using GTK+ and want to use Qt instead, this is definitely for you
  • If you plan to use QML, this is not for you. We focus on desktop development with Qt Widgets.

A very efficient shortcut for a GTK+ developers to migrate to Qt is:

  1. Read a Qt tutorial (hello world) [1]
  2. Read this guide
  3. Start coding immediately (Create your project with KDevelop or QtCreator can make your life much easier. Personally I highly recommend KDevelop)
  4. If you encounter any problem, use Qt assitant to look it up in Qt API doc, or ask questions in the KDE/Qt community.

At the end of this document we provide a table listing the Qt equivalence of some common Gtk+ classes.

GObject vs QObject

In Gtk+, nearly everything is a GObject. In Qt, almost all major classes are derived from QObject. They provides very similar functionality but also differs in many ways.

Problem GObject Way Qt Way

Object construction Have to do initialize in four places.

  1. class init function
  2. Object constructor function, handle construction properties
  3. Object init function
  4. The *_new() function for the object

Just use a normal C++ constructor and C++ "new" operator

Object destruction Need to do two-step destruction to break cyclic references.

  1. Free references to other objects in "dispose" handler
  2. Free the allocated memory in "finalize" method
  3. Need to make sure that all objects are owned, or you need to do g_object_ref_sink() to cancel its floating state. Otherwise you'll get errors

Just delete the object with C++ "delete" operator.

Memory management Reference counting. Objects are freed when the last reference is released. No reference counting, only parent-child association between objects (optional). While destructing parent objects, child objects will be freed automatically.

Define new signals

  1. Write a marshal list file
  2. Use glib-gen-marshal command to parse the marshal list file, and generates some glue code for the C closures used by the signal
  3. Call g_signal_new() in class init function to register new signals, and store the signal ID somewhere for later use.

In *.h C++ header file:

class MyObject: public QObject {
  Q_OBJECT // This macro is required
  public Q_SIGNALS:
    void mySignal();
}

In *.cpp C++ implementation file:

// include the moc file generated by meta object compiler (moc)
#include "myobject.moc"

(The moc is invoked by makefiles automatically)

Connect signals g_signal_connect(object, "signal_name", G_CALLBACK(handler), user_data); QObject::connect(object, SIGNAL(signalName()), SLOT(handler()));

Disconnect signals g_signal_handler_disconnect(object, handler_id); QObject::disconnect(object, SIGNAL(signalName()), SLOT(handler()));

Signal handler

Most of time are static functions, the first parameter is the sender of the signal. Additional data required by the handler are passed with user_data parameter.

static void handler(SenderObject* sender,
         ParamType param1,...,
         gpointer user_data)
{
  ReceiverObject* receiver = RECEIVER_OBJECT(user_data);
  do_something(receiver);
}

Signal handlers are often class methods of the receiver object. Additional data are stored in the receiver object, so no user_data parameter is needed.

void ReceiverObject::handler(ParamType param1, ...) {
  // call QObject::sender() to get the sender of the current signal
  SenderObject* sender = static_cast<SenderObject*>(sender());
  doSomething();
}

Object property g_object_class_install_property() Add Q_PROPERTY() macro in class declaration.[2]

Key-value based object data g_object_set_data() QObject::setProperty() does totally the same thing. Though it's named dynamic property in the API doc, actually, it's per-instance, not per-class (like Q_PROPERTY). It's actually the equivalence of g_object_set_data().

GtkWidget vs QWidget

Problem GTK+ Way Qt Way
Create toplevel windows Use GtkWindow or GtkDialog Any QWidget object can be toplevel windows
Painting Connect to "expose-event" (GTK+2) or "draw" (GTK+3) signal, and paint using cairo Override paintEvent() virtual function and create a QPainter object for painting
Handle mouse events Connect to "button-press-event", "motion-notify-event", and "button-release-event" Override virtual functions.
Create popup context menu Connect to "button-press-event", detect right click, and do it yourself has special handling for context menus
Handle drag and drop Connect to "drag-begin", "drag-motion", "drag-drop", ... signals Override dragBegin(),...etc virtual functions.
Obtain information about screen and monitors GdkDisplay/GdkScreen QDesktopWidget
Destroy a widget gtk_widget_destroy(), directly unref the widget object sometimes causes problems. Need to handle "dispose" and do two-step destruction to break cyclic references. No floating reference or any reference counting. Just delete the widget object. Very simple.
Implement custom widget Need to handle "realize" and create the underlying X window manually, or use GTK_NO_WINDOW flags, very low level Just create a derived class from an existing QWidget-based class. However, don't forget to add Q_OBJECT macro and #include the generated *.moc file in your cpp file. Otherwise signal/slot and RTTI won't work.

Tree/Model/View architecture of Qt

In Qt, it also has model/view architecture, just like GTK+ has GtkTreeModel and GtkTreeView. Their designs, however, differ in some ways.

In GTK+, To create a list-like view, you need to do this:

  1. Create a GtkListStore as the model providing data source
  2. Create a GtkTreeView for display the model
  3. Add several GtkTreeViewColumn objects to the GtkTreeView to add columns
  4. Set column attributes to map columns in the model (list store) to the visible columns in the view.
  5. Pack several GtkCellRendererPixbuf and GtkCellRendererText renderers into GtkTreeViewColumn to paint the content of that column
  • Set the model to the view

In Qt, you have two choices for your model

  • QStandardItemModel: a ready-to-use generic model class which has more feature than GtkListStore and GtkTreeStore. This should work in most of the cases.
  • QAbstractItemModel: a base class for deriving your own model class if QStandardItemModel is not enough. more complicated, roughly equals to implementing your own GtkTreeModel interface with GObject.

There are several places where Qt is quite different:

  • Columns in the view are created by adding GtkTreeViewColumn objects while in Qt the column information (title, size, ...) is "provided by the model", not the view. However, if you need to change the column header, it's managed by QHeaderView which can be retrieved by calling QTreeView::header().
  • Qt does not use cell renderer layout. Every cell can have an optional icon and text, and even other data associated with it. Qt calls different data stored in a cell "roles". Icons are decoration roles, and text for display in the cell is called display role.
  • In Gtk+, to refer to a row, you have to use GtkTreePath and GtkTreeIter. In Qt what you only need is QModelIndex, which provides functionality of GtkTreePath + GtkTreeIter.
  • In Gtk+ every "row" have a GtkTreePath and GtkTreeIter. Different cells in a row are referenced by using different column indicis or IDs. In Qt, every single cell can have their own QModelIndex.
  • If you need to draw custom content in a cell, in Gtk+ you can create a custom GtkCellRenderer. With Qt, derive your own QStyledItemDelegate, which is essentially a Qt cell renderer.
  • Gtk+ provides various kinds of cell renderers, Qt does not. You have to derive your custom item delegates for this. This is not difficult and a Google search usually gives you many examples for how to do it.
  • Gtk+ cell renderers provides rich text rendering (markup text), but Qt does not provide it. You can emulate the same feature with a custom delegate. Here are some good examples from Razor-Qt project and Stack overflow

Here are some good Qt model/view examples:

At the end of the article, we have a table summarizing equivalent Gtk+ and Qt classes for model/view architecture. Jump to the table

Special notes for using Qt with glib/GObject and gio

Forget the political issues. Qt and Gtk/Gnome are not enemy and there are many really nice non-GUI libraries from the Gnome/Gtk world. Qt now has glib mainloop integration. So using glib-based libraries is possible in Qt programs. (The Qt library must be compiled with glib support turned on, thogh)
There are some issue developers need to pay attention to.

Initialize GObject type system

You need to call g_type_init() before using any GObject-based stuff. Normally gtk_init() calls g_type_init() for us if you're using Gtk. With Qt, however, you need to initialize the GObject type system manually.

Disable the Qt keywords

To make programming easier, Qt added some "Qt-specific" reserved words to C++, such as the notorious "signals", "slots", "emit", and "foreach". They received much criticism on not using standard C++ syntax here. Non-standard, however, is not the real issue. The problem is, these words are used in other C++ libraries for class, methods, or variable names. The most famous one is boost::signal. These Qt keywords create significant name clashes. Glib/gio also uses these Qt keywords for variable names in their header files. So it creates a big headache. Fortunately, in Qt 4 this improved. Instead of new keywords, you can replace all of the "keywords" with macros. Use Qt macros Q_SIGNALS (or Q_SIGNAL), Q_SLOTS (or Q_SLOT), Q_EMIT, and Q_FOREACH to replace the old "keywords" and everything will compile. You also need to define "QT_NO_KEYWORDS" with compiler flags -DQT_NO_KEYWORDS to make it work.

String encoding issues

  • While glib uses UTF-8 to encode all strings, Qt uses UTF-16 internally. A C-style string, if not specified, is treated as a latin1 string. To convert from UTF-8 to UTF-16, calling QString::fromUtf8() explicitly is needed. If you don't do this, UTF-8 strings will be treated as latin1 by default and the bug can be hard to find.
  • To avoid the error, define QT_NO_CAST_FROM_ASCII flag to disable automatic conversion from C string to UTF-16.

Make C Header Files C++ compatible

  • Avoid using C++ reserved words as variable or function names in your C code, especially in the header files. The most common example: Replace "class" with "klass" in your C code because class is a reserved word in C++. Don't use "new" as your function or variable name since its a C++ operator.
  • If you use glib, add G_BEGIN_DECLS and G_END_DECLS in your C language *.h files like this:
#include <glib.h>
G_BEGIN_DECLS
// Your function declaration here
// ...
G_END_DECLS

Please refer to glib API doc for the explanation of these two macros. They're translated to something like this:

#ifdef __cplusplus
  extern "C" {
#endif
// Your function declaration here
//...
#ifdef __cplusplus
  }
#endif

This prevent C++ compilers from doing name mangling.

  • If you're not using glib, do the above ifdef and extern "C" manually

Known bugs or limitations of the Qt glib support

  • Qt QTBUG-32859: Calling QObject::deleteLater() inside a glib signal, timeout, or idle handlers has no effect. To workardound this bug, use QTimer::singleShot(0, object, SLOT(deleteLater()));

Using CMake to Build Your Code

While using Autotools to build Qt code is possible, I won't recommend doing that. The officially suggested way to build Qt code is to use qmake bundled with Qt and *.pro project file. This approach, however, is not suitable for more complicated real world applications. Many huge projects developed with Qt, like KDE, uses CMake instead.

CMake Basics

TODO

Using pkg-config in CMake

TODO

Qt support in CMake

TODO

Some useful macros:

  • qt4_add_resources to add embedded resources to your app,
  • qt4_wrap_ui to add a widget form,
  • qt4_create_translation for translation,
  • qt4_add_dbus_adaptor & qt4_add_dbus_interface to generate D-Bus-related code.

Add compiler flags

  • The -DQT_NO_KEYWORDS flag: turn off Qt specific keywords
  • The -fpermissive flag: If you're using some C libraries in your Qt code, you may encounter some type-casting related errors. Because C++ is more strict on type safety, some code allowed in C is not allowed in C++. You should fix the code if possible. Otherwise, add -fpermissive flag to omit the errors to make it compile.

Add linker flags

TODO

Build binary programs

TODO

Build libraries

TODO

Build tarballs

TODO

Translation (i18n)

GNU gettext vs QTranslator

TODO

Generate *.ts file from the source code

TODO

Integrate with CMake

Load the translation in Qt code

TODO

Use GNU gettext in Qt

TODO

ABI Issues For C++ Libraries

What's ABI?

ABI = application binary interface. It's extremely important for you if you're developing a library. Wikipedia has introduction for it. [3]

How to prevent breaking ABI compatibility

Due to the design and language features of C++, ABI (application binary interface) can break much more easily than in C if developers do not pay special attention to it.
KDE teams provide a very comprehensive guide about how to prevent C++ ABI breakage. Please read the nice article here [4].

What if I really need to break the ABI

Then make sure you bump the libtool version number. See this doc explaining how to set the version info correctly: http://www.gnu.org/software/libtool/manual/html_node/Updating-version-info.html

Appendix: List of equivalent GTK+ and Qt functionality

Development Tools

GTK+ Tools Qt Tools Comment
Devhelp Qt Assistent Nice viewer of API docs with search ability
Glade Qt Designer WYSIWYG GUI designer
Various po file editor Qt Linguist Editor for translation files
Verious conguration tools qtconfig GUI editor for some basic configuration like theme, colors, ...etc.

The following list of Gtk classes is taken from gtk+ API doc here: https://developer.gnome.org/gtk3/stable/

Windows

GTK+ class Qt class Comment
GtkDialog QDialog Create popup windows
GtkInvisible A widget which is not displayed
GtkMessageDialog QMessageBox A convenient message window
GtkWindow QMainWindow or QWidget Toplevel which can contain other widgets
GtkWindowGroup Limit the effect of grabs
GtkAboutDialog N/A Display information about an application
GtkAssistant QWizard A widget used to guide users through multi-step operations
GtkOffscreenWindow ? A toplevel to manage offscreen rendering of child widgets

Display Widgets

GTK+ class Qt class Comment
GtkAccelLabel N/A, but you can use QAction + QKeySequence A label which displays an accelerator key on the right of the text
GtkImage QLabel A widget displaying an image
GtkLabel QLabel A widget that displays a small to medium amount of text
GtkProgressBar QProgressBar A widget which indicates progress visually
GtkStatusbar QStatusBar Report messages of minor importance to the user
GtkLevelBar ? A bar that can used as a level indicator
GtkInfoBar ? Report important messages to the user
GtkStatusIcon QSystemTrayIcon Display an icon in the system tray
GtkSpinner N/A, can be emulated with QLabel::setMovie() + QMovie Show a spinner animation

Buttons and Toggles

GTK+ class Qt class Comment
GtkButton QPushButton A widget that emits a signal when clicked on
GtkCheckButton QCheckBox Create widgets with a discrete toggle button
GtkRadioButton QRadioButton A choice from multiple check buttons
GtkToggleButton QAbstractButton Create buttons which retain their state
GtkLinkButton QCommandLinkButton? (not sure) Create buttons bound to a URL
GtkScaleButton N/A A button which pops up a scale
GtkVolumeButton N/A A button which pops up a volume control
GtkSwitch ? A "light switch" style toggle
GtkLockButton N/A A widget to unlock or lock privileged operations
GtkMenuButton QPushButton::setMenu() A widget that shows a menu when clicked on

Numeric/Text Data Entry

GTK+ class Qt class Comment
GtkEntry QLineEdit A single line text entry field
GtkEntryBuffer N/A Text buffer for GtkEntry
GtkEntryCompletion QCompleter Completion functionality for GtkEntry
GtkScale QSlider A slider widget for selecting a value from a range
GtkSpinButton QSpinBox Retrieve an integer or floating-point number from the user
GtkSearchEntry ? An entry which shows a search icon
GtkEditable N/A Interface for text-editing widgets

Multiline Text Editor

GTK+ class Qt class Comment
GtkTextIter QTextCursor Text buffer iterator
GtkTextMark ? A position in the buffer preserved across buffer modifications
GtkTextBuffer QTextDocument Stores attributed text for display in a GtkTextView
GtkTextTag QTextFormat (not really the same, but similar in concept) A tag that can be applied to text in a GtkTextBuffer
GtkTextTagTable ? Collection of tags that can be used together
GtkTextView QTextEdit (supports plain text and Rich Text), a good alternative is the 3rd party class QScintilla [5] Widget that displays a GtkTextBuffer

Tree, List and Icon Grid Widgets (Tree Model/View architecture)

GTK+ class Qt class Comment
GtkTreeModel QStandardItemModel(easy but less optimized), QAbstractItemModel(low level and complicated) The tree interface used by GtkTreeView
GtkTreeSelection QItemSelectionModel The selection object for GtkTreeView
GtkTreeViewColumn QHeaderView A visible column in a GtkTreeView widget
GtkTreeView QTreeView, QTreeWidget A widget for displaying both trees and lists
GtkTreeView drag-and-drop ? Interfaces for drag-and-drop support in GtkTreeView
GtkCellView N/A A widget displaying a single row of a GtkTreeModel
GtkIconView QListView A widget which displays a list of icons in a grid
GtkTreeSortable Not needed in Qt The interface for sortable models used by GtkTreeView
GtkTreeModelSort QSortFilterProxyModel A GtkTreeModel which makes an underlying tree model sortable
GtkTreeModelFilter QSortFilterProxyModel A GtkTreeModel which hides parts of an underlying tree model
GtkCellLayout N/A An interface for packing cells
GtkCellArea N/A An abstract class for laying out GtkCellRenderers
GtkCellAreaBox N/A A cell area that renders GtkCellRenderers into a row or a column
GtkCellAreaContext N/A Stores geometrical information for a series of rows in a GtkCellArea
GtkCellRenderer QStyledItemDelegate An object for rendering a single cell
GtkCellEditable QStyledItemDelegate Interface for widgets which can are used for editing cells
GtkCellRendererAccel N/A, but can be done with a custom QItemDelegate. Renders a keyboard accelerator in a cell
GtkCellRendererCombo N/A, but can be done with a custom QItemDelegate. See a good example here. [6] Renders a combobox in a cell
GtkCellRendererPixbuf N/A, but every column can show an optional icon with decoration roles Renders a pixbuf in a cell
GtkCellRendererProgress N/A, but can be done with a custom QItemDelegate. Renders numbers as progress bars
GtkCellRendererSpin N/A, but can be done with a custom QItemDelegate. Renders a spin button in a cell
GtkCellRendererText Not needed, but Qt cannot render rich text (markup text) by default. You need to implement your own custom delegate to emulate this feature. Here are some good examples from Razor-Qt project and Stack overflow Renders text in a cell
GtkCellRendererToggle N/A, but can be done with a custom QItemDelegate. Renders a toggle button in a cell
GtkCellRendererSpinner N/A, but can be done with a custom QItemDelegate. Renders a spinning animation in a cell
GtkListStore QStandardItemModel (generic, suitable for all cases), QStringListModel (specialized for string items) A list-like data structure that can be used with the GtkTreeView
GtkTreeStore QStandardItemModel A tree-like data structure that can be used with the GtkTreeView

Menus, Combo Box, Toolbar

GTK+ class Qt class Comment
GtkComboBox QComboBox A widget used to choose from a list of items
GtkComboBoxText QComboBox A simple, text-only combo box
GtkMenu QMenu A menu widget
GtkMenuBar QMenuBar A subclass of GtkMenuShell which holds GtkMenuItem widgets
GtkMenuItem N/A, Qt uses QAction only (equivalent to GtkAction or GAction) The widget used for item in menus
GtkImageMenuItem QAction::setIcon() A menu item with an icon
GtkRadioMenuItem QAction::setChekable() + QAction::setActionGroup() A choice from multiple check menu items
GtkCheckMenuItem QAction::setCheckable() A menu item with a check box
GtkSeparatorMenuItem QMenu::addSeparator() A separator used in menus
GtkToolShell not needed, QToolBar is enough Interface for containers containing GtkToolItem widgets
GtkToolbar QToolBar Create bars of buttons and other widgets
GtkToolItem QToolBar::addWidget() The base class of widgets that can be added to GtkToolShell
GtkToolPalette QToolBox A tool palette with categories
GtkToolItemGroup QActionGroup? A sub container used in a tool palette
GtkSeparatorToolItem QToolBar::addSeparator() A toolbar item that separates groups of other toolbar items
GtkToolButton QToolButton A GtkToolItem subclass that displays buttons
GtkMenuToolButton QAction A GtkToolItem containing a button with an additional dropdown menu
GtkToggleToolButton QAction A GtkToolItem containing a toggle button
GtkRadioToolButton QAction A toolbar item that contains a radio button Action-based menus and toolbars
GtkUIManager QUiLoader Constructing menus and toolbars from an XML description
GtkActionGroup Qt has QActionGroup but it does different things A group of actions
GtkAction QAction An action which can be triggered by a menu or toolbar item
GtkToggleAction QAction An action which can be toggled between two states
GtkRadioAction QAction An action of which only one in a group can be active
GtkRecentAction N/A An action of which represents a list of recently used files
GtkActivatable N/A An interface for activatable widgets

Selectors (Color/File/Font)

GTK+ class Qt class Comment
GtkColorChooser N/A Interface implemented by widgets for choosing colors
GtkColorButton N/A, but it's very easy to implement yourself, see [7] A button to launch a color selection dialog
GtkColorChooserWidget N/A A widget for choosing colors
GtkColorChooserDialog QColorDialog A dialog for choosing colors
GtkFileChooser N/A File chooser interface used by GtkFileChooserWidget and GtkFileChooserDialog
GtkFileChooserButton N/A, but it's easy to implement with Qt A button to launch a file selection dialog
GtkFileChooserDialog QFileDialog A file chooser dialog, suitable for "File/Open" or "File/Save" commands
GtkFileChooserWidget N/A File chooser widget that can be embedded in other widgets
GtkFileFilter QFileDialog::selectNameFilter() A filter for selecting a file subset
GtkFontChooser N/A Interface implemented by widgets displaying fonts
GtkFontButton Only has QFontComboBox, but a font chooser button is very easy to implement. See the example [8] A button to launch a font chooser dialog
GtkFontChooserWidget N/A A widget for selecting fonts
GtkFontChooserDialog QFontDialog A dialog for selecting fonts

Layout Containers

In Gtk+, widget layout are largely done with boxes. In Qt, however, there are no box containers. Instead, they used QLayout objects to manage the layout of widgets. QLayout and its derivatives are not containers nor widgets. They're just "managers" of the layout of child widgets. The child widgets belongs to their parent container widgets, not belongs to the layout managers. This is totally different from Gtk+.

GTK+ class Qt class Comment
GtkGrid QGridLayout / QFormLayout Pack widgets in a rows and columns
GtkAlignment N/A A widget which controls the alignment and size of its child
GtkAspectFrame N/A A frame that constrains its child to a particular aspect ratio
GtkBox QBoxLayout A container box
GtkButtonBox QDialogButtonBox (only works for dialogs and only some standard buttons are allowed) A container for arranging buttons
GtkFixed N/A A container which allows you to position widgets at fixed coordinates
GtkPaned QSplitter A widget with two adjustable panes
GtkLayout QScrollArea? Infinite scrollable area containing child widgets and/or custom drawing
GtkNotebook QTabWidget or QStackedWidget + QTabBar A tabbed notebook container
GtkExpander N/A A container which can hide its child
GtkOverlay QStackedWidget A container which overlays widgets on top of each other
GtkOrientable Not used in Qt An interface for flippable widgets
GtkFrame QFrame A bin with a decorative frame and optional label
GtkSeparator QFrame with shape property set to QFrame::VLine or QFrame::HLine A separator widget

Scrolling

GTK+ class Qt class Comment
GtkScrollbar QScrollBar A Scrollbar
GtkScrolledWindow QScrollArea Adds scrollbars to its child widget
GtkScrollable N/A An interface for scrollable widgets

Printing

GTK+ class Qt class Comment
GtkPrintOperation ? High-level Printing API
GtkPrintContext ? Encapsulates context for drawing pages
GtkPrintSettings ? Stores print settings
GtkPageSetup ? Stores page setup information
GtkPaperSize ? Support for named paper sizes
GtkPrinter ? Represents a printer
GtkPrintJob ? Represents a print job
GtkPrintUnixDialog QPrintDialog A print dialog
GtkPageSetupUnixDialog QPageSetupDialog A page setup dialog

Miscellaneous

GTK+ class Qt class Comment
GtkAdjustment ? A representation of an adjustable bounded value
GtkArrow N/A, can be emulated with QStyle Displays an arrow
GtkCalendar QCalendarWidget Displays a calendar and allows the user to select a date
GtkDrawingArea Not needed, you can paint on any Qt widgets A widget for custom user interface elements
GtkEventBox Not needed in Qt A widget used to catch events for widgets which do not have their own window
GtkHandleBox QDockWidget (not equal, but does similar things) a widget for detachable window portions
GtkIMContextSimple QInputContext An input method context supporting table-based input methods
GtkIMMulticontext QInputContext An input method context supporting multiple, loadable input methods
GtkSizeGroup N/A Grouping widgets so they request the same size
GtkTooltip QToolTip (rarely used. usually QWidget::setTooltip() is enough Add tips to your widgets
GtkViewport Not needed in Qt An adapter which makes widgets scrollable
GtkAccessible ? Accessibility support for widgets

Abstract Base Classes

GTK+ class Qt class Comment
GtkWidget QWidget Base class for all widgets
GtkContainer N/A and not needed in Qt Base class for widgets which contain other widgets
GtkBin N/A and not needed in Qt A container with just one child
GtkMenuShell N/A and not needed in Qt A base class for menu objects
GtkMisc N/A and not needed in Qt Base class for widgets with alignments and padding
GtkRange QAbstractSlider Base class for widgets which visualize an adjustment
GtkIMContext QInputContext Base class for input method contexts

Cross-process Embedding

GTK+ class Qt class Comment
GtkPlug QX11EmbedWidget Toplevel for embedding into other processes
GtkSocket QX11EmbedContainer Container for widgets from other processes

Recently Used Documents

GTK+ class Qt class Comment
GtkRecentManager N/A Managing recently used files
GtkRecentChooser N/A Interface implemented by widgets displaying recently used files
GtkRecentChooserDialog N/A Displays recently used files in a dialog
GtkRecentChooserMenu N/A Displays recently used files in a menu
GtkRecentChooserWidget N/A Displays recently used files
GtkRecentFilter N/A A filter for selecting a subset of recently used files

Choosing from installed applications

GTK+ class Qt class Comment
GtkAppChooser N/A Interface implemented by widgets for choosing an application
GtkAppChooserButton N/A A button to launch an application chooser dialog
GtkAppChooserDialog N/A An application chooser dialog
GtkAppChooserWidget N/A Application chooser widget that can be embedded in other widgets

Interface builder

GTK+ class Qt class Comment
GtkBuildable N/A and not needed in Qt Interface for objects that can be built by GtkBuilder
GtkBuilder QUiLoader Build an interface from an XML UI definition

Application support

GTK+ class Qt class Comment
GtkApplication QApplication Application class
GtkApplicationWindow N/A and not needed in Qt GtkWindow subclass with GtkApplication support
GtkActionable N/A and not needed in Qt An interface for widgets that can be associated with actions

Deprecated

GTK+ class Qt class Comment
GtkStyle QStyle Deprecated object that holds style information for widgets
GtkHBox QHBoxLayout A horizontal container box
GtkVBox QVBoxLayout A vertical container box
GtkHButtonBox ? A container for arranging buttons horizontally
GtkVButtonBox ? A container for arranging buttons vertically
GtkHPaned ? A container with two panes arranged horizontally
GtkVPaned ? A container with two panes arranged vertically
GtkTable QTableWidget, QGridLayout Pack widgets in regular patterns
GtkHSeparator ? A horizontal separator
GtkVSeparator ? A vertical separator
GtkHScrollbar ? A horizontal scrollbar
GtkVScrollbar ? A vertical scrollbar
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