[Interest] Qt5 and "global" configuration

[Thiago Macieira]

On Wednesday 12 November 2014 12:18:02 René J.V. Bertin wrote:
> One of the really nice things in Qt4 was that one could take the appearance
> parameters available for individual applications (style, default font but
> also the font replacement table) and set them on a system/user-wide basis
> via qtconfig.
> >From what I understand these individual settings still exist in Qt5, but
> >the possibility to set them globally has been removed.
> Why is that, and what are the chances to get it back by popular request (or
> "apopular request" if it wasn't all that popular to begin with :)) ?

It was removed for three reasons:

1) application self-containing: we don't want to open files we shouldn't, 
especially on more locked-down platforms like OS X

2) performance: we want to avoid hitting the disk if we can and parse 
configuration files

3) delegation: this is delegated to the platform theme plugins. Qt 
applications are meant to look like the system, therefore the the plugin will 
decide what the application should look like and which files it needs to read 
in order to come to the right decisions.

We could provide a plugin that reads configuration files, but it would not be 
the default in any platform.

> This is coming from someone working on Linux and OS X, and who thinks that
> the default "aqua" style is a mixed bag. It somehow looks outdated, and
> spacing tends to be much too ample (on non-Retina displays at least). Also,
> the system default font (Lucida Grande) is applied even if this was changed
> through a utility like TinkerTool, and in the point size that even OS X
> uses only in menus and window titlebars (13 or even 14 point). That's just
> too large for most UI elements (and if scaling is done right I presume that
> to be true on Retina displays too).

Maybe you should not use an OS that you don't like?

Anyway, the majority opinion is that Qt should look like the OS's own look-
and-feel.

-- 
Thiago Macieira - thiago.macieira (AT) intel.com
  Software Architect - Intel Open Source Technology Center