[Qt-interest] [Interest] QML on the desktop? It's reality!

[Till Oliver Knoll]

2011/10/24 Mandeep Sandhu <mandeepsandhu.chd at gmail.com>:
>>
>> [http://arstechnica.com/open-source/reviews/2011/10/desktop-dreams-ubuntu-1110-reviewed.ars/2]
>>
>> I did not know that Unity 2D was implemented in Qt. And with QML as it seems! :)
>
> Wow. I knew Unity was done in Qt, but not that its done using QML!
> Thanks for the info.
>
> What does Unity 3D (or non-2D) use? Is that too in Qt/QML?
>
> I recently upgraded to Ubuntu 11.10 and found a lot of issues with the
> Default Unity interface (which is not 3D). Some of it's features were
> causing problems so I went back to using 2D.

Don't confuse Unity (= the default Ubuntu desktop) with Unity 3D (=
game engine). They don't have nothing to do with each other ;)

Anyway, the default Ubuntu desktop, -Unity-, is using Gtk3 to render
its widgets, on top of Compiz. That requires hardware (OpenGL)
support. If that is not available the fallback is to use Unity 2D,
which is apparently implemented with Qt/QML (on top of something else
which I can't remember right now; see Ars). And that was new to me.

And yes, I knew that KDE 4.7 is providing some QML "gadgets" (or
applets or widglets or whatever they are called - I never use them).
However rendering an entire desktop with QML is surely more exciting
;)

Cheers, Oliver