So that means one has to target both GTK and Qt to be native on Linux. Fat chance of that on anything but yet another music player or other relatively trivial UI app.
In any event, that still doesn't answer what it means to be "native"? And my point is I think most definitions are dumb or useless.
If I'm running a GTK desktop, Qt apps are generally not "native" no matter how much theme fuckery one tries. Native can also speak to other common UI affordances and design guidelines, and there sure as hell is nothing like there is in the MacOS world for linux. Some core GNOME and KDE desktop apps maybe, but overall there isn't much adopted standardization in Linux world.
90% of the work I get done involving a GUI outside a browser on Linux usually involves Java, whether it be Intellij, ghidra, etc. Maybe I'll pick up blender from time to time. Audacity, there's a good one, targeting (for now) a cross-platform toolkit that pretends you can have your cake and eat it too - wxWidgets never fooled anyone - they sure as hell don't look native on MacOS, and they invariably look much closer to what they riffed off of, a 90s MFC app. (And wxWidgets wraps GTK and AppKit, so is it native? If so, native is meaningless IMHO. If not, why not?)
> So that means one has to target both GTK and Qt to be native on Linux.
Doesn't it mean that you can target _either_ and be considered native?
Also, I'm not sure I buy the claim that of "GTK and Qt are native" in the first place. I'd say either that there is no native UI, or if I must call something native, it's the toolkit the desktop environment uses. And yes, that does mean that there is no "Linux nativeness" like there is Windows nativeness, as every DE is different. And rightly so, because one could in principle write a different DE over the Windows kernel, whose UI would behave differently.
> Doesn't it mean that you can target _either_ and be considered native?
Well, no because I was agreeing with you, if you're going to grudgingly accept your definition for native, the toolkit the desktop environment uses, that means you would have to target both Qt and GTK unless you want to draw a line in the sand and say fuck it to one of GNOME or KDE as assume they don't exist. Sorry GNUStep. And this is nothing to say of GTK 2-4.
I agree that just saying GTK or Qt are native in a vacuum outside of DE is a completely useless definition, and even taking DE into account is a tenuous one.
As for Windows, what GUI toolkit does the desktop environment there use? That's a trick question.
How is Qt within a GNOME or Xfce environment any more "native" than Qt on Windows or Mac?
You have reduced the definition of "native" to merely compatible with X11/Wayland (that's the only common denominator). Well now, Tk, FLTK, Swing, and even Wine are all native.
Both Qt and GTK have facilities for integrating into each other’s desktop environments (see [1]). Sometimes they blend in nicely, sometimes they stand out a bit, but I think it works out pretty okay.
GTK doesn't much care about integrating into a Qt environment and doesn't really implement anything to make that work besides in some cases implementing the same Freedesktop standards. Even for basic things like the look of widgets you need a style that has implementations for GTK - there is no compatibility layer to use Qt styles. Gnomies in general don't care about anything outside their world.
The other way around is a bit better, e.g. there is QGtkStyle but AFAIK it is stuck at GTK2 and does not support using GTK3 styles. Still, behavior between GTK and Qt applications is very noticeably different.
It would be great if there was a shared ABI applications could use but GUI toolkits are too complicated for this to be feasible.
> Both Qt and GTK have facilities for integrating into each other’s desktop environments
Neither Qt nor GTK are desktop environments and Qt certainly isn’t defined by a dominant desktop environment - KDE isn’t even what pays their bills.
You’re still proving my point. The common denominator here (on Linux) is just X11/Wayland. If it works out “pretty okay”, then score one for a cross platform toolkit. Still no idea what über alles “native” means.
Let’s go back to the original comment I responded to… why should I not just continue with the Qt “stupid” “hobbyhorse”
