Qt Migration

1
Qt Migration
A One-Year Retrospective
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Motivations for Replacing Galaxy

• Galaxy as a GUI Toolkit
• Galaxy Today
• Visix bankruptcy
• Ambiencia purchase
• No updates or maintenance
• Shrinking user-base
• Questionable support for new OS versions

3
Qt

• Platform independent (Windows, Solaris, Linux,
  Mac)
• Easy Integration with Galaxy
• Substantial user-base
• Linux / KDE
• Commercial customers - ATT, IBM, Xerox, Nasa,
  Adobe
• Reasonable cost and licensing
• Commercial and non-commercial Open Source
• Object-oriented
• GUI builder tool
• Advanced widgets
• Custom widgets

4
Completed Qt Development

• Plot Dialog
• Replaced xmgr on Solaris

5
Completed Qt Development

• New slot dialogs in 4.2
• ScalarSlot Dialog

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Completed Qt Development

• New slot dialogs in 4.2 (Contd)
• ListSlot Dialog

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Completed Qt Development

• New slot dialogs in 4.2 (Contd)
• PeriodicSlot Dialog

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Completed Qt Development

• RulesAnalysis Dialog
• New development for 4.3

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Completed Qt Development

• OpenObject Dialog
• Replaced Galaxy dialog in 4.3

10
New Qt Development

• SCT
• Will replace Galaxy SCT

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New User Interface Features

• Popup Menus
• Right-mouse button
• Context-sensitive
• Sortable Lists

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New User Interface Features

• Toolbars
• Tooltips and Status Bar Help

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Initial Assesment

• Object-Oriented
• Yeah!
• Much easier integration with simulation code
• More stable GUI code
• Complexity of code
• DateTimeSpinner
• 2700 lines (Galaxy) vs 600 lines(Qt)

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Initial Assesment (Contd)

• Open-Source
• Debug using source code
• Modify Qt ourselves
• Qwt graphing library
• Trolltech
• Good documentation
• Maintenance and releases