hi there. just starting out development on the n900. i'm a bit confused with all the available options.

1. python
2. Qt
3. hildon
4. gtk+

which do i use? which is the safest thing to invest time in? which is the easiest to use? sorry for the barrage of questions. i'm a windows user but i've done development work on UIQ 2.x (very familiar with this platform), windows mobile (also familiar with this) and a bit on S60 (just dabbled a bit nothing really serious) before.

i know python is out of the picture as i don't want to learn a new language. i'm very comfortable using C++.

i'm now leaning towards Qt and Hildon but i'm confused between the two as i don't know which to learn. or should i use both???

hildon seems to be more "primitive" whereas Qt seems to be a layer above hildon??

btw, i've seen some of the source code for Qt and Hildon and i notice that all the UI elements are setup in code @ runtime. isn't there a way to define these in something like a resource file?

help?

at this point you shouldnt worry about hildon and gtk

just get qtcreator and pyqt, there are some great tutorials out there

oh sorry, just read your post qtcreator you can just use then, no need for pyqt if you are going to use cpp

pyqt is python + qt? i'm trying to avoid python as i don't really want to learn a new language. i guess qt is the way to go then.

thanks.

btw, i've seen some of the source code for Qt and Hildon and i notice that all the UI elements are setup in code @ runtime. isn't there a way to define these in something like a resource file so that i can adjust the UI independent of the code?

You and me both buddy. I struggled with getting a working development environment running a few months ago (tried MADDE and the maemo sdk in VM), and gave up after a few days.

It is a shame how difficult it is to get up and running to develop for this device!

I will admit that I haven't tried again recently, and there very well may be a solution that just works out of the box. I'll monitor this thread and cross my fingers

You can use either Gtk or Qt objects from Python.

This is a very nice C++ framework. It is worth learning, as it runs on virtually every platform.

This is the name of the desktop environment, and not a development platform.

If you're more comfortable with C that C++, this is your choice. A lot of Linux apps use it everywhere.

If you want to do mobile development later on, then Qt is for you. It will be powering all future Nokia smartphones and mobile computers, and it runs on every popular desktop platform as well.

Python with Qt.

Then you've pretty much answered your own question.

In Qt, you have .ui files that are basically XML-based descriptions of a form.
Qt 4.7 will support QML, which is somewhat similar to XAML.

The new Nokia Qt SDK just works like a charm.
It is simple to install, it has Qt Creator and everything set up. You just have to install a single package (Mad Developer) to your device to run your apps.

The description is pretty simple.

thank you venemo! i'll give these a shot.