Differences between Qt and GTK programs?

Question

Refering to this question, there are two different versions of the Autokey program: Autokey (Qt-based) and Autokey-GTK. What are the differences between a Qt-based program and the GTK one and are there any differences from the point of view of the user?

Solution 1

GTK and Qt are user interface toolkits and frameworks. GTK is the standard toolkit for GNOME/Ubuntu while Qt is used in KDE/Kubuntu. From the user's point of view I'd say it's just the looks that differ.

Solution 2

Aside from small differences in layout and appearance, the GTK version also has a quick search feature for shortcuts/abbreviations that QT doesn't have which allows you to use a hotkey like CTRL + SPACE to bring up a search box to quickly find abbreviations. This helps quite a bit when you have hundreds of abbreviations to try to remember.

Solution 3

Another difference is that, if you are on Ubuntu, you may not already have all the QT stuff installed. On Kubuntu, you may not have all the GTK stuff installed. Hence it may make the download much bigger.

Comments

[flying sheep]

could you elaborate where the looks differ? afais plain-qt applications integrate seamlessly into e.g. ambiance desktops.

[basteez]

Actually,Qt applications blend in without a hitch most of the time wth your GNOME desktop.

[Julian Stirling]

This should be a comment. It adds to an answer, but in itself is not an answer.

[trlkly]

I disagree. It is an answer to the question. The question is "what are the differences?" and my Answer gives one of the differences. I note that one other Answer gives only one difference, while the top answer gives 2. No one Answer gives all the differences.