After the news of Nokia's Maemo and Intel's Moblin merging into MeeGo I decided to research PyQT4.

Qt is a scripting language that is Nokia's and MeeGo will be structured around Qt, that is the reason for the recent re-interest in it.

At first I had wanted to make the switch to PyGTK because GTK is pretty much native to Linux and offers a lot of customizing features .. also i had heard bad press about PyQT. Now I am looking at PyQT and I am seriously considering making the switch to PyQT (Gnarly Necromancer Milestone).

PyQT is feature rich, and I have only scratched the surface of the features. It's web browser can handle CSS, it has the ability to create a floating canvas for a Game Table or Map Tools like map, it has the ability to add lighting features .. and like I said I have only scratched the surface.

So I am creating this open discussion. Would users of Traipse feel that I am alienating them too far from the 'Standard' version that they would not use Traipse if I made the switch .. or are the list of features worth the change?

The change is going to focus on the UI, but as the map is a major part of the UI non-Traipse (or Traipse derived) users will not be able to mingle with Traipse users on the same map. Though there is the possibility of a backwards compatible map, since the 'Standard' versions map (and older clients) run on a basic HTML window.

The chat messages would be less hindered by the change since that is just text in an HTML window, and other basic features will still remain usable by both clients.

Conclusion: PyQT looks like it will be an all-in-one install that contains all of the needed features Traipse users have been asking for. With the merger of Maemo and Moblin into MeeGo, and the now MeeGo being based off Qt you can be assured that Nokia will continue to enhance Qt and make it a very feature rich language. MeeGo is being designed for Nettops, Netbooks, MIDs, Cellphones, Hanhelds, and even Vehicle Entertainment systems. With the steady expansion of an OS using Qt as a core ... can you see why I am heavily considering the switch, and / or, would the switch to PyQT be a wise decision?

I think you should go for it. All of your moves have been good so far and it seems like it has potential for growth. Evenetually everything moves on and your bringing stability and added features to traipse. You development decisions have been top notch thus far and it seems like a good move to go with a language that will be developed and supported so that Traipse can have new features with lighter code. perhaps we'll be playing RPG's from our cellphones over traipse one day, lol.

Thanks Mini!! I decidedly have started to go for it. I knew I would meet resistance when I mentioned the idea of the move to PyQt, but I did not see enought resistance for me to stop dead in my tracks. So the Pious Paladin Milestone and Gnarly Necromancer will switch goals. Gnarly Necromancer's main goal was to re-create the GUI and Pious-Paladin's was to insert a nicer map.

You can see the blog I wrote on the subject here: http://weblog.madmathlabs.com/?p=211

My first question on the Qt forums was meet with a nice response. PySides is a Nokia supported Pythonic implementation of Qt, and Qt owns the language. Unfortunately it is behind PyQt, yet fortunately it looks like they use the same Class and Module names so I will work with PyQt until Nokia better supports PySides, then I will look at it again.

I have also opened development up to users. Please join in if you want too. Download the source and test out what I have. It is very basic right now as I work on UI and UI features. The Traipse Movement page will now display the first blog post of the Traipse category on my blog, and it has a link to the open folder that I am using to share the source.

The Traipse Movement: http://www.knowledgearcana.com//content/view/199/128/
Dev-Shed Open Folder: http://my.pogoplug.com/share/RPBBQftK2AaDIG99LwumcA/

I think long term it might be best to shift the map whiteboard to some 3rd party web 2.0 ready plugin software but it seems that they tend to be written in Java. Or is there anything like that with this Qt thing?

Snowdog is supposed to be looking at it but I don't know if he's managed to get started. I've been busy recently with a vacation and some work on the actual campaign that I am playing using OpenRPG. One of the other campaigns I was in seems to have ended so I ought to have a little more time soon but it will be on the bonus and effects stuff and shared data. I'll get more pressure on that as my PC get higher level (6th/7th).

At any rate I agree with Mini that you should take a stab at it and see how easy or hard it might be to get it set up.

You want the map to be web 2.0? PyQt will make the entire application web 2.0 compatible. Qt is very much like Java.

You can read the latest blog post on the development I have done for Pious Paladin: http://weblog.madmathlabs.com/?p=218