TDE/tqt3 "building blocks" to help with backporting and/or developing

seb3773 · 2026-05-02 23:16

Hello!

This post is especially for developers, in the hope that this work will be useful to you!

For several months, I’ve been working on various TDE applications, most of which are ports of gtk3/4/qt4/5/6 apps that I use daily and for which I wanted a "native" TDE version—naturally lighter. Some projects are still in progress, others are almost finished, and a few are already posted in this forum section.
Over time, I found myself needing specific elements that didn’t exist in tqt3 (which, in itself, is not a bad thing at all: tqt3 is "minimalist," and that’s also why it’s so efficient and light on resources. If the Trinity team is reading this, please keep it that way—it’s just right!).

For occasional needs, I decided to create small libraries that I could reuse across projects. The collection has grown significantly over time, including things I directly needed, as well as things I found here and there on GitHub or other sites that I thought would be nice/useful to adapt for tqt3.
So, there’s "a bit of everything"—it doesn’t follow a strict roadmap, but rather the thread of my needs and whims (and yours too, if you want to contribute, test, or suggest ideas). There are widgets ported from GTK, Qt5/6, others that are completely "original" and created from scratch, and some more "business logic" elements, etc. I’ll keep adding to it as I create more.
Here it is:

https://github.com/seb3773/TDE-Extended

And a list with brief description:

-xml-stream:Lightweight XML stream reader and writer (pull-parser, no DOM required) backport of QXmlStreamReader/Writer.
-mime-type:Pure TQt3 MIME type detection (magic bytes + /etc/mime.types fallback) backport of QMimeDatabase.
-uuid:Lightweight generator for RFC 4122 random UUIDs v4 (backport of QUuid::createUuid).
-elapsed-timer:A high-resolution monotonic timer for TQt3 (backport of QElapsedTimer), immune to system clock changes.
-tqt3-cbind:Pure C bindings for TQt3. Allows creating and manipulating widgets from C code using opaque handles and callbacks.
-json:minimal JSON wrapper for TQt3 (Parson backend).
-http:minimal async HTTP wrapper for TQt3 (libcurl backend).
-net:higher-level HTTP helpers built on top of http/ (cookies, redirects knobs, atomic download-to-file).
-concurrent:minimal threadpool + future wrapper for TQt3.
-process:minimal QProcess-like helper for async process execution, I/O capture, and completion via TQt events.
-paths:small subset of QStandardPaths behavior for XDG-style writable locations.
-settings:INI-like settings store (QSettings-like in spirit), using paths/ for config directory selection.
-file:small filesystem helpers (exists/remove/readAll/writeAllAtomic/mkpath).
-cmdline:command-line parser (TQtCommandLineParser / TQtCommandLineOption).
-serializer:TQt3 port of a Serializer subset (string, SQL-escaped string, binary Base64 for TQVariant).
-regexp:small regular expression helper API based on TQRegExp.
-tempfile:small temporary file helper based on POSIX mkstemp().
-qtcsv:TQt3 port of qtcsv (read/write CSV with separator/delimiter, multiline fields).
-gradients:simple rasterized linear/radial gradient fill helpers (rect only) with image caching.
-logging:pure C99 logging module with categories, multiple sinks (stderr/file/syslog), and runtime/compile-time filtering.
-url:QUrl/QUrlQuery-like helpers for URL parse/build and stable query parameter handling.
-fswatch:Linux-only file watcher wrapper for TQt3, based on inotify.
-bytearray-util:small helpers for TQByteArray (split/hex/base64 and common slicing/append ops).
-tqtjobs:minimal job abstraction to standardize async work (progress/result/error/finished) delivered to the main thread, with HTTP/process adapters, queue with retry/counters, and optional HTTP streaming.
-tqt3-aes:minimal AES (Rijndael) implementation for TQt3 (ECB/CBC/CFB/OFB + padding).
-aa-painter:local antialiasing helpers for custom-painted widgets (Wu AA lines / polylines, solid background preblend).
-graph-plot:simple line chart widget (normal + AA variants via aa-painter).

Widgets / UI components:
-mvc-list-view:A true MVC architecture for flat lists/grids, inspired by GTK's GtkListStore/GtkTreeView. High-performance virtual rendering, instant insertions and deletions.
-status-bar-enhanced:An interactive status bar supporting clickable text, icon zones, and progress bars.
-collapsible-group:An accordion-style expandable/collapsible container widget.
-image-compare:A widget for visual "Before/After" image comparisons with a draggable split slider.
-sort-filter-proxy:A controller to emulate QSortFilterProxyModel for TQt3 item views (e.g. TQListView).
-badge:A lightweight notification dot/pill (pastille) that overlays any existing widget.
-searchable-combobox:A dropdown widget with a built-in search filter (Select2 style).
-progress_circle:circular determinate/indefinite progress indicator.
-progress_circle_2:circular progress indicator inspired by the Android Circle-Progress-View style, featuring decoupled core and rim widths, customizable text units, and discrete blocks mode.
-meter-gauge:analog meter gauge widget.
-instrument-gauge2:composable instrument gauge widget (stacked items: arc/ticks/values/needle/color band + simplified attitude meter).
-toggle-buttons:animated toggle switch widget.
-breadcrumbs:simple breadcrumbs navigation header (clickable path segments).
-lcd-widget:character LCD emulator widget (5x8 dot matrix) with optional PNG export.
-analogclock:analog clock widget.
-embedded_images:embed PNG assets into a zlib-compressed blob generated at build time, with one-time decompression at startup.
-2dscroll:software 2D text scroller widget (off-screen buffer + blit) with demoscene-style wave/sinus effects.
-2Dverticalscroll:software 2D vertical credits scroller widget (multi-line) with optional Star Wars scanline perspective and top/bottom fade.
-qt-circle-loading:animated circular loading indicator widget.
-ribbon:small ribbon bar widget subset (tab bar + group containers).
-gallery:scrollable gallery widget + tile item widget with hover animation.
-flattabwidget:minimal flat tab widget (layout-faithful, no animations).
-mrichtextedit:compact rich text editor widget.
-qpot:knob / potentiometer widget.
-qflowprogress:flow progress widgets (TQtQFlowProgressBar + TQtQFlowProgressTab).
-vu-meter:stereo VU meter widget (L/R) with configurable colors and range.
-vu-meter-analog:analog VU meter widget (cached dial + AA arc band + needle), with ballistic needle animation (attack/release) and an AA -variant using aa-painter.
-vu-meter-bitmap:bitmap-based VU meter widget using pre-rendered PNG artwork (cadran + cover layers) with real-time AA needle, peak -LED overlay, and ballistic animation. Includes 8 calibrated hardware models (Classic, Motorola, Vintage B10, Vintage Fairchild, Vintage, View Meter, QL-80, Motion Array).
-timeline-view:simple timeline view widget (items with time + multiple text lines).
-plot3d:OpenGL-based 3D plot widget.
-multi-progress-dialog:progress dialog with total + partial progress bars and optional details/log area.
-message-log-widget:custom-painted log viewer widget with scrollbars, history rotation, and regexp-based styles.
-date-period-picker:compact day / date-range picker widget with a popup calendar (optionally with time range editing).
-calendar-custom:custom-painted popup month calendar widget.
-tqt-charts:lightweight chart widgets (pie/donut, bar, stacked bar, mosaic, waffle, scatter, heatmap).
-tqt-map:slippy map widget with pan/zoom using OSM tiles, plus Nominatim geocoding.
-tqt-equalizer:configurable N-band equalizer UI widget (UI only).
-TQtLiquidEqualizerWidget:A modern, anti-aliased "liquid" style N-band equalizer widget with an integrated frequency response mathematical backend.
-TQtScale:A high-performance, antialiased circular analog dial/gauge widget supporting dynamic aspect-ratio orientations.
-TQtPictureFlow:An animated CoverFlow-style image browser widget featuring software rendering and customizable reflection effects.
-TQtSlidingStackedWidget:Animated sliding page transitions for TQWidgetStack, with configurable speed, direction and wrap-around.
-tqt-spectrum-analyzer:spectrum analyzer display widgets (XY bins, curve/bars, peak-hold max, log-frequency axis, smoothing/average/persistence, plus a waterfall spectrogram widget).
-TQtVisualSqlFilter:A visual SQL condition builder using a tree view to dynamically create advanced WHERE clauses.
-spinners:small animated loading indicators (custom-painted widgets).

theasmitkid · 2026-05-03 07:44

That's a lot! I had developed a few of these myself when I needed them.. but yours should be faster, since I wrote them in PyTQt

Just in case if you had missed it, there are a few more stuff in tdelibs tdebase etc.
See TQt, Trinity, KDE3 at Tutorials & Documentation

seb3773 · 2026-05-04 11:25

theasmitkid wrote:

I had developed a few of these myself when I needed them.. but yours should be faster, since I wrote them in PyTQt

Not necessarily "faster"—I think it depends on the domain. For graphics with a lot of raw calculations, C++ versions are probably more performant, yes. But for things like business logic, it’s debatable. However, memory usage is likely what makes the real difference: the Python3 interpreter has a RAM overhead that pure C++ binaries don’t have, so to speak.
In any case, if you want to add your Python versions to the repo, you’re more than welcome! (I’d love to provide Python versions, but as you know, it’s far from my specialty...)
The more usable and relevant "material" we have, the easier it will be to write TQt3 apps or port things, I think :-) (Developers! Developers! De-ve-lop-ers! ...dubious reference, I know ^^)

Regarding this:
"Just in case if you had missed it, there are a few more stuff in tdelibs, tdebase, etc.

See TQt, Trinity, KDE3 at Tutorials & Documentation"
Yes, I’ve already gone through quite a bit of the docs (I’m far from mastering it all yet!). I don’t think I’ve created any "duplicates" or reinvented the wheel, but if I have, I’ll remove any unnecessary libs if there are any

Q4OS Forum

#1 2026-05-02 23:16

TDE/tqt3 "building blocks" to help with backporting and/or developing

#2 2026-05-03 07:44

Re: TDE/tqt3 "building blocks" to help with backporting and/or developing

#3 2026-05-04 11:25

Re: TDE/tqt3 "building blocks" to help with backporting and/or developing

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