I wrote about my journey developing a block editor (a la Notion) from scratch in Qt C++ and QML.
I wanted to prove that Qt can be a performant and efficient alternative to web apps deployed on desktop (via Electron, etc).
You can clearly see in the benchmarks how much more efficient my block editor is compared to existent solutions and how far behind web apps are.
I also tried to stress how with enough effort, one can create a Qt app that looks and behave similarly to a native app.
When I try to design a beautiful thing, it starts with beauty that convey meaning, function. While visually appealing by itself is nice, it's always the function, the meaning of interaction that should come first. Some examples I've shared in the blog post:
1. Drag and drop → https://rubymamistvalove.com/blog/drag_and_drop_internal.mp4 - the dragged items simply pop from their place and the rest of the items make room for it. This is an intuitive design that makes a lot of sense for end users.
2. Selecting multiple notes shows cards stack → https://rubymamistvalove.com/blog/cards_stack.mp4 - while visually appealing, it also conveys the action the user performs (similarly to how macOS Mail does the same).
It's been 1 year of development since I started this. Would love to hear your thoughts.