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I dont know this is correct place to ask or not because i searched whole google i did not get much results so i decided to ask here. Actually i want to write some basic ui command so actually i had doubt from many years what was the framework used to build maya ui before using qt framework? Because from maya 1.0 to maya 2015 i didn't saw any basic ui commands are changed. After getting into qt does all ui commands are rewritten or just added some commands from it

thank you...

kartikg3
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Anvesh Chary
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2 Answers2

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Maya uses QT as its UI framework now, and you can extend Maya using QT and Pyside. The older system (known as ELF) was originally written in the 1990s, before modern multithreaded applications and graphics hardware.

When Autodesk rewrote the underpinnings, they kept the same API. You can still use a MEL script from 10 years ago to create a UI window with controls -- however today that window will actually be a QT window and the widgets will be QT widgets: only the scripting connection is the same.

theodox
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  • Ah the ELF. I just wished they d exposed PyQt for Maya 2010 to 2013 and not have the users having to build and install PyQt to use it. Well at least they did it from 2014 using PySide natively. – kartikg3 Jan 27 '15 at 05:44
  • Autodesk can't deliver Maya with PyQt because of PyQt's license issues. – thewhiteambit Sep 13 '17 at 17:50
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All UI was rewritten using custom builds of Qt for various reasons, the most prominent being ease of multiplatform porting and modern look and feel.

These videos will offer great insight to the work that went in by Autodesk to achieve this:

Qt DevDays 2010 - QtinUse - Using Qt to bring Maya into the 21st Century...: http://youtu.be/PPDt96F389U

Autodesk Maya Built with Qt: http://youtu.be/7zWlwdr7exo

The first one is especially good as its a seminar given by one of the production managers who was managing this port.

Hope this helps.

kartikg3
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  • In qt dev days video she mentioned that motif toolkit was used before qt. But after searching about motif which was only supported in linux and irix. Then what was the framework used for windows and Mac? – Anvesh Chary Jan 31 '15 at 19:06