title: Choosing a cross-platform GUI technology
body: <p>We are currently exploring technologies for our new cross-platform GUI;</p>
  
  <p>So far, the strong options on the table are QT and Java, and lately, HTML-5 was put on the table as well.</p>
  
  <p>Our application description (in short):</p>
  
  <p>It's a client-server; it's internal (only employees use it), we have a vpn, so no wqorries regarding security in terms of web-app</p>
  
  <p>The server side is written in C++, and runs on variable possible platforms (Windows, Linux, Unix)</p>
  
  <p>The (GUI) client side should also run on all the above platforms, it's a different process and it communicates with the server via tcp-ip</p>
  
  <p>GUI requirements (in high level):</p>
  
  <p>The GUI client should support drop down menus, buttons, data grids;</p>
  
  <p>The GUI should be dynamic: Widgets' data should be able to change, or be affected by the choosing of options in other widgets; Also, we will need an auto-complete for search boxes, in which the data should be retrieved from  the server side or other data source in our control.</p>
  
  <p>So far, we are thinking of writing the new GUI in QT, but we'd like to know if we should seriously consider HTML-5 instead, and make the GUI a web app; </p>
  
  <p>In light of the GUI requirement presented above:</p>
  
  <p>What's the Pros? Cons? Risks?</p>
  
  <p>Thanks,
  Gal</p>