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I love the way Mac OS beautifully renders fonts (not just browsers). I was wondering if we could somehow get the same rendering in browsers running on Windows?
Someone recommended sIFR but I guess that's useful when I need to use non-standard fonts?
Check out GDI++/FreeType (link, link). It's a highly configurable font-rendering replacement for Windows. With some configuration of hinting, anti-aliasing, etc, you should be able to approximate OSX style font rendering fairly close.
use mactype
https://github.com/snowie2000/mactype
Not sure if this is a setup, but of course, Safari on Windows renders using the OS X rendering algorithm.
Brad is right: use Safari if you want the Mac font rendering algorithm.
Jeff and Joel have both blogged about this before (not surprisingly, around the time that Safari was released for Windows), if you would like more details:
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000885.html
I'm assuming you would like to be ablt to use if globally, or at least in IE/Firefox, not just be installing Safari as other have suggested.
Back in the days wen Mac OS X was still in development, there was a plan to release the Cocoa framework for windows, to allow applications written to it to run natively on Windows with a recompile. I suspect that set of Cocoa windows libraries (Yellow Box wasn't it?) would have given you Mac OS X style font rendering but I don't think it was ever released (though you may be able to get very old beta versions of it from somewhere, and I have a feeling some of it was somehow part of WebObjects or something like that).
I suspect the windows version of Safari is using an internal version of the Cocoa libraries for Windows, whcih is why it has Mac OS X font rendering (though I believe recent nightly builds at least have the option to use Windows' native font rendering for those who were complaining about it looking out of place).
Anyway, long store short, unless you're going to write your own font renderer, I don't think there's any easy way to do it (other than using Safari)
Someone recommended sIFR but I guess that's useful when I need to use non-standard fonts?
sIFR will not give you the intended effect. Like Windows's ClearType, Flash's anti-aliasing (which sIFR uses) optimizes towards the pixel grid, not towards accurate representation of the typeface.
You may be able to use Safari's bundled CoreGraphics library to do your font rendering, but you'd likely break Apple's license agreements (especially once you try to ship your app…).
I'm writing a Java application doing some interesting things with fonts and working with some graphic designers, and they want the same kind of font rendering you're talking about. I was able to get pretty close by turning on fractional metrics aka sub-pixel glyph placement accuracy, and anti-aliasing, which are the key differences between Mac and Windows font rendering. Looks pretty good for larger TrueType fonts.
Here's the Java code I used. It's all done with their native font rendering engine (which I believe may be FreeType, not sure exactly).
g.setFont(new Font("Century Schoolbook", Font.PLAIN, 36));
g.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_FRACTIONALMETRICS,
RenderingHints.VALUE_FRACTIONALMETRICS_ON);
g.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_TEXT_ANTIALIASING,
RenderingHints.VALUE_TEXT_ANTIALIAS_ON);
Now if only I could figure out how to make OpenType CFF fonts work.
Microsoft Powertoy Cleartype Tuner lets you tweak the way Cleartype works. It might help a little bit. Not sure it works on anything newer than Windows XP though.
You could wait until IE9, which apparently has much better text rendering, using DirectX: http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2009/11/18/an-early-look-at-ie9-for-developers.aspx
If you want mac osx rendering in firefox, you must use extension Anti-Aliasing Tuner:
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/anti-aliasing-tuner/
Just set anti-aliasing mode as Default and rendering mode as Outline for small and large fonts and you're done.
Related
I have problem with the autocomplete in ActionScript (Flash CS6), so I tried to change the IDE.Unfortunately I find Flashdevelop but it's a windows version.
Is there IDE for developping in ActionScript (Flash) on Mac osx.
You can try Intellij IDEA (is not free like FlashDevelop), I use it and it is better then Flash Builder(I used both) it is missing a UI designer(I think there is a plugin, the developers I know hand code the UI in mxml(drag dropping is for beginners) but a UI designer is useful sometimes.
If you want to spend money, checkout FDT, IntelliJ IDEA and Flash Builder. If you look for something free, there's a free very limited FDT version.
Other then that there also were some standard text editor which people enhanced with some basic dev functionality, for example:
http://www.sephiroth.it/python/sepy.php tried this some years ago and it was unstable on macs. might have improved since then.
Textmate
jEdit
VI http://vrichard86.wordpress.com/2012/12/02/how-to-write-your-own-as3-project-using-vi-and-how-to-compile-it-under-ubuntu-linux-actionscript-3-0/
If you really want to develop bigger projects on a mac I would suggest using one of the paid projects, since productivty with the free products usually is noticable lower.
I found Sublime Text 2 (mac osx) is very simple and useful in AS3 in addition to that the autocomplete is very fast.
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I've worked for some time with Corona SDK and love how fast and easy I can create powerful apps using Lua. But it can only compile for iOS and Android, which feels like too little now.
My main interest is for it to be able to compile to Desktop AND Mobile. At least for the following:
Windows + Mac for desktop, as standalone applications.
iOS + Android for mobile.
I'd prefer it to lean more towards Lua type scripting instead of ActionScript, but please feel free to post anything that you have worked with and love.
I've found the following engines so far:
Marmalade Quick - After further looking into it, Marmalade Quick can only build for Mobile!
IwGame - Works on top of marmalade and says it can deploy to
desktop and mobile with Lua. Any info is greatly appreciated on this
sio2 - Says "SIO2 is an OpenGLES based cross-platform 2D and 3D
game engine for iOS, Android, MacOS and Windows" and "The engine also
allows you to port your game on the Mac Store and on Windows.", but
their forum and web title is "Game Engine for Mobile Devices". Can't
find any info on if it can deploy to desktop platforms, any info is
greatly appreciated again.
Loom Engine - Loom is similar to Haxe + OpenFL (attempts to attract Flash developers) in that it uses AS3-like of ECMAScript, but it doesn't build native code from it. However it uses Cocos2D for rendering so it should in theory be as fast as Cocos2D. -- Thanks to Bojan.
SDL - I've read in multiple places that SDL can deploy to nearly any platform or device and has a Lua binding. But i can't find how this works as it's not an engine. Any one who can explain how it works and if it's possible is once again, very much appreciated.
SFML - "Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and soon Android & iOS. " doesn't use Lua but can use other languages like Java and Python etc. Anyone have any information on this?
Torgue2D - "Torque 2D was developed with OS X, Windows, and iOS devices in mind and works equally well on all the platforms." uses TorgueScript and no Android =(
Sencha - Seems to compile to all platforms, uses Javascript too which I know. But even with V8 JS would this work well performance wise compared to other options?
GameMaker - own scripting language GML and I actually remember this one as a tool for non-programmers. Has it actually grown into a real engine, I mean for serious development?
Construct2 - Same question as gamemaker
Corona - Lua but mobile only (Android and iOS only as well)
Cocos2D - Seems like it has lots of options but not sure with the same language? Seems like you'd have to re-write your entire code. Any info if cocos2D can deploy to desktop + mobile with almost the same code would be greatly appreciated.
Angel2D - Says it can deploy to everything except Android and uses Lua, anyone ever used this one before?
libgdx --- I've only seen good things about this. Here is a benchmark test for libgdx and is where I saw it reaching 40k sprites at 60fps. http://www.sparkrift.com/2012/1/love2d-vs-allegro-vs-clanlib-vs-libgdx-vs-cocos2d-x-vs-monogame-vs-xna-vs-sfml . It seems libgdx barely goes over 30k actually. But still seems amazing. This is on the same level as Qt for me, almost perfect, except I'm not really worried about performance on it. libgdx can build for everything pretty much.
XNA + MonoGame --- MonoGame's performance seems only slightly lower than libgdx, can build to most platforms. However I don't know much about XNA and I heard it won't be receiving future updates, but is quite stable? More information is welcome.
Citrus --- Don't have much information on Citrus either. AS3 game engine that can build for iOS, Android, Windows, Mac and more.
Haxe + OpenFL --- OpenFL (Haxe) builds to native on many platforms, not just to Flash. Windows, Mac, Linux and Android all get optional native deployment or OpenFL runtime called Neko which is in theory faster than Flash, and SDL 2.0 will enable iOS deployment soon(ish). -- Thanks to Bojan.
Qt-Project --- Just linking Qt project here, can build for everything and has a pretty big community with lots of third party libraries to help you even further.
Moai ---The only Lua engine that I know that can build for Desktop and Mobile. Only downside is the community isn't that big and documentation isn't the best. But if you can get passed those this is a great solution and the one I'm currently using.
Adobe --- Can't forget to add adobe here since it can build to everything that supports flash.
Unity3D --- Recently announced 2D integration looks very promising, should be released Q3-Q4 of 2013.
Cocos2d-x --- An open source engine. Supports JS, Lua, C++ and multiple platforms.
Html5 --- There seem to be a lot of emphasise on html5 mobile apps, here are just a few tools I found that can help port your html5 project to a platform:
Chromium embedded
Sencha
Phonegap
Appcelerator/Titanium
Icenium
So, I'd be happy if you could comment from your experiences with any engines and suggest which one you would recommend.
Thank you for your help!
EDIT: Since this topic is getting popular I'll be adding other options I've found over time. I suggest you choose what is most familiar to you and best for your project needs.
I would recommend V-Play (v-play.net) - it's a cross-platform game engine based on Qt for iOS, Android, Symbian, MeeGo, Blackberry10 and also can export for native desktop applications for Windows, Mac and Linux.
It's based on C++ but has a neat scripting support for QML & JavaScript. QML is a no-brainer to learn and can boost your productivity as less code is needed - just see the comparison with cocos2d-x(60% less Loc) or Corona(15% less LoC) for a comparison of the same games.
(Disclaimer: I'm one of the guys behind V-Play)
If you are into using Python, Kivy is a great solution these days. It compiles to all the platforms you ask for:
Kivy is running on Linux, Windows, MacOSX, Android and IOS. You can
run the same code on all supported platforms. It can use natively most
inputs protocols and devices like WM_Touch, WM_Pen, Mac OS X Trackpad
and Magic Mouse, Mtdev, Linux Kernel HID, TUIO. A multi-touch mouse
simulator is included.
Kivy uses lots of optimized code for graphics rendering (via Cython) so it is fast too.
Here is a speakerdeck that gives you some background and an overview (android specific).
How about HaxeFlixel? We have a great selection of demos, and of course support cross platform development via Haxe + OpenFL. This is an open source project hosted on GitHub. We support all major platforms (including iOS).
Here is my game framework Oxygine.
It is open source modern hardware accelerated 2D C++ framework for mobile and PC platforms.
Features: OpenGL(ES) 2, compressed textures, atlases, complex animations/tweens/sprites, scene graph, fonts, event handling, build tools, and others.
Can be built on top of SDL2 or Marmalade SDK.
In the basis of the engine there is a scene graph, that is similar to Flash one. To be short, You can call this as Flash for C++, but more comfortable and way faster. Initially it was developed for mobile platforms (iOS, Android), but can be also used for PC games.
No mention of App Game Kit (AGK) here so let me fill in the gap. It's a mainly 2D cross platform SDK allowing you to code once in either C++ or it's own "Basic" language. Version 2 just got over 400% funding on Kickstarter and will have full 3D support, Spine support (for 2D animated characters), bullet physics and whole bunch of other new features.
It already has Facebook, Twitter, a bunch of Ultrabook sensor commands, Box2D and more. I've been using it from the start and love it (can you tell?). No, I don't work for The Game Creators (the company that created it) although I admit I did do for a while making some apps.
One of the best features from my point of view is you can develop on Windows and broadcast from the IDE over Wi-Fi to any supported device, so while I'm coding I can (within seconds) test my code on iPad, Android, Windows, Mac or Blackberry Playbook.
If you have C# background. Have a look at Duality.
Duality is a flexible 2D game framework written entirely in C# –
and it’s here to make things a little easier for you. It provides both
an extensible game engine and a visual editor to match. There will be
no need for a level editor, testing environment or content manager
because Duality is all that by itself. And best of all: It’s free.
I'm just answering to give you some insights on how the SDL is used. As you said before it's not a game engine (it's just a library actually). Furthermore, it is not object oriented at all and you don't have some easy animation facilities (you have to code them by yourself).
How it works (I used the C version but I guess the Lua binding should be similar):
Include the headers needed to build the project on the platform you want.
Design your own game loop in which you will set up (at least) a whole event processing system, frame rate manager and a "screen cleaner (or updater)" (I'm insisting on the fact that you have to manually refresh your screen using the SDL_flip_screen routine which is something that is not one of your concerns at all with Corona).
Then, code your game using all the "mechanics" you made before.
The SDL is a low level library (don't expect to have an easy to use GUI framework or the storyboard framework of Corona for instance).
Finally, this library was used to port Civilization III to Linux, so yes it works but it will ask you a lot of energy to have something like you had with Corona ;)
PS: I am not a native English speaker, so please let me know if I wasn't clear :)
Gideros is a great Lua based 2d cross platforms engine, currently supporting both Android and IOS platforms, but more to come.
And it also has some great features as instant on device testing, auto scaling and auto image resolution to easily target various of screen sizes, as well as the option to extend each platform through native plugins.
You also have ShiVa3D, a serious competitor of Unity3D.
It uses Lua and supports many platforms from mobile to game consoles and web browsers.
Very intuitive to use and very nice UI to work with.
I've noticed that my wxWidgets application does not follow the native font sizes on OSX. They are typically too big and also the same font size is used for all widgets, which does not seem to be the case by native default.
I've tried to handle this myself by applying fonts to the top level windows. I've used TinkerTool to read the defaults (should be done automatically of course) and create corresponding fonts, for example using wxFont(wxFontInfo(12).FontName("Helvetica") but it does not render the same as other, native applications.
Does anyone know of a good method to handle this?
I don't know of any examples when wxWidgets controls don't use the same fonts as the native controls, please report any occurrences of this as bugs in the wxWidgets Trac, especially if this is using 2.9.4 (old 2.8 versions use Carbon and are hopeless on modern OS X anyhow). But without any concrete examples I can't really help with this.
As for the font sizes, I think you might be looking for wxWindow::SetWindowVariant() which allows to use smaller versions of the controls which is rather common in OS X UI.
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If you open the page "Graphics and Gaming (Windows)" on microsoft.com
the last category is described as
Legacy Graphics: Technologies that are obsolete and should not be used in new
applications.
This category includes (among others) the following APIs:
GDI
GDI+
OpenGL
What's your opinion? If i want to roll out a new software today it must support Windows XP (still about 50% of all installed systems). Direct2D requires Windows 7/Vista. What else should be used?
I suspect that Microsoft's definition of "legacy" has little to do with what any sensible developer should do, and is instead based on some Grand Rewrite of the Windows API.
Starting at around Windows Vista, Microsoft has been redesigning many of their API's. We now have MMDevAPI as the One True Sound API, WIC is the One True Image File API, etc. From what I've seen/heard, these new API's are much better than the old ones, and the "legacy" systems all work based on the new ones. In Windows Vista and later, DirectSound is entirely based on MMDevAPI, and components that need to read image files do it via WIC.
Windows 8 will have an ARM version, which it appears will support only a subset of the current Windows API. We won't know for sure until Windows on ARM is released, but, based on the libraries included for the ARM platform in Visual Studio 11 (ref: http://www.winehq.org/pipermail/wine-devel/2012-March/094559.html), it's looking like GDI+ and OpenGL will not be available. GDI is available for linking, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's intact.
This new API's from Vista and later roughly correspond to the libraries in the VS11 ARM target. I'm guessing that anything on that list is there because it's either the latest and greatest way to do what it does, or it's too technically important to discard (for now). Thus, "legacy" is anything that's not the latest and greatest way to do at least one thing.
I'm not sure what is the One True Graphics API. Already we have Direct2D, Direct3D, DirectComposition (which, by the way, is not available until Windows 8), DirectWrite, and DXGI. DXGI seems the closest, but I don't have a deep enough understanding of the graphics API's to say. I suspect gdi32 is technically very difficult to get rid of. How are non-legacy applications meant to find out when part of a window has been revealed and therefore must be painted, without using WM_PAINT, which involves an HDC, and how could a library do that on an application's behalf without replacing its window procedure? How are we meant to make semi-transparent windows without using UpdateLayeredWindow, which takes an HDC? How much does user32 depend on gdi32, and can they really be separated?
From a technical standpoint, Windows can easily get rid of GDI+ and OpenGL, but I'm not convinced that getting rid of OpenGL will work out, even on a new platform that doesn't promise any backward compatibility. It seems too valuable to developers. GDI+ isn't so important, but it's very easy for a third party to provide a replacement.
I would say use any of the API's you listed, and the worst that's likely to happen is that you have to rewrite your UI if you want to port your app to metro or Windows on ARM. GDI is a fine choice if your needs are simple and you'll be coding directly for the Windows API. There aren't many situations where I'd recommend GDI+ over OpenGL as a drawing API. GDI+ is slow, limited, and only available on Windows. The GDI+ API is simpler because it's 2D, so maybe it's worthwhile if you need to do something very simple but with anti-aliasing.
OpenGL isn't deprecated, Microsoft's implementation of it is. Microsoft's implementation is stuck at version 1.1, which is old. The current version of the standard is past version 4. If you want to use OpenGL, it is fully supported by NVidia, ATI, and Intel graphics cards on the Windows desktop, but not in Metro Windows Modern UI apps, is an industry standard, and also works on Mac and Linux. If you need a software fallback implementation, Mesa has got you covered, and it even works on DOS. (Since Mesa can render into memory buffers, there's no reason it won't work in Modern UI apps, but you probably don't want to do this because it can be slow.) One thing of note is that WGL, the API for accessing OpenGL functionality on the Windows desktop, depends on GDI (which is deprecated) so you probably want to use something like FreeGLUT or SDL instead if you want to future-proof your application, which also nets you platform independence.
OpenGL ES is a variant of OpenGL which works on Android and Apple iOS. It is also accessible in JavaScript via WebGL, which Internet Explorer 11 will support (and pretty much every other browser already does.) ANGLE provides a hardware-accelerated implementation of GLES for Windows which piggybacks off of DirectX (version 9 or 11) and thus should work in Modern UI apps as well. Once again, Mesa's got the software implementation covered.
TL;DR: OpenGL is not only not deprecated, it is cross-platform, standard, and has tremendous momentum in the industry. GDI and GDI+, well, not so much.
If you want to support Windows XP, then you're supporting a "legacy" operating system, and as such, using a "legacy" graphics framework is the logical choice.
Even if that weren't true, let's just say that I disagree with the advice given by the linked MSDN article. The "legacy" status here has more to do with which technology the Windows team thinks is cool this week. The status designation of "obsolete" just means that the group responsible is no longer accepting or fulfilling bug reports (except for critical security issues). Not too big of a deal—these technologies have been around long enough that they're fairly feature-complete and stable.
GDI isn't going anywhere, so if you need something rock-solid that is guaranteed to be supported anywhere and everywhere, that's what I would go with.
If you need a bit more 2D capabilities than GDI offers (e.g., alpha channel transparency), then you could consider using GDI+. It's nearly an order of magnitude slower than GDI, but that's not too big of an issue on modern machines with more power than you could ever want. This, too, is going to be supported for a very long time to come.
That said, if I were writing a new app today, I probably wouldn't bother with OpenGL. There's very little that it offers in benefits over Direct2D and DirectWrite, which are both what Microsoft is pushing as the replacements for GDI/GDI+. There might be some benefit to using OpenGL if you absolutely must target Windows XP because as far as I can tell, Direct2D/DirectWrite are only supported on Vista and later, but that's because (as I mentioned originally), Windows XP falls squarely into the "legacy" or "obsolete" camp itself. Alternatively, if you already know OpenGL well and don't have time or the desire to learn Direct2D/DirectWrite, then it might make sense to continue using it in a new application.
Don't let the verbiage of the MSDN article scare you. Choose whatever technology makes the most sense for your specific use case given all of the available information. By the time any of these technologies go away completely, you'll have to re-write the app completely for a dozen other reasons.
Edit: Hmm, it looks like DirectWrite has also been declared (by some people at least) "obsolete" as well, having been replaced by Direct2D. That's funny, it hasn't even been around long enough for me to bother learning it. I guess that only goes to support my earlier argument that "obsolete" simply designates that a particular technology is not what is currently considered to be in vogue by the Microsoft devs.
I'm personally waiting until all the bugs get worked out of this stuff (and we decide on a semi-permanent standard) before I make the switch for any of my applications. Everything I've seen written in DirectDraw or Direct2D has had serious rendering bugs and is a performance nightmare, even on reasonably competent machines. Sure, they only show up sometimes, under the right conditions, but that's too much for me. And I swear, the blurry text shows up all the time. Not being able to read what's on screen is a deal-killer for me and my users. GDI doesn't have this problem, and it's not going anywhere.
Are GDI, GDI+ and OpenGL really obsolete/deprecated?
This is not true for OpenGL. OpenGL 4 allows you to use geometry shaders on winxp. Which isn't possible with DirectX (DirectX 10 and up isn't supported on WInXP). It is also one of the only cross-platform 3D APIs out there.
From a business point of view MS is interested in promoting DirectX since it is their technology that lock Developer into windows platform (they're also interested in making DirectX more attractive for developer, but that's another story). So it makes sense that they aren't keen on promoting OpenGL.
What else should be used?
I'd advise to stop using platform-specific tecnologies when possible. Grab cross-platform framework and use it for your application. There's Qt, GTK, wxWidgets and other toolkits for GUI apps, and SDL(and alternatives) for games. This way when platform developer decide to make ridiculous decision (like not supporting DX10 on WinXP) you dislike, you'll be able to move elsewhere with minimum development cost. Qt is also ridiculously powerful and at the moment I have no reason to use something else for GUI development. Still, situation can change in the future.
In short, while developing for certain platform you should keep in mind that platform developer might have their goals that are not compatible with your wishes. Discovering that your source has become locked into single platform isn't very pleasant experience. Your own goals should be the first priority, and if os developer tries to make you use certain technology you don't like, then you shouldn't support that technology.
Because OpenGL is a standard, it should be considered equally deprecated as C or C++ so it is a matter of time before the entire Windows API -- which today has become a compile once run on every x86 machine API thanks to Wine -- is considered deprecated in favour of .NET and C#.
I use GDI for simple graphics and OpenGL, when I need accelerated 3d.
Another aspect is that Microsoft's build-in implementation of OpenGL is definitely to be considered as deprecated since it is just version 1.1 or something, but that has been for a long time.
Yeah, about OpenGL, it actually outperforms DirectX in many ways both resource and display wise. It will never be promoted by Microsoft because it can't own OpenGL, not to mention most people don't do their research and Microsoft can claim it is old. Truth is opengl is opensource standard and evolves at a much faster rate than closed does because it is more than 1 room of developers paid to work on it. Also Microsoft has contracts with many companies to release using only Microsoft's software, this causes more business for Microsoft and less to use the more advanced OpenGL standard. It is a interesting lock up if you will, Microsoft creates these contracts so that many programs are written in DirectX to keep business for Microsoft, and no company will refuse it because Microsoft has about 80%+ home user market.
What GUI toolkit does Valve use for Steam? Is it Qt? I am interested in using the same toolkit for a project.
According to Valve itself:
"VGUI is Valve's proprietary Graphical User Interface. All Source and Steam applications use VGUI to draw windows, dialogs and menus. It also handles localization: the displaying of text in the user's preferred language. "
That's interesting, maybe if you guys do some research you can have it working in your programming language. I'll download the SDK to see if I can make it work with Java :)
http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/VGUI_Documentation
Having had experience with the Source engine I know that Valve have an library called VGUI which they use for all their games and many of their tools (when in game the library sits on top of the Source renderer, when in tools it sits on top of the Windows API I believe). Although I can’t answer the question with 100% certainty I suspect that this is what they use for Steam as well (I seem to recall some Steam updates that mentioned VGUI) – I would be surprised if the new beta uses a different library.
Even if it is not using VGUI, given what I know of Valve I would think they will have written something else entirely in-house.
So, it is (almost certainly) proprietary and highly unlikely to ever be available for third party use (unless you have the funds to buy a Source engine license).
Steam only runs on Windows and predates QT for Windows, so I'd have to guess something else.
Since Steam has had the same GUI since 2003, chances are it uses some variant of MFC. It also uses an embedded Internet Explorer web browser for its Store and Community sections.
However, I can't give any guarantees about what the version currently in Beta uses. It looks quite a bit different and includs the Webkit rendering engine instead of using IE. It may use Webkit for everything rather than drawing their own GUIs.
Does this answer the question?
http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/02/25/0640233/Steam-UI-Update-Beta-Drops-IE-Rendering-For-WebKit