One of the things I hate most about GUI toolkits is the layout system. They are so clunky and I always feel like I don't get to have my window laid out how I want. This is true with java (all of my school projects were absolute positioned), wxWidgets, gtk+ (i imagine -- i never got it to work), xul, etc.

Qt has changed my opinion. It's so simple to work with layouts. Even more simple (and in fact, quite amazing) is using layouts with QtDesigner. Every time I have a form, I click a layout button and magically it's exactly how I want. Well, not always exactly, but I know how to get it exactly how I want and it usually does not take long to get it so.

It's unfortunate that Qt is GPL, and from my understanding that means anything I write using Qt must also be GPL. But, I don't understand exactly how the PC-BSD folks managed to keep their stuff BSD-licensed. Any ideas?

I digress. The important thing is that I'm a very stubborn and picky developer and to find a piece of software that I find makes things easier and actually works how I want it to and expect it to -- well it's almost unheard of. Try Qt and QtDesigner.