As previously mentioned, I’ve been working on a YAML-based replacement for QML that would allow using JavaScript alternatives in QtQuick applications.

But, it is not only about a different syntax. It also allowed me to make some improvements to make the life easier.

Less typing

One of the things that I find tedious in QML is the verbosity of some parts like the anchoring system. For example, when you want to anchor everything to the parent, it is trivial (anchors.fill: parent), but when you want to anchor all but one side, you need to write quite a bit more:

left:  parent.left
top:   parent.top
right: parent.right

PUCK will allow you to shorten definitions like these:

PUCK                            |  QML
width,height: Settings.screen_  |  width:  Settings.screenWidth
                                |  height: Settings.screenHeight

And even:

PUCK               |  QML
^bottom: parent._  |  left:  parent.left
                   |  top:   parent.top
                   |  right: parent.right

Alternative id definition

Another thing I tried to improve is the id specification of QML items. In QML, you would do something like this:

Rectangle {
    id: root

    // :::
}

The id looks like an ordinary attribute, but it is not. It must be unique, you can not override it, etc. I think it should be more prominent.

In PUCK, the id definition is moved to the same place where you specify the type You can use the 'as' syntax like in the import statements, or, if you prefer trailing types, you can just write the id and the type after it.

Rectangle as root:
    // :::

root Rectangle:
    // :::

If you don’t like this, and prefer defining the id inside the object like in QML, nothing will stop you - PUCK supports that as well. It will just show a warning to suggest changing your style.

Some experiments

I’ve also experimented with wide arrows, but I’ll probably remove this option in the future.

root <= Rectangle:
    // :::

Rectangle => root:
    // :::

And also for imports:

imports:
  - QtQuick 2.2 as Qt
  - Particles <= QtQuick.Particles 2.0
  - org.kde.plasma => Plasma