XCactus is my first X Window program. I began to have the idea of developing a thorn management package for Cactus after I used Cactus for several months. I have not heard about Qt designer at that time. Even though I had some windows programming experiences on Microsoft Windows system, I didnt believe that is useful if I want to develop X Windows on Linux. After Qt-3.0 released, I began to play with it. I was very attracted by its friendly interface and layout properties at the very beginning when I was dragging and dropping buttons and labels. Qt also provides a lot of very useful pre-defined classes. I knew Qt designer was the tool that I wanted. It has very similiar graphic interface as Visual Basic and C++ Builder. Furthermore, it is a multiplatform designer and free.
Then I need a project to work on with this powerful tool. One day in Sept, 2003, when I talked with my officemate Ed, he mentioned his idea of getting a thorn management program for Cactus. I knew that would be a good one to try with Qt designer. XCactus was born !