Qt

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Official (new) website

Wiki

Documentation, Examples, Demos

Qt 4.8

Qt 5

Developer Page

Forum

Uses

Binding with different languages

http://qt-project.org/wiki/Category:LanguageBindings

Qt 5

Transition of code from Qt 4.x to 5.x

To resolve the error invalid use of incomplete type 'class QWidget' or QApplication: No such file or directory ... when compiling the code was written based on Qt 4.

In summary, we need to add the following line to .pro file (Don't understand why qmake from Qt5 cannot automatic do it for us) 

greaterThan(QT_MAJOR_VERSION, 4): QT += widgets

and change all instances of 

#include <QtGui>

to 

#include <QtWidgets>

What's new in Qt 5

5.0

  • Improved support for Javascript and QML
  • Mobile
  • Amazing Graphics Capability and Performance
  • Qt Quick (qml application)
  • HTML5
  • Multimedia (qml)

5.1 What's New in Qt 5.1

  • Qt for Android, Qt for iOS
  • Qt Quick Controls, Qt Quick Layouts, Qt Quick Dialogs, Qt Sensors, Qt Serial Port

5.2 What's New in Qt 5.2

  • Qt Android Extras
  • Qt Bluetooth
  • Qt Mac Extras
  • Qt NFC
  • Qt Positioning
  • Qt Windows Extras

5.3 What's New in Qt 5.3

  • Enginio - A client-side library for Qt Cloud Services.
  • Qt WebSockets
  • WinRT

5.4 What's New in Qt 5.4

  • Qt WebChannel
  • Qt WebEngine
  • Qt WebEngine Widgets
  • Qt Platform Headers
> ex4  # C:\Qt\4.8.6\examples
 [1] "activeqt"     "animation"    "dbus"         "declarative"  "designer"     "desktop"      "dialogs"      "draganddrop"  "effects"     
[10] "gestures"     "graphicsview" "help"         "helper"       "ipc"          "itemviews"    "ja_JP"        "layouts"      "linguist"    
[19] "mainwindows"  "multimedia"   "network"      "opengl"       "openvg"       "painting"     "phonon"       "qmake"        "qtconcurrent"
[28] "qtestlib"     "qws"          "richtext"     "script"       "sql"          "statemachine" "threads"      "tools"        "touch"       
[37] "tutorials"    "uitools"      "webkit"       "widgets"      "xml"          "xmlpatterns" 
> ex5  # C:\Qt\Examples\Qt-5.4
 [1] "activeqt"          "aggregate"         "androidextras"     "assistant"         "bluetooth"         "corelib"          
 [7] "dbus"              "declarative"       "designer"          "embedded"          "enginio"           "gui"              
[13] "help"              "linguist"          "location"          "macextras"         "multimedia"        "multimediawidgets"
[19] "network"           "nfc"               "opengl"            "positioning"       "qmake"             "qml"              
[25] "qmltest"           "qpa"               "qtconcurrent"      "qtestlib"          "quick"             "script"           
[31] "sensors"           "serialport"        "sql"               "svg"               "touch"             "uitools"          
[37] "wayland"           "webchannel"        "webengine"         "webenginewidgets"  "webkit"            "webkitqml"        
[43] "webkitwidgets"     "websockets"        "widgets"           "winextras"         "xml"               "xmlpatterns"      
> setdiff(ex5, ex4)
 [1] "aggregate"         "androidextras"     "assistant"         "bluetooth"         "corelib"           "embedded"         
 [7] "enginio"           "gui"               "location"          "macextras"         "multimediawidgets" "nfc"              
[13] "positioning"       "qml"               "qmltest"           "qpa"               "quick"             "sensors"          
[19] "serialport"        "svg"               "wayland"           "webchannel"        "webengine"         "webenginewidgets" 
[25] "webkitqml"         "webkitwidgets"     "websockets"        "winextras"

Install precompiled binary Qt on Windows

http://download.qt.io/official_releases/ (this does not go through the normal download process)

For example, the source code for 5.0.1 can be downloaded from http://download.qt-project.org/official_releases/qt/5.0/5.0.1/single/

Qt 4.8.5 based on MinGW binary

Got an error of 'Only versions with W32API 3.13 are supported'. See https://bugreports.qt-project.org/browse/QTBUG-26137. I am using MinGW-get-setup.exe to install MinGW. The gcc version is 4.7.2-1.

Some suggestions are to install old versions of GCC. http://qt-project.org/forums/viewthread/22352 and http://wiki.qt.io/MinGW.

Download gcc 4.4.0 (mingw-gcc440_1.zip) from search google. Just unzip it to C:\. There is no need to put 'C:\mingw\bin' in Windows environment variable PATH. At the end, we will have a new folder C:\mingw.

Although Qt can be installed without any errors, when I try some examples, some of them will give an error "The program has unexpectedly finished". Update: the error was caused by previous build residue. Just delete the build directory (Debug/Release) and re-build again. Things works well. However, remember the executable file can only be run through Qt Creator. It does not work by just double clicking the executable file.

The order of installation is

  1. mingw
  2. Qt library
  3. Qt creator

Qt 4.8.6 based on MinGW binary

During installation, the Qt installer will give a link to download MinGW. That is, we can take a break during the Qt installation to download & install MinGW.

Note that the Qt Creator was not included in the Qt installer. We have to download/install it separately. We actually also need to go to Qt Creator > Tools > Options to add compiler and Qt from 'Build & Run' menu.

The first screen shows one dialog in Qt installation and the 2nd one displays the Qt programs under Windows Start menu.

QtOpenSourceMinGW.png Qt486MinGW.png

Qt 5.1.1 based on MSVC

I try Qt 5.1.1 for Windows 32bit (VS 2010, OpenGL 504 MB) on my Windows 7 + VS 2010. The <fancybrowser> works fine.

Note that after I install it to "C:\Qt\5.1.1" directory, I will get the following sub-directories "5.1.1" (another one), "Licenses", "Tools", "vcredist" with a few files. The <Qt Creator> cannot be unselect in installation and it is located under "Tools" folder.

How to Build static Qt on Windows

General resource:

Why do we need to

Using the VS2010 version of Qt to build an app has a problem when it is time to distribute the application. In my first example of GUI with button & label, I need to put the following 7 dll files in the same exe directory in order to run the exe file from Windows Command Prompt instead of Qt Creator.

  • icudt49.dll (17MB)
  • icuin49.dll (1.3MB)
  • icuuc49.dll (1MB)
  • Qt5Cored.dll (7MB)
  • Qt5Guid.dll (5.5MB)
  • Qt5Widgets.dll (4MB)
  • Qt5Widgetsd.dll (7.5MB)

Google: how to reploy application on windows, how to build qt contains all dll static on windows

My experience based on Qt 4.x.x

MSVC 2010

  • http://wiki.qt.io/Build_Standalone_Qt_Application_for_Windows (How to build a static version of Qt and a static application)
  • Download and install Perl (no need for python and ruby unless we want WebKit).
  • Unzip source file in zip format and put it under C:\Qt
  • Rename C:\Qt\qt-everywhere-opensource-src-4.8.6 to C:\Qt\4.8.6
  • Open c:\Qt\4.8.4\mkspecs\win32-msvc2010\qmake.conf and replace 
QMAKE_CFLAGS_RELEASE = -O2 -MD
QMAKE_CFLAGS_RELEASE_WITH_DEBUGINFO += -O2 -MD -Zi
QMAKE_CFLAGS_DEBUG = -Zi -MDd

with 

QMAKE_CFLAGS_RELEASE = -O2 -MT
QMAKE_CFLAGS_RELEASE_WITH_DEBUGINFO += -O2 -MT -Zi
QMAKE_CFLAGS_DEBUG = -Zi -MTd

according to the page

  • Change PATH variable and add C:\Qt\4.8.4\bin
  • Open Visual Studio command prompt from Windows Start menu and
cd C:\Qt\4.8.6
configure -platform win32-msvc2010 -static -opensource -debug-and-release
nmake sub-src

The build time is 1 hour 15 min on a VirtualBox virtual machine running Xeon @3.2GHz (1cpu is allocated & 2.5GB memory).

If we need to reconfigure, run make confclean and configure. Some guide also includes '-release' option.

See here when we want to build both release and debug mode applications. If we just specify '-release' in the configure line, we will not be able to create debug program although I still do not know how to use debug program in Qt creator with MSVC.

For mingw, we need to use 'mingw32-make' instead of 'make' or 'nmake'. See Building Qt Desktop for Windows with MinGW.

MSVCP90.dll or MSVCP100.dll is missing

or MSVCR100.dll is missing. See

To build the Qt project as a standalone executable file run qmake and nmake. After that you should execute mt.exe to embed a manifest inside the application to avoid error such as missing MSVCP90.dll when the application is started on other computers. 

qmake Hello.pro
nmake release
cd release
mt.exe -manifest Hello.exe.manifest -outputresource: Hello.exe

The following screenshot from the Dependence Walker shows 4 dll files required in the 'qheatmap.exe' program when the program was built from MinGW's Qt on Windows OS.

Dependswalker.png

MinGW

Download and install MinGW-gcc440_1 & ActivePerl.

C:\Perl64\site\bin, C:\Perl64\bin (these 2 were added by ActivePerl installer by default), C:\mingw\bin and C:\Qt\4.8.5-src should be put in the PATH variable.

I have successfully built Qt using MinGW. 

configure 
mingw32-make

When I try to run my program (either Debug or Release version), I get an error The program can't start because QtCore4.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem.. Reboot?

For Qheatmap application, we still need to copy 2 dll files: mingwm10.dll(11 KB) and libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll(43 KB) from C:\mingw\bin folder to the same folder as Qheatmap.exe. These 2 files were also mentioned in Building Qt Desktop for Windows with MinGW.

My experience based on Qt 5.x.x

  • See the instruction on Git
  • The directory structure in Qt 5 is quite different from Qt 4. For example, \bin directory is now under \qtbase directory not under the root directory.
  • read ReadME file to download Perl, Python and Ruby. Make sure the executable path in in PATH env variable.
  • Download/Install Windows SDK 7.1 (for Windows 7) or 8 (for Windows 8).
  • OpenGL (NOT optional): DirectX SDK The 6/7/2010 version is about 572MB. This will be installed to C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft DirectX SDK(June 2010) directory. (The precompiled Qt is built against ANGLE which provides OpenGL ES 2.0 support. ANGLE allows Windows users to run OpenGL ES 2.0 content by translating OpenGL ES 2.0 API calls to DirectX 9 API calls) I actually got an error of Error code S1023 when I installed DirectX SDK. See the solution here/Basically uninstall x86 & x64 VC2010 Redistr and install DirectX SDK and then re-install x86 & x64 VC2010 Redistr.
  • modify mkspecs by searching qmake.conf. It was found in C:\Qt\qt-everwhere-opensource-src-5.1.1\qtbase\mkspecs\win32-msvc2010
  • run the following
cd c:\qt\5.1.1-src
set PATH=C:\QT\5.1.1-src\qtbase\bin;C:\qt\5.1.1-src\gnuwin32\bin;%PATH%
set QMAKESPEC=win32-msvc2010

configure -debug-and-release -static -opensource -opengl desktop -nomake examples -nomake tests

jom

It works when I tested qtbase\examples\widgets\painting.

Build Webkit

Try on Qt 5.1.1 

set PATH=%PATH%;C:\icu\bin64
set INCLUDE=%INCLUDE%;C:\icu\include
set LIB=%LIB%;C:\icu\lib64

perl qtwebkit\Tools\Scripts\build-webkit --qt --release --minimal

The WebKit build was disabled for the following reasons:
    * ICU is required. To build QtWebKit with Qt 5 you need to build Qt 5 with l
ibICU support. Check for ICU support being mentioned in qtbase/config.summary.
  • The static build of WebKit is not successful when I use qt source code. I get the message "Project ERROR: WebKit requires SQLite. Either make it available via pkg-config, set $SQLITE3SRCDIR or build Webkit under qt5.git."
# Open Qt command prompt from Windows Start
cd c:\qt\5.1.1\5.1.1\Src\qtwebkit\
perl Tools\Scripts\build-webkit --qt --release --minimal
  • The static build of WebKit is not successful when I use SVN version. I get the message "Failed to set up build environment using SQLite. Either make it available via pkg-config, set $SQLITE3SRCDIR or build WebKit under qt5.git."
  • Another try according to stackoverflow. First of all, we still need to follow the build instruction for QtWebKit build on Windows to install GNU tools and setup PATH. Open a QT command prompt (The Qt was not from source code but from MSVC binary) and
cd C:\qt\5.1.1\5.1.1\src\qtwebkit
qmake

Open another VS 2010 command prompt and 

set PATH=%PATH%;C:\icu\bin64
set INCLUDE=%INCLUDE%;C:\icu\include
set LIB=%LIB%;C:\icu\lib64
SET SQLITE3SRCDIR=C:\qt\5.1.1\5.1.1\src\qtbase\src\3rdparty\sqlite
cd C:\qt\5.1.1\5.1.1\src\qtwebkit
nmake

Still get errors "LNK2001: unresolved external symbol _u_charType_51 JavaScriptCore.lib(Lexer.obj)" as reported by this case. This is a good reference.

Install Qt on Ubuntu

ArchWiki is useful; see https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Qt.

It is also necessary to follow http://wiki.qt.io/Install_Qt_5_on_Ubuntu to install g++ and OpenGL libraries. Note the last one is what I added to resolve the error of cannot finding -lGL; check Compile Qt 4.7 on Ubuntu 10.10. 

sudo apt-get install build-essential
sudo apt-get install libgl1-mesa-dev

If Qt Creator was installed (eg from binary installer of Qt 5.1.0), then it can be launched by 

~/Qt5.1.0/Tools/QtCreator/bin/qtcreator

Build Qt5 from source

Note: if Qt is built from source, the release version of executable created by this Qt will be automatically static; there is no need to modify .pro file.

The source code for Qt 5 can be obtained from (Not tested this approach to get the source code) 

git clone git://code.qt.io/qt/qt5.git
cd qt5
git checkout 5.5

Note that for Qt 4 the source code can be obtained 

git clone git://code.qt.io/qt/qt.git
cd qt

To install the requirements 

sudo apt-get update
# build essential
sudo apt-get install build-essential perl python git

# Libxcb
sudo apt-get install "^libxcb.*" libx11-xcb-dev libglu1-mesa-dev libxrender-dev libxi-dev

# Webkit
sudo apt-get install flex bison gperf libicu-dev libxslt-dev ruby

# WebEngine
sudo apt-get install libssl-dev libxcursor-dev libxcomposite-dev libxdamage-dev libxrandr-dev libfontconfig1-dev

# Additional dependencies on Ubuntu 14.04
sudo apt-get install libcap-dev libbz2-dev libgcrypt11-dev libpci-dev libnss3-dev libxcursor-dev \
   libxcomposite-dev libxdamage-dev libxrandr-dev libdrm-dev libfontconfig1-dev libxtst-dev \
   libcups2-dev libpulse-dev libudev-dev 

# Multimedia
sudo apt-get install libasound2-dev libgstreamer0.10-dev libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-dev

To build Qt (I added -static option so the Qt build is static; use './configure -h' to see a full list of options and Qt Configure Options page) 

# Open browser to http://download.qt.io/official_releases/qt/5.5/5.5.0/single/
wget http://qt.mirror.constant.com/archive/qt/5.5/5.5.0/single/qt-everywhere-opensource-src-5.5.0.tar.xz
tar --xz -xvf qt-everywhere-opensource-src-5.5.0.tar.xz 
cd qt-everywhere-opensource-src-5.5.0/

./configure -developer-build -opensource -static -nomake examples -nomake tests
time make -j4
# 190 minutes on Xeon w/ 2.5G mem, 76 min w/ 4G mem
# No need to run 'sudo make install' to install according to the ./configure output or the doc

The result of the build 

brb@brb-VirtualBox:~/qt-everywhere-opensource-src-5.5.0$ ls
configure                   qtconnectivity      qtsvg
configure.bat               qtdeclarative       qttools
gnuwin32                    qtdoc               qttranslations
LGPL_EXCEPTION.txt          qtenginio           qtwayland
LICENSE.FDL                 qtgraphicaleffects  qtwebchannel
LICENSE.GPLv2               qtimageformats      qtwebengine
LICENSE.LGPLv21             qtlocation          qtwebkit
LICENSE.LGPLv3              qtmacextras         qtwebkit-examples
LICENSE.PREVIEW.COMMERCIAL  qtmultimedia        qtwebsockets
Makefile                    qt.pro              qtwinextras
qt3d                        qtquick1            qtx11extras
qtactiveqt                  qtquickcontrols     qtxmlpatterns
qtandroidextras             qtscript            README
qtbase                      qtsensors
qtcanvas3d                  qtserialport
brb@brb-VirtualBox:~/qt-everywhere-opensource-src-5.5.0$ ls qtbase
bin             header.BSD         LGPL_EXCEPTION.txt          qmake
config.status   header.FDL         lib                         qml
config.summary  header.LGPL21      LICENSE.FDL                 qtbase.pro
config.tests    header.LGPL3       LICENSE.LGPLv21             src
configure       header.LGPL3-COMM  LICENSE.LGPLv3              sync.profile
configure.bat   header.LGPL-ONLY   LICENSE.PREVIEW.COMMERCIAL  tests
dist            imports            Makefile                    tools
doc             include            mkspecs                     translations
examples        INSTALL            plugins                     util
brb@brb-VirtualBox:~/qt-everywhere-opensource-src-5.5.0$ ls qtbase/bin
assistant             qdbus           qml1plugindump    qmlviewer
designer              qdbuscpp2xml    qmleasing         qt.conf
fixqt4headers.pl      qdbusviewer     qmlimportscanner  qtdiag
lconvert              qdbusxml2cpp    qmljs             qtpaths
linguist              qdoc            qmllint           qtplugininfo
lrelease              qhelpconverter  qmlmin            rcc
lupdate               qhelpgenerator  qmlplugindump     syncqt.pl
moc                   qlalr           qmlprofiler       uic
pixeltool             qmake           qmlscene          xmlpatterns
qcollectiongenerator  qml             qmltestrunner     xmlpatternsvalidator

Qt 5 ./configure output

brb@brb-VirtualBox:~/qt-everywhere-opensource-src-5.5.0$ ./configure -developer-build -opensource -static -nomake examples -nomake tests
+ cd qtbase
+ /home/brb/qt-everywhere-opensource-src-5.5.0/qtbase/configure -top-level -developer-build -opensource -static -nomake examples -nomake tests

This is the Qt Open Source Edition.

You are licensed to use this software under the terms of
the Lesser GNU General Public License (LGPL) versions 2.1.
You are also licensed to use this software under the terms of
the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) versions 3.

Type '3' to view the GNU Lesser General Public License version 3.
Type 'L' to view the Lesser GNU General Public License version 2.1.
Type 'yes' to accept this license offer.
Type 'no' to decline this license offer.

Do you accept the terms of either license? yes

Creating qmake...
........................................................................................Done.
Running configuration tests...

WARNING: Using static linking will disable the WebKit module.


   Configure summary

Build type:    linux-g++ (x86_64, CPU features: mmx sse sse2)
Platform notes:

            - Also available for Linux: linux-kcc linux-icc linux-cxx
        
Build options:
  Configuration .......... accessibility accessibility-atspi-bridge alsa audio-backend avx avx2 c++11 clock-gettime clock-monotonic compile_examples concurrent cups dbus debug enable_new_dtags evdev eventfd fontconfig full-config getaddrinfo getifaddrs gif glib gstreamer-0.10 harfbuzz headersclean iconv icu inotify ipv6ifname jpeg large-config largefile libudev linuxfb medium-config minimal-config mremap nis opengl openssl pcre png posix_fallocate precompile_header private_tests pulseaudio qpa qpa reduce_exports reduce_relocations rpath small-config sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 static system-freetype system-png system-zlib use_gold_linker warnings_are_errors xcb xcb-glx xcb-plugin xcb-render xcb-xlib xinput2 xkbcommon-qt xlib xrender 
  Build parts ............ libs tools
  Mode ................... debug
  Using sanitizer(s)...... none
  Using C++11 ............ yes
  Using gold linker....... yes
  Using new DTAGS ........ yes
  Using PCH .............. yes
  Target compiler supports:
    SSE2/SSE3/SSSE3 ...... yes/yes/yes
    SSE4.1/SSE4.2 ........ yes/yes
    AVX/AVX2 ............. yes/yes

Qt modules and options:
  Qt D-Bus ............... yes (loading dbus-1 at runtime)
  Qt Concurrent .......... yes
  Qt GUI ................. yes
  Qt Widgets ............. yes
  Large File ............. yes
  QML debugging .......... yes
  Use system proxies ..... no

Support enabled for:
  Accessibility .......... yes
  ALSA ................... yes
  CUPS ................... yes
  Evdev .................. yes
  FontConfig ............. yes
  FreeType ............... yes (system library)
  Glib ................... yes
  GStreamer .............. yes (0.10)
  GTK theme .............. no
  HarfBuzz ............... yes (bundled copy)
  Iconv .................. yes
  ICU .................... yes
  Image formats: 
    GIF .................. yes (in QtGui, using bundled copy)
    JPEG ................. yes (in QtGui, using bundled copy)
    PNG .................. yes (in QtGui, using system library)
  journald ............... no
  libinput................ no
  mtdev .................. no
  Networking: 
    getaddrinfo .......... yes
    getifaddrs ........... yes
    IPv6 ifname .......... yes
    libproxy.............. no
    OpenSSL .............. yes (loading libraries at run-time)
  NIS .................... yes
  OpenGL / OpenVG: 
    EGL .................. no
    OpenGL ............... desktop
    OpenVG ............... no
  PCRE ................... yes (bundled copy)
  pkg-config ............. yes 
  PulseAudio ............. yes
  QPA backends: 
    DirectFB ............. no
    EGLFS ................ no
      EGLFS i.MX6....... . no
      EGLFS KMS .......... no
      EGLFS Mali ......... no
      EGLFS Raspberry Pi . no
      EGLFS X11 .......... no
    LinuxFB .............. yes
    XCB .................. yes (system library)
      EGL on X ........... no
      GLX ................ yes
      MIT-SHM ............ yes
      Xcb-Xlib ........... yes
      Xcursor ............ yes (loaded at runtime)
      Xfixes ............. yes (loaded at runtime)
      Xi ................. no
      Xi2 ................ yes
      Xinerama ........... yes (loaded at runtime)
      Xrandr ............. yes (loaded at runtime)
      Xrender ............ yes
      XKB ................ yes
      XShape ............. yes
      XSync .............. yes
      XVideo ............. yes
  Session management ..... yes
  SQL drivers: 
    DB2 .................. no
    InterBase ............ no
    MySQL ................ no
    OCI .................. no
    ODBC ................. no
    PostgreSQL ........... no
    SQLite 2 ............. no
    SQLite ............... yes (plugin, using bundled copy)
    TDS .................. no
  tslib .................. no
  udev ................... yes
  xkbcommon-x11........... yes (bundled copy, XKB config root: /usr/share/X11/xkb)
  xkbcommon-evdev......... no
  zlib ................... yes (system library)


WARNING: Using static linking will disable the use of dynamically
loaded plugins. Make sure to import all needed static plugins,
or compile needed modules into the library.
Info: creating super cache file /home/brb/qt-everywhere-opensource-src-5.5.0/.qmake.super

Qt is now configured for building. Just run 'make'.
Once everything is built, Qt is installed.
You should not run 'make install'.

Prior to reconfiguration, make sure you remove any leftovers from
the previous build.

Qt 5.x.x (offline + binary)

It is straight forward if we use the binary version installer instead of building from Qt source. Just use 'chmod +x' to make the downloaded file executable and then run the executable file. Note that the installer name may be changed from time to time. 

./qt-linux-opensource-5.1.1-x86_64-offline.run

It is still necessary to install opengl library by executing sudo apt-get install mesa-common-dev and sudo apt-get install libgl1-mesa-dev.

At the end, the qmake program is available under ~/Qt5.1.1/5.1.1/gcc_64/bin/qmake.

The Qt creator is bundled in the installer so we don't have to download it separately.

Q: How to resolve the error <QPrinter> no such file or directory in Qt 5? Ans: Add QT += printsupport according to http://qt-project.org/forums/viewthread/24668.

Q: How to resolve the error /home/brb/Qt5.1.1/5.1.1/gcc/include/QtCore/qobject.h:214: Error no type named 'Object' in 'struct QtPrivate::FunctionPointer<const char*>'

Q: How to uninstall Qt5 that I installed from .run? Ans: run MaintenanceTools program from Qt directory. See this post. A screenshot of the maintenance tool is given below,

Qt MaintenanceTool.png

Qt 5 (online installer + binary)

(tested on 12/25/2014). By default, it will be installed on ~/Qt directory. We can choose what versions of Qt to install. The newest version is Qt 5.4 now. 

chmod +x qt-opensource-linux-x64-1.6.0-7-online.run
./qt-opensource-linux-x64-1.6.0-7-online.run

Qt 4.x.x

Qt 4.x.x can be downloaded from the Qt archive.

Method 1. Use apt-get install approach. See http://www.wikihow.com/Install-Qt-SDK-on-Ubuntu-Linux. This will install old version of qmake in the system. 

sudo apt-get install qt4-dev-tools

At the time of writing (tested on Linux Mint 15), the qmake is 4.5.2 (the Qt website offers 4.8.5).

Method 2. Manually compile it. First we download Linux/X11 one from qt-project.org (230MB). It is the same as the source code file. The INSTALL file points to http://qt-project.org/doc/qt-4.8/install-x11.html. We also need to do 'apt-get install libxext-dev' to resolve an error that 'basic XLib functionality test failed'. 

tar xzvf qt-everywhere-opensource-src-4.8.5.tar.gz
cd qt-everywhere-opensource-src-4.8.5
./configure -static -debug-and-release
make -j 3
sudo make install

Note that

  • the last step make install is required; if this is skipped, Qt Creator won't let you to add 4.8.5 as a Kit.
  • the directory 'qt-everywhere-opensource-src-4.8.5' is not useful anymore. It can be deleted to save space (7GB).
  • if we want to save compile time, we can add -nomake examples -nomake tests -opensource to configure command.

At the end of "./configure", it shows 

Qt is now configured for building. Just run 'make'.
Once everything is built, you must run 'make install'.
Qt will be installed into /usr/local/Trolltech/Qt-4.8.5

To reconfigure, run 'make confclean' and 'configure'.

In .profile (if your shell is bash, ksh, zsh or sh), add the following lines: 

 PATH=/usr/local/Trolltech/Qt-4.8.5/bin:$PATH
 export PATH

If qt-creator was not found in the dash, we can find creator a desktop file and drag&drop it to the launcher. The icon for qt-creator can be found in /usr/share/app-install/icons/qtcreator.png.

Built-in Qt libraries on a fresh Ubuntu

On a fresh Ubuntu 14.04, it already contains several Qt 4 & Qt 5 libraries/modules (Ubuntu 12.04 contains Qt 4 but no Qt 5 libraries). So even the Qt was build with 'debug' mode and the application was created in 'debug' release, the executable can still be run on a fresh Ubuntu 14.04 system. 

brb@brb-T3500:~$ ls /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt*
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Core.so.5               /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Xml.so.5.2.1
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Core.so.5.2             /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtAssistantClient.so.4
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Core.so.5.2.1           /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtAssistantClient.so.4.8
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5DBus.so.5               /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtAssistantClient.so.4.8.4
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5DBus.so.5.2             /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtCLucene.so.4
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5DBus.so.5.2.1           /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtCLucene.so.4.8
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Feedback.so.5           /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtCLucene.so.4.8.6
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Feedback.so.5.0         /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtCore.so.4
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Feedback.so.5.0.0       /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtCore.so.4.8
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Gui.so.5                /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtCore.so.4.8.6
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Gui.so.5.2              /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtDBus.so.4
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Gui.so.5.2.1            /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtDBus.so.4.8
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Multimedia.so.5         /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtDBus.so.4.8.6
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Multimedia.so.5.2       /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtDeclarative.so.4
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Multimedia.so.5.2.1     /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtDeclarative.so.4.8
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Network.so.5            /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtDeclarative.so.4.8.6
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Network.so.5.2          /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtDesignerComponents.so.4
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Network.so.5.2.1        /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtDesignerComponents.so.4.8
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5OpenGL.so.5             /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtDesignerComponents.so.4.8.6
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5OpenGL.so.5.2           /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtDesigner.so.4
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5OpenGL.so.5.2.1         /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtDesigner.so.4.8
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Organizer.so.5          /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtDesigner.so.4.8.6
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Organizer.so.5.0        /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtGui.so.4
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Organizer.so.5.0.0      /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtGui.so.4.8
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Positioning.so.5        /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtGui.so.4.8.6
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Positioning.so.5.2      /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtHelp.so.4
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Positioning.so.5.2.1    /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtHelp.so.4.8
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5PrintSupport.so.5       /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtHelp.so.4.8.6
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5PrintSupport.so.5.2     /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtNetwork.so.4
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5PrintSupport.so.5.2.1   /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtNetwork.so.4.8
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Qml.so.5                /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtNetwork.so.4.8.6
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Qml.so.5.2              /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtOpenGL.so.4
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Qml.so.5.2.1            /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtOpenGL.so.4.8
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Quick.so.5              /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtOpenGL.so.4.8.6
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Quick.so.5.2            /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtScript.so.4
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Quick.so.5.2.1          /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtScript.so.4.8
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Sensors.so.5            /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtScript.so.4.8.6
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Sensors.so.5.2          /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtScriptTools.so.4
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Sensors.so.5.2.1        /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtScriptTools.so.4.8
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Sql.so.5                /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtScriptTools.so.4.8.6
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Sql.so.5.2              /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtSql.so.4
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Sql.so.5.2.1            /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtSql.so.4.8
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Svg.so.5                /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtSql.so.4.8.6
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Svg.so.5.2              /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtSvg.so.4
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Svg.so.5.2.1            /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtSvg.so.4.8
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Test.so.5               /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtSvg.so.4.8.6
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Test.so.5.2             /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtTest.so.4
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Test.so.5.2.1           /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtTest.so.4.8
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5WebKit.so.5             /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtTest.so.4.8.6
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5WebKit.so.5.1           /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtWebKit.so.4
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5WebKit.so.5.1.1         /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtWebKit.so.4.10
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5WebKitWidgets.so.5      /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtWebKit.so.4.10.2
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5WebKitWidgets.so.5.1    /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtXmlPatterns.so.4
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5WebKitWidgets.so.5.1.1  /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtXmlPatterns.so.4.8
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Widgets.so.5            /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtXmlPatterns.so.4.8.6
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Widgets.so.5.2          /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtXml.so.4
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Widgets.so.5.2.1        /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtXml.so.4.8
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Xml.so.5                /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQtXml.so.4.8.6
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Xml.so.5.2

Qt Creator

  • Download link
  • Multiple version of Qt library
  • Keyboard shortcuts:
    • Ctrl + Click the symbol - move to the definition or the declaration of a symbol.
    • Click a symbol + Right click + Follow the symbol under cursor - move to the definition
  • The default build directory is parallel to the folder of source code which is a pain if there is a same project name. A better default build directory should be under the source code folder. To change the default setting, go to Tools -> Options -> Build and Run -> Remove "../" from the Default build directory value "../build-%{CurrentProject:Name}-%{CurrentKit:FileSystemName}-%{CurrentBuild:Name}". The project name is determined by Qt project file XXXX.pro.
  • This teaches us how to set warning level when compiling a Qt project. Qt project uses the settting in makefile. We can overwrite it by setting something in .pro file
win32:QMAKE_CXX_FLAGS_WARN_ON += -Wextra

Google: Qt change warning level.

Tools > Options

See the screenshots below to see how to set up the Qt in the Qt Creator when the Qt was built by ourselves. We need to add 'Kits' in order to build applications.

Qtoptions kits.png Qtoptions version.png Qtoptions compiler.png Qtoptions debugger.png


Debug Qt program built with the Microsoft Visual Studio compilers

Note that the default location of Windows Driver Kit (WDK) is C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.1\.

Note that the cdb.exe can be found under C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.1\Debuggers\x86 or C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.1\Debuggers\x64 directories.

Simple program to debug

In the following program, we can put a break at the line QString msg="" to test the debug function in QT Creator. 

#include <QApplication>
#include <QPushButton>

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
  QApplication app (argc, argv);

  QString msg="";
  msg = "abcd";
  msg = "ABCD";

  QPushButton button ("Hello world !");
  button.show();

  return app.exec();
}

Also in the .pro file, add one more line (QT += widgets) to the code. So the file looks like 

SOURCES += \
    main.cpp
greaterThan(QT_MAJOR_VERSION, 4): QT += widgets

Qt Tutorial

Books

Code snippets

http://qt-project.org/wiki/Category:Snippets

Simple Test

QWidget

To quickly test whether the Qt was built successfully, we can 

#include <QApplication>
#include <QWidget>

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    QApplication app(argc, argv);

    QWidget window;

    window.resize(250, 150);
    window.setWindowTitle("Simple example");
    window.show();

    return app.exec();
}

Go to Windows Command line (The 'nmake' command will be 'make' on Linux OS). 

cd c:\Qt
mkdir example
cd example
notepad test.cpp
set PATH=%PATH%;C:\QT\4.8.4\bin
qmake -project        # Create .pro file
qmake                 # Create Makefile
nmake                 # Run 'make' on Linux

If everything went well, we will obtain the executable file under release folder. That is, we can run the executable file by 

release\example.exe

QPushButton

The example is used in http://wiki.qt.io/Qt_for_beginners. 

#include <QApplication>
#include <QPushButton>
 
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
  QApplication app (argc, argv);
 
  QPushButton button ("Hello world !");
  button.show();
 
  return app.exec();
}

With Layout

See Listing 1-10 from FOQ. 

#include <QApplication>
#include <QWidget>
#include <QVBoxLayout>
#include <QLabel>
#include <QLineEdit>

int main( int argc, char **argv )
{
  QApplication app( argc, argv );

  QWidget widget;
  QLineEdit *lineEdit = new QLineEdit();
  QLabel *label = new QLabel();

  QVBoxLayout *layout = new QVBoxLayout();
  layout->addWidget( lineEdit );
  layout->addWidget( label );
  widget.setLayout( layout );

//  MyClass *bridge = new MyClass( "", &app );
//  QObject::connect(
//    lineEdit, SIGNAL(textChanged(const QString&)),
//    bridge, SLOT(setText(const QString&)) );
//  QObject::connect(
//    bridge, SIGNAL(textChanged(const QString&)),
//    label, SLOT(setText(const QString&)) );

  widget.show();

  return app.exec();
}

No Layout

See Listing 9-10 from FOQ. 

#include <QApplication>
#include <QMainWindow>

class MainWindow : public QMainWindow
{
public:
  MainWindow();
};

MainWindow::MainWindow() : QMainWindow()
{
  setCentralWidget( new QTextEdit( this ) );
}

int main( int argc, char **argv )
{
  QApplication app( argc, argv );
    
  MainWindow window;
  window.show();
  
  return app.exec();
}

Similarly we can use setCentralWidget() in QMainWindow. See Chapter 4 of 'The Book of Qt4'. 

#include <QApplication>
#include <QMainwindow>
#include <QLabel>
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
  QApplication a(argc, argv);

  QMainWindow mainWindow;
  QLabel *label = new QLabel("<center>Central Widget</center>");
  mainWindow.setCentralWidget(label);
  mainWindow.show();

  return a.exec();
}

Qt-Apps.org

http://qt-apps.org/ is a good source to find open source projects based on Qt.

Graphics

Scientific

Sound Application

Qt Widget

  • AnalogWidgets It builds on my Beaglebone black after I edit the file <Flags.pri> to remove lines containing "-march=core2" and "-mfpmath=sse". Just run 'qmake' and 'make' and it'll build successfully. The only problem is the BBB's screen is too small so I have to kill it from another way.
  • Virtual keyboard
  • Image cropper
  • QProgressIndicator
  • QProg

Qt games

C++ basics

See C++ tutorial.

  • Use dot (.) to refer to any public member of a class.
  • Use the arrow operator (->) to refer to a member of an object pointed by a pointer. The label below is a pointer rather than an object but *label is an object.
QLabel *label = new QLabel("ABCDE");
label->show();
// (*label).show();
  • Use the operator of scope (::) to set a definition of a class's member function or call a function from some class. For example,
QObject::connect();

means to use connect() function from QObject class.

  • The this pointer passed on to the EditDialog sets the parent of the dlg to the list dialog.
EditDialog dlg( this );

Here explains: The keyword this identifies a special type of pointer. Suppose that you create an object named x of class A, and class A has a nonstatic member function f(). If you call the function x.f(), the keyword this in the body of f() stores the address of x..

Qt Basic

QWidget vs QDialog

  • If a class's parent is QWidget, the class will be shown at the top-left corner of the screen.
  • If a class's parent is QDialog, the class will be shown at the center of the screen (seems better).

QWidget vs QDialog vs QMainWindow

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3298792/whats-the-difference-between-qmainwindow-and-qwidget-and-qdialog

  • A QWidget is the base class for all drawable classes in Qt. Any QWidget-based class can be shown as a window by showing it when it has no parent. A simple example of QWidget class can be found on zetcode.com or Simple Test section. More examples can be found on most Qt programs.
// header file
class StopWatch : public QWidget
{
    Q_OBJECT
public:
    StopWatch(QWidget *parent = 0);
    ~StopWatch();
};
// cpp file
StopWatch::StopWatch(QWidget *parent)
    : QWidget(parent)
{
}

// header file
class ButtonDialog : public QDialog
{
  Q_OBJECT  
public:
  ButtonDialog( QWidget *parent=0 );
};
// cpp file
ButtonDialog::ButtonDialog( QWidget *parent ) : QDialog( parent )
{
}
  • A QMainWindow is based on QWidget and is designed around common needs for a main window to have. It has predefined places for a menu bar, a status bar, a toolbar, and other widgets. It does not have any built-in allowances for buttons like QDialog does. QMainWindow examples can be found at Simple Test > No layout section, http://doc.qt.io/qt-4.8/examples-mainwindow.html, or searching my bitbucket\qt repository.
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
  QApplication app;
  QMainWindow *window;

  window->setCentralWidget(XXX);
  // XXX can be any pointer from a class inherited from QWidget
  // 
  // Or do not explicitly specify the widget type as the following example (BDGE, not common)
  //    window->setCentralWidget(new QWidget);
  //    window->centralWidget()->setLayout(mainLayout);

  window->show()
  return app.exec()
}

The following table shows the differences of show method and layout management of these classes.

class show method layout
QApplication .exec()
QWidget .show() layout
QMainWindow .show() centralwidget
QDialog .exec() layout

Q_OBJECT

This macro is required if a class contains SIGNAL/SLOT.

tr()

tr() means translation; the characters were auto translated depending on system's locale. See http://qt-project.org/doc/qt-4.8/linguist-hellotr.html

Run Qt from Command Line

I use 

# Open command prompt from Visual Studio 2010
set PATH=C:\Qt\Qt5.0.2\5.0.2\msvc2010_opengl\bin;%PATH%

Now we can build the project by for example 

cd C:\Qt\FQD\Chapter01\plain-cpp
qmake -project
qmake
nmake

The executable will be located under release subfolder.

From C++ to Qt

See Chap 1 of Foundation of Qt Development book.

No Qt Qt
Class List 1.1 
#include <string>
using std::string;
class MyClass
{
public:
  MyClass (const string & text);
  const string& text() const;
  void setText (const string& text);
  int getLengthOfText() const;
private:
  string m_text
}
List 1.2 
#include <QObject>
#include <string>
using std::string;
class MyClass : public QObject
{
public:
  MyClass (const string& text, QObject *parent = 0);
...
}
Main List 1.3 
#include <iostream>
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
  MyClass *a, *b, *c;
  a = new MyClass ("foo");
  b = new MyClass("ba-a-ar");
  c = new MyClass("baz");
  std::cout << a->text() << "(" << a->getLengthOfText() << ")" << std::endl;
  a->setText( b-> text() );
  std::cout << a->text()  << "(" << a->getLengthOfText() << ")" << std::endl;
  int result = a->getLengthOfText() - c ->getLengthOfText();
  delete a;
  delete b;
  delete c;
  return result;
}
List 1.4 
#include <QtDebug>
int main (int argc, char **argv)
{
  QObject parent;
  MyClass *a, *b, *c;
  a = new MyClass ("foo", &parent); // Or a = new MyClass("foo", this);
  b = new MyClass("ba-a-ar", &parent);
  c = new MyClass ("baz", &parent);
  qDebug() << QString::fromStdString(a->text()) << "(" << a->getLengthOfText() << ")";
  a -> setText( b-> text());
  qDebug() << QString::fromStdString(a->text()) << "(" << a->getLengthOfText() << ")";
  return a->getLengthOfText() - c->getLengthOfText();
}
File Output 
const char *filename="/home/brb/file";
string filename2;
std::ofstream myfile
myfile.open(filename, ios::out | ios::app);
myfile.open(filename); // Error
myfile.open(filename.c_str());
if (!myfile.is_open()) return;
myfile << "ABC\n";
myfile.close();

Qstring filename;
QFile file(filename)
if (!file.open(QFile::WriteOnly | QFile::Text)) return;
QTextStream  out(&file);
out << "ABC\n";
file.flush();
file.close();

Forward Declaration

The forward declarations of the Qt classes tells the C++ compiler that a class exists, without giving all the detail that a class definition provides. 

// <finddialog.h>
class QCheckBox;

On the other hand, we can simply include QtGui in the cpp file. That saves us to include every class we need individually. 

// <finddialog.cpp>
#include <QtGui>
#include "finddialog.h"
FindDialog::FindDialog(QWidget *parent) : QDialog(parent)
{
 ...
}

Subclass and Parent in constructor

The QDialog in the class definition shows the base class for FindDialog class.

The parent parameter in FindDialog constructor specifies the parent widget (QWidget). The default is a null pointer, meaning that the dialog has no parent.

The private variable is a pointer declared in the header file. So the compiler does not need the full class definition. We could have included the header file <QCheckBox> in the header file, but using forward declarations will makes compiling faster. 

// <finddialog.h>
class FindDialog : public QDialog
{
   Q_OBJECT
  public:
    FindDialog(QWidget *parent = 0);
  private;
    QCheckBox *caseCheckBox;
}

Naming Convention

  • Class name starts with an uppercase letter and the words are divided using Camel-Casing.
  • The names of the methods all start with a lowercase letter, and the words are again divided by using CamelCasing.

Widgets and layouts

http://doc.qt.io/qt-4.8/widgets-and-layouts.html

Layout of a widget

See http://doc.qt.io/qt-4.8/layout.html#adding-widgets-to-a-layout. We can use setLayout() method to a widget. The layout itself can contains several widgets that can be added to the layout using the addWidget() method. See an example (from the layout documentation) below 

    QWidget *window = new QWidget;
    QPushButton *button1 = new QPushButton("One");
    QPushButton *button2 = new QPushButton("Two");
    QPushButton *button3 = new QPushButton("Three");
    QPushButton *button4 = new QPushButton("Four");
    QPushButton *button5 = new QPushButton("Five");

    QHBoxLayout *layout = new QHBoxLayout;
    layout->addWidget(button1);
    layout->addWidget(button2);
    layout->addWidget(button3);
    layout->addWidget(button4);
    layout->addWidget(button5);

    window->setLayout(layout);
    window->show();

See the following diagram 

Widget
+-----------------------+
|    Layout             |
|  +-----------------+  |
|  | Widget 1        |  |
|  | Widget 2        |  |
|  | ...             |  |
|  +-----------------+  |
+-----------------------+

(from the layout documentation) Note: Widgets in a layout are children of the widget on which the layout is installed, not of the layout itself. Widgets can only have other widgets as parent, not layouts.

You can nest layouts using addLayout() on a layout; the inner layout then becomes a child of the layout it is inserted into.

Memory Management

Parent is on heap. So it has to be deleted manually. 

#include <QtGui>
#include "addressbook.h"
//...every needed header

int main(...) {
   //QApplication app ....
   QWidget *parent = new QWidget; //a parent for your addressbook 
   AddressBook *myAddressBook = new AddressBook(parent); //pass a pointer to parent widget when you construct an AddressBook object
   //... other code, maybe some layout if necessary...
   parent->show(); //will show the chidren widgets too
   
   int returnValue = app.exec();
   delete parent; //this will delete the parent children too
   return returnValue;
}

OR creating parent on the stack 

int main(...) {
   //QApplication app ....
   QWidget parent; //a parent for your addressbook - parent is created on stack
   AddressBook *myAddressBook = new AddressBook(&parent); //pass a pointer to parent widget when you construct an AddressBook object
   //... other code, maybe some layout if necessary...
   parent.show(); //will show the chidren widgets too

   return app.exec();
}

Bundle a file in app

Check out The Qt Resource System

Scientific Plot

http://www.qcustomplot.com/

QSettings

If QSettings object does not specify a file, the default location is defined here.

For example in my main.cpp, 

    QApplication app(argc, argv);
    app.setOrganizationName("Trolltech");
    app.setApplicationName("Recent Files Example");

then the ini file is saved in "/home/brb/.config/Trolltech/Recent Files Example.conf" as indicated by 

    QSettings settings;
    qDebug() << settings.fileName();

To set or retrieve a key from the setting, use 

settings.setValue("bowtie", inputBowtie);
settings.setValue("recentFiles", recentFiles);

inputBowtie = settings.value("bowtie", "").toString();
recentFiles = settings.value("recentFiles").toStringList();

There are different locations we can use to save the parameter file.

  • The following way will create an entry <testSettings> under <Computer\HKey_CURRENT_USER\Software\ArrayTools> on Windows registry on Windows OS (NativeFormat will be used).
    QSettings settings("ArrayTools", "testSettings");
  • The following way will create a folder name <ArrayTools> and a file <Heatmap.ini> in %AppData% folder (C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming) on Windows OS.
QSettings settings(QSettings::IniFormat, QSettings::UserScope, "ArrayTools", "Heatmap"); // %APPDATA%
  • The following way will create a file <test.ini> under a desired folder on Windows OS. Note that if we omit the QSettings::IniFormat option, the parameter file will not be working (read/write).
QSettings settings(QString("C:/Qt/examples/BRCA/test.ini"), QSettings::IniFormat);
  • The following way will create a file <.BDGE.ini> under %HOME% directory on Linux OS.
QString m_sSettingsFile = "/home/" + QString(getenv("USER")) + "/.BDGE.ini";
QSettings settings(m_sSettingsFile, QSettings::NativeFormat);

.pri file, subprojects

Misc

  • If we want to create a new class member to be used in class method, we should declare it in the header file. For example, look at the variable 'label' below. Of course, variables only used locally have not this rule.
class MyButton : public QWidget
{
   Q_OBJECT
public:
    MyButton(QWidget *parent = 0);
    QLabel *label;
private slots:
    void showText();
};

MyButton::MyButton(QWidget *parent)
    : QWidget(parent)
{
  label = new QLabel(); // NOT QLabel *label = new QLabel();
}

void MyButton::showText()
{
  label->setText("My Text!");
}

Qt Quick

Documentation using Doxygen

sudo apt-get install doxygen doxygen-gui

Then run 

doxywizard

from a terminal. The rest should be trivial: enter project directory (nothing will be generated here actually), source code directory and output directory. Click Next. Click 'Run' tab to create HTML file. Click 'x' to quit and choose the default name 'Doxyfile' for the doxy file (> 900 lines). We can click 'Open HTML output' button to see the output or go to the output folder and select html/index.html or html/annotated.html file to view the result.

Note that the input and output (absolute path) values will be written to 'Doxyfile'.

If the source code was changed, we just need to run the following command to update files in the doxy output folder. 

doxygen

We can also create Doxyfile from scratch by running 

doxygen -g

and then generate (default) output files by running 

doxygen Doxyfile  # Or just doxygen

A better practice is to create a project folder and then create subfolders like 

MyProject/
         |--doc/
         |-->Doxyfile 
         |--src/

doxywizard

DoxyWizard.png

Qt Tricks

C++11 support

Add the following to the .pro file. 

CONFIG += c++11

A simple C++ code that uses a range-based for loops is: 

 int my_array[5] = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5};
for(int &x : my_array)
{
  x *= 3;
}

Break long text

Set Windows initial posiiton

Set main window initial position

Get the current working path

Use QCoreApplication::applicationDirPath() to get the current working path or QFile::absolutePath() to get the absolute path from relative one.

Pop up a help file

  • QMessageBox: no maximize button on top-right corner. Cannot resize (old Qheatmap)
  • QTextBrowser: the html file cannot be part of C++ (Qtextbrowser)
  • QLabel: No scroll bar (Qt07_BasicApplication)
  • QTextEdit: Good (used in Qheatmap)
  • QWebkit
  • QTextDocument: no scroll bar (Qt79_drawText)

Convert QString to std::string

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4214369/how-to-convert-qstring-to-stdstring 

.toStdString()

Convert QString to const char*

in C++03, ofstream::open takes const char* parameter.

If OutputFileName is std::string. 

ofstream CSVFile;
CSVFile.open(OutputFileName.c_str());

If outputFileName is Qstring 

CSVFile.open(OutputFileName.toStdString().c_str());

See QString::toStdString reference

Custom Plots

CPU/RAM real-time performance widget

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSHTXQbPquk and https://github.com/giordi91/performanceWidget

Use boost libraries with an example

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16998326/using-boost-libraries-in-qt

On Windows OS, we can add the following to the .pro file 

INCLUDEPATH += C:/boost/boost_1_53_0/
LIBS += "-LC:/boost/boost_1_53_0/stage/lib/"

On Ubuntu OS, I can use (the first line Qt += widgets is only necessary on Qt 5) 

QT += widgets
INCLUDEPATH += /home/brb/Downloads/boost_1_55_0/
LIBS += "-L/home/brb/Downloads/boost_1_55_0/stage/lib/"

The following is an example to compute the 95% percentile from the T distribution (df=195) is 

#include <QApplication>
#include <QLabel>

#include <boost/math/distributions/students_t.hpp>

using namespace std;
using boost::math::students_t;

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    QApplication a(argc, argv);

    int df = 195;
    double alpha = .1;
    students_t dist(df);
    double T = quantile(complement(dist, alpha / 2));

    QLabel *label = new QLabel("T(.95, df=195)=" + QString::number(T));
    label->show();

    return a.exec();
}

Home directory

QDir::homePath()

Qt Designer

From C++ GUI Programming with Qt book Chapter 2:

In the constructor, we call setupUi() to initialize the form. Thanks to multiple inheritance, we can access Ui::GoToCellDialog's members directly. After creating the user interface, setupUi() will also automatically connect any slots that follow the naming convention on_objectName_signalName() to the corresponding objectName's signalName() signal. In our example, this means that setupUi() will establish the following signal–slot connection: 

connect(lineEdit, SIGNAL(textChanged(const QString &)),
        this, SLOT(on_lineEdit_textChanged()));

However, just like the GUI created in VBA, the text in the QLabel can be cut. So it is best not to use Qt Designer from my opinion.

Cross compile Windows app on Linux

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10934683/how-do-i-configure-qt-for-cross-compilation-from-linux-to-windows-target

Snchronous processing of QProcess (without freezing the gui)

Google: Qprocess synchronous use. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11191988/qt-synchronous-processing-of-qprocess-without-freezing-the-gui 

[...]
ui->status->setText("Do something with program 1");
proc1.setReadChannelMode(QProcess::SeparateChannels);
proc1.start("program 1 -args", QIODevice::ReadWrite);
connect(proc1, SIGNAL(finished(int, QProcess::ExitStatus)), this, SLOT(finishedProc1()))
[...]

void finishedProc1()
{
   ui->status->setText("Do something with program 2");
   proc2.setReadChannelMode(QProcess::SeparateChannels);
   proc2.start("program 2 -args", QIODevice::ReadWrite);
   connect(proc2, SIGNAL(finished(int, QProcess::ExitStatus)), this, SLOT(finishedProc2()))
}

void finishedProc2()
{
  [...]
}

Reading the system() command output

Use QProcess. See this post. 

QProcess process;
process.start(/* command line stuff */);
process.waitForFinished(-1); // will wait forever until finished

QString stdout = process.readAllStandardOutput();
QString stderr = process.readAllStandardError();

Show table text file in QTableWidget

http://qt-project.org/forums/viewthread/31706 

#include <QApplication>
#include <QMainWindow>
#include <QTableWidget>
#include <QTableWidgetItem>
#include <QFile>
#include <QString>
#include <QStringList>
#include <QTextStream>
#include <QMessageBox>
#include <QDebug>

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
    QApplication app(argc, argv);
    QMainWindow *window = new QMainWindow();
    QMessageBox msg;

    QFile file("Data.txt");
    if(!file.open(QIODevice::ReadOnly))
    msg.information(0,"Error!","Error opening file!",0);

    QTextStream in(&file);
    QStringList *loadCsv;
    QTableWidget *myTable=new QTableWidget();

    int rowsCount = 1;

    while(!in.atEnd())
    {
        loadCsv = new QStringList(in.readLine().split(";"));
        myTable->setRowCount(rowsCount);
        myTable->setColumnCount(loadCsv->size());
        for(int col = 0; col < loadCsv->size(); ++col)
        {
            QTableWidgetItem *items= new QTableWidgetItem(loadCsv->at(col));
            myTable->setItem((rowsCount - 1), col, items);
        }
        rowsCount++;
        delete loadCsv;
    }
    window->setCentralWidget(myTable);
    window->show();
    return app.exec();
}

and the Data.txt file 

bq. John Kl;34;1335532;CA;0444344
Kuma jo;54;44432;NY;0322355
Lebal ho;24;44022;NY;0110004

Creating spinning image/progress spinner

Adding a child to QMainWindow

This is related to the error message Attempting to set QLayout "" on MainWindow "", which already has a layout. See

Shape-Changing Dialogs

Extension Dialogs

Multi-page dialogs

QTabWidget and QToolBox

Place widget in the center of screen

#include <QDesktopWidget>
...
Widget w;
w.move(QApplication::desktop()->screen()->rect().center() - w.rect().center());
w.show();

Create resource file

For example, if we want to include an image as a background for QTextEdit, then we can do put the following in <main.cpp> 

#include <QtGui>

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
     QApplication app(argc, argv);

     QTextEdit* edit = new QTextEdit();
     edit->setWindowTitle("QTextEdit Background Image");

     edit->setStyleSheet("background-image: url(:/image/cherryblossom_pink.jpg)");

     // the following 4 lines are playing with font       
     edit->setTextColor(QColor("white"));
     edit->setFont (QFont ("Courier", 20));
     edit->setText("Can you see me?");
     edit->setGeometry(100,100, 480, 272);

     edit->show();
     return app.exec();
}

The image file <cherryblossom_pink.jpg> can be (not necessary) in the source directory.

To add a resource file

  1. right click project name and choose 'add new'
  2. choose 'Qt resource file'. Enter 'resource' for the resource file name (Qt will add .qrc as ext name)
  3. click 'Add Prefix'. Type '/image' for instance.
  4. click 'Add file'. It will open a file explorer for us to browse files we want.
  5. We can refer to this image file by adding colon, prefix and file name such as the above example.

The image file will part of executable file. We can access the file at run time. We can add any files in the resource file. The prefix mechanism is just a way to organize these files when we want to refer them in our code.

Search files in a directory (QDir and QStringList)

#include <QApplication>
#include <QStringList>
#include <QDir>
#include <QtDebug>
int main(int argv, char **args)
{
   QApplication app(argv, args);

   QStringList nameFilter("*.fastq");
   QDir directory("/home/brb/Anders2013small");
   QStringList files = directory.entryList(nameFilter);
   for (int i = 0; i < files.size(); ++i)
       qDebug() << files.at(i) ;

   return app.exec();
}

QRegExp

#include <QApplication>
#include <QString>
#include <QStringList>
#include <QRegExp>
#include <QDebug>
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
   QString str;
   str = QString("-o Serum") ;
   QStringList strlist;
   strlist = str.split(" ");
   QRegExp rx("Ser");
   foreach (const QString &str, strlist) {
       qDebug() << "str " << str ;
       qDebug() << "indexIn " << rx.indexIn(str);
        }
   qDebug() << "strlist.indexOf('Serum')" << strlist.indexOf("Serum");

   if (strlist.indexOf("-p") < 0 && strlist.indexOf("--num-threads")) strlist << "-p 5";
   foreach (const QString &str, strlist) {
       qDebug() << str ;
        }
   qDebug() << strlist.join(" ");
}

gives an output 

str  "-o" 
indexIn  -1 
str  "Serum" 
indexIn  0 
strlist.indexOf('Serum') 1 
"-o" 
"Serum" 
"-p 5" 
"-o Serum -p 5"

Query number of threads in CPU

#include <QThread>
....
qDebug() << QThread::idealThreadCount();

Sockets

Some application examples

  • Sending images (FOQ, Chapter 14)
  • Trip planner (C++GUIQt4, Chapter 15)
  • (TBQt4, Chapter 11.5)
  • (DesignPatters, not covering)
  • (AQtPr, not covering)
  • Trip palnner

Trouble Shooting

Undefined reference to vtable

Close the project in Qt-Creator. Open a terminal, cd to the project directory and run 

qmake -project
qmake
make

Gtk-CRITICAL **: IA__gtk_widget_style_get: assertion `GTK_IS_WIDGET (widget)' failed

See this post from stackoverflow.com.

Couldn't register with accessibility bus:

Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.

One solution is to open a terminal, run the following line 

export NO_AT_BRIDGE=1

and finally run the application from the same terminal.

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