C++ is a powerful language. Coupled with Qt, you have in your hands a cross-platform framework that allies performance and ease of use. Qt is a vast framework that provides tools in many areas (GUI, threads, networking, and so on). 25 years after its inception, Qt continues to evolve and grow with each release.
This book aims to teach you how to squeeze the best out of Qt with the new C++14 additions (lambdas, smart pointers, enum classes, and so on). These two technologies together bring you a safe and powerful development toolbox. Throughout the book, we try to emphasize a clean architecture that lets you create and maintain your application in a complex environment.
Each chapter is based on an example project that is the basis of all the discussion. Here are some tasters about what we will see in this book:
Uncover qmake secrets
Take a deep dive in the model/view architecture and study how you can build a complex application with this pattern
Study QML and Qt Quick applications in mobile
Develop Qt 3D components using QML and JavaScript
Show how to develop plugins and SDKs using Qt
Cover the multi-threading technologies provided by Qt
Build an IPC mechanism using sockets
Serialize data using XML, JSON, and binary format
We'll cover all this and much, much more.
Note that you can take a look at Chapter 14, Qt Hat Tips and Tricks, whenever you want if you want to get some development candies and see some code snippets that might make your development more pleasurable.
And most importantly, have fun writing Qt applications!
Chapter 1, Get Your Qt Feet Wet, lays the fundamentals of Qt and refreshes your memory with a todo application. This chapter covers the Qt project structure, how to use the designer, basic principles of the signals and slots mechanism, and introduces new features of C++14.
Chapter 2, Discovering QMake Secrets, takes a deep dive in the heart of the Qt compilation system: qmake. This chapter will help you understand how it works, how to use it, and how you can structure a Qt application with platform-specific code by designing a system monitoring application.
Chapter 3, Dividing Your Project and Ruling Your Code, analyzes the Qt model/view architecture and how a project can be organized by developing a custom library with the core logic of the application. The project example is a persistent gallery application.
Chapter 4, Conquering the Desktop UI, studies the UI perspective of the model/view architecture with a Qt Widget application relying on the library completed in the previous chapter.
Chapter 5, Dominating the Mobile UI, adds the missing part of the gallery application with the mobile version (Android and iOS); the chapter covers it with the use of QML, Qt Quick controls, and QML / C++ interactions.
Chapter 6, Even Qt Deserves a Slice of Raspberry Pi, continues to the road on Qt Quick application with the Qt 3D perspective. This chapter covers how to build a 3D snake game targeted at the Raspberry Pi.
Chapter 7, Third-Party Libraries Without a Headache, covers how a third-party library can be integrated in a Qt project. OpenCV will be integrated with an image filter application that also provides a custom QDesigner plugin.
Chapter 8, Animations, It’s Alive, Alive!, extends the image filter application by adding animations and the ability to distribute a custom SDK to let other developers add their own filters.
Chapter 9, Keeping Your Sanity with Multithreading, investigates the multithreading facilities provided by Qt by building a multithreaded Mandelbrot fractal drawing application.
Chapter 10, Need IPC? Get Your Minions to Work, broadens the Mandelbrot fractal application by moving the calculation to other processes and managing the communication using sockets.
Chapter 11, Having Fun with Serialization, covers multiple serialization formats (JSON, XML, and binary) inside a drum machine application in which you can record and load sound loops.
Chapter 12, You Shall (Not) Pass with QTest, adds tests to the drum machine application and studies how the Qt Test frameworks can be used to make unit tests, benchmarking, and GUI events simulation
Chapter 13, All Packed and Ready to Deploy, gives insights into how to package an application on all desktop OSes (Windows, Linux, and Mac OS) and mobile platforms (Android and iOS).
Chapter 14, Qt Hat Tips and Tricks, gathers some tips and tricks to develop with Qt with pleasure. It shows how to manage sessions in Qt Creator, useful Qt Creator keyboard shortcuts, how you can customize the logging, save it to disk, and much more.
All the code in this book can be compiled and run from Qt Creator using Qt 5.7. You can do it from your preferred OS: Windows, Linux, or Mac OS.
About the mobile-specific chapters, either an Android or an iOS device works, but it is not mandatory (the simulator/emulator can be enough).
Chapter 6, Even Qt Deserves a Slice of Raspberry Pi, offers to build an application running on a Raspberry Pi. Although it is more fun if we can do it with a real Raspberry Pi, it is not necessary to have one to complete the chapter.
This book will appeal to developers and programmers who would like to build GUI-based application. You should be fluent with C++ and the object-oriented paradigm. Qt knowledge is recommended, but is not necessary.
In this book, you will find a number of text styles that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "The qmake command is executed with the project .pro file."
A block of code is set as follows:
void MemoryWidget::updateSeries()
{
double memoryUsed = SysInfo::instance().memoryUsed();
mSeries->append(mPointPositionX++, memoryUsed);
if (mSeries->count() > CHART_X_RANGE_COUNT) {
QChart* chart = chartView().chart();
chart->scroll(chart->plotArea().width()
/ CHART_X_RANGE_MAX, 0);
mSeries->remove(0);
}
}When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:
windows {
SOURCES += SysInfoWindowsImpl.cpp
HEADERS += SysInfoWindowsImpl.h
debug {
SOURCES += DebugClass.cpp
HEADERS += DebugClass.h
}
}Any command-line input or output is written as follows:
/path/to/qt/installation/5.7/gcc_64/bin/qmake -makefile -o Makefile /path/to/sysinfoproject/ch02-sysinfo.pro
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, appear in the text like this: "In Qt Creator, when you click on the Build button, qmake is invoked."
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