Book Image

Cross-Platform Development with Qt 6 and Modern C++

By : Nibedit Dey
Book Image

Cross-Platform Development with Qt 6 and Modern C++

By: Nibedit Dey

Overview of this book

Qt is a cross-platform application development framework widely used for developing applications that can run on a wide range of hardware platforms with little to no change in the underlying codebase. If you have basic knowledge of C++ and want to build desktop or mobile applications with a modern graphical user interface (GUI), Qt is the right choice for you. Cross-Platform Development with Qt 6 and Modern C++ helps you understand why Qt is one of the favorite GUI frameworks adopted by industries worldwide, covering the essentials of programming GUI apps across a multitude of platforms using the standard C++17 and Qt 6 features. Starting with the fundamentals of the Qt framework, including the features offered by Qt Creator, this practical guide will show you how to create classic user interfaces using Qt Widgets and touch-friendly user interfaces using Qt Quick. As you advance, you'll explore the Qt Creator IDE for developing applications for multiple desktops as well as for embedded and mobile platforms. You will also learn advanced concepts about signals and slots. Finally, the book takes you through debugging and testing your app with Qt Creator IDE. By the end of this book, you'll be able to build cross-platform applications with a modern GUI along with the speed and power of native apps.

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Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Preface
Preface
Who this book is for
What this book covers
To get the most out of this book
Download the example code files
Download the color images
Conventions used
Get in touch
Reviews
1
Section 1: The Basics
Section 1: The Basics
Free Chapter
2
Chapter 1: Introduction to Qt 6
Chapter 1: Introduction to Qt 6
Technical requirements
Introducing Qt
Reasons for using Qt
Downloading and installing Qt
Building Qt 6 from source
Summary
3
Chapter 2: Introduction to Qt Creator
Chapter 2: Introduction to Qt Creator
Technical requirements
Exploring the Qt Creator UI
Building a simple Qt application
Understanding advanced options
Summary
4
Chapter 3: GUI Design Using Qt Widgets
Chapter 3: GUI Design Using Qt Widgets
Technical requirements
Introducing Qt widgets
Creating a UI with Qt Designer
Managing layouts
Creating custom widgets
Creating Qt Style Sheets and custom themes
Exploring custom styles
Using widgets, windows, and dialogs
Summary
5
Chapter 4: Qt Quick and QML
Chapter 4: Qt Quick and QML
Technical requirements
Getting started with QML and Qt Quick
Understanding Qt Quick Controls
Creating a simple Qt Quick application
Designing a UI with Qt Quick Designer
Positioners and layouts in QML
Integrating QML with C++
Integrating QML with JS
Handling mouse and touch events
Summary
6
Section 2: Cross-Platform Development
Section 2: Cross-Platform Development
7
Chapter 5: Cross-Platform Development
Chapter 5: Cross-Platform Development
Technical requirements
Understanding cross-platform development
Understanding compilers
Building with qmake
Qt Project (.pro) files
Understanding build settings
Platform-specific settings
Using Qt with Microsoft Visual Studio
Running a Qt application on Linux
Running a Qt application on macOS and iOS
Other Qt-supported platforms
Porting from Qt 5 into Qt 6
Summary
8
Section 3: Advanced Programming, Debugging, and Deployment
Section 3: Advanced Programming, Debugging, and Deployment
9
Chapter 6: Signals and Slots
Chapter 6: Signals and Slots
Technical requirements
Understanding Qt signals and slots
The working mechanism of Qt signals and slots
Getting to know Qt's property system
Using signals and slots in Qt Designer
Understanding signals and the handler event system in QML
Understanding events and the event loop
Managing events with an event filter
Drag and drop
Summary
10
Chapter 7: Model View Programming
Chapter 7: Model View Programming
Technical requirements
Understanding the M/V architecture
Creating a simple Qt Widgets application using the M/V pattern
Understanding Models and Views in QML
Using C++ Models with QML
Creating a simple M/V application with Qt Quick
Summary
11
Chapter 8: Graphics and Animations
Chapter 8: Graphics and Animations
Technical requirements
Understanding Qt's graphics framework
QPainter and 2D graphics
Introducing the Graphics View framework
Understanding the Qt OpenGL module
Graphics in Qt Quick
Understanding the Qt Quick scene graph
Shader effects
Using the Canvas QML type
Understanding particle simulations
Animation in Qt Widgets
Animation and transitions in Qt Quick
States, state machine, and transitions in Qt Quick
The state machine in Qt Widgets
Summary
12
Chapter 9: Testing and Debugging
Chapter 9: Testing and Debugging
Technical requirements
Debugging in Qt
Debugging strategies
Debugging a C++ application
Debugging a Qt Quick application
Testing in Qt
Integrating with Google's C++ testing framework
Testing Qt Quick applications
GUI testing tools
Summary
13
Chapter 10: Deploying Qt Applications
Chapter 10: Deploying Qt Applications
Technical requirements
Understanding the need for deployment
Deploying on desktop platforms
Using the Qt Installer Framework
Deploying on Android
Other installation tools
Summary
14
Chapter 11: Internationalization
Chapter 11: Internationalization
Technical requirements
Understanding internationalization and Qt Linguist
Writing source code for translation
Loading translations in a Qt application
Switching languages dynamically
Internationalization with Qt Widgets
Internationalization with Qt Quick
Deploying translations
Summary
15
Chapter 12: Performance Considerations
Chapter 12: Performance Considerations
Technical requirements
Understanding performance optimization
Optimizing C++ code
Using concurrency, parallelism, and multithreading
Profiling a Qt Quick application using QML Profiler and Flame Graph
Other Qt Creator analysis tools
Optimizing graphical performance
Creating benchmarks
Different analysis tools and optimization strategies
Performance considerations for Qt Widgets
Learning best practices of QML coding
Summary
Why subscribe?
16
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Introducing Qt

Qt is a cross-platform software development framework for desktop, embedded, and mobile platforms. It follows the philosophy of code less, create more, and deploy everywhere. It supports platforms such as Windows, Linux, macOS, VxWorks, QNX, Android, iOS, and so on. The software also supports several microcontroller units (MCUs) from NXP, Renesas, and STMicroelectronics running on bare metal or FreeRTOS.

Qt was born as an attempt to provide a uniform graphical user interface (GUI) with the same look, feel, and functionality across different platforms. Qt accomplishes that by providing a framework to write code once and ensure that it runs on other platforms with minimal or no modifications. It is not a programming language, but rather a framework written in C++. The Qt framework and tools are dual-licensed under open source and commercial licenses.

Qt uses a modular approach to group related functionalities together. Qt Essentials are the foundation of Qt on all platforms. These modules are general and useful for most Qt-based applications. Essential modules are available for open source usage. Examples of Qt Essentials modules are Qt Core, Qt GUI, Qt QML, Qt Widgets, and so on. There are also special-purpose add-on modules that provide specific functionalities and come with certain license obligations. Examples of add-on modules are Qt 3D, Qt Bluetooth, Qt Charts, Qt Data Visualization, and more. As well as this, there are value-added modules such as Qt Automotive Suite, Qt for Device Creation, and Qt for MCUs, among others available under the commercial license.

To find out more about different Qt modules, visit https://doc.qt.io/qt-6/qtmodules.html.

Qt was released for public use in 1995. Since then, there have been many improvements and major changes. Qt 6 is the new major version of Qt. Its main goals are to remain prepared for the requirements coming in 2020 and beyond, remove obsolete modules, and be more maintainable. With this focus, there are architectural changes in Qt 6 that may break some level of backward compatibility with earlier versions.

Some essential modifications in Qt 6 are outlined here:

  • Introduction of strong typing
  • JavaScript as an optional feature of Qt Modeling Language (QML)
  • Removal of QML versioning
  • Removal of the duplicate data structures between QObject and QML
  • Avoidance of the creation of runtime data structures
  • Compilation of QML into efficient C++ and native code
  • Support for hiding implementation details
  • Better integration of tools

Now that we've covered the basics, let's look at the main reasons for using Qt…

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