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.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
1
Section 1: The Basics
6
Section 2: Cross-Platform Development
8
Section 3: Advanced Programming, Debugging, and Deployment

Introducing Qt widgets

A widget is the basic element of a GUI. It is also known as a UI control. It accepts different user events such as mouse and keyboard events (and other events) from the underlying platform. We create UIs using different widgets. There was a time when all GUI controls were written from scratch. Qt widgets reduce time by developing a desktop GUI with ready-to-use GUI controls, and Qt widely uses the concept of inheritance. All widgets inherit from QObject. QWidget is a basic widget and is the base class of all UI widgets. It contains most of the properties required to describe a widget, along with properties such as geometry, color, mouse, keyboard behavior, tooltips, and so on. Let's have a look at QWidget inheritance hierarchy in the following diagram:

Figure 3.1 – QWidget class hierarchy

Most of the Qt widget names are self-explanatory and can be identified easily as they start with Q. Some of them are listed here:

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