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

Platform-specific settings

You can define different configurations for different platforms, since not every configuration can fit all use cases. For example, if you want to include different header paths for different operating systems, you can add the following lines of code to your .pro file:

win32: INCLUDEPATH += "C:/mylibs/windows_headers"
unix:INCLUDEPATH += "/home/user/linux_headers"

In the preceding code snippet, we have added some Windows-specific and Linux-specific header files. You can also put configurations such as if statements in C++, as shown here:

win32 {
    SOURCES += windows_code.cpp
}

The preceding code is intended only for Windows platforms, which is why we have added a win32 keyword before it. If your target platform is based on Linux, then you can add a unix keyword to add Linux-specific configurations.

To set a custom icon for your application on the Windows platform, you should add the following line of...