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<a class="ulink" href="http://qt.nokia.com" target="_top">http://qt.nokia.com</a>
</p><p>
<span class="application">Qt</span>'s latest version is 4.8, but it is usually
referred to as "<span class="application">Qt</span> 4" to avoid confusion with the
previous major release, <span class="application">Qt</span> 3. The
<span class="trademark">KDE</span>™ 3.5.x desktop was built using
<span class="application">Qt</span> 3 and the <span class="trademark">KDE</span>™ 4.x desktop
was built using <span class="application">Qt</span> 4. The two versions are not
compatible, and a tool is provided to migrate applications built with
<span class="application">Qt</span> 3 to <span class="application">Qt</span> 4. Some
classes, methods, and properties in <span class="application">Qt</span> 3, however,
were not carried forward into <span class="application">Qt</span> 4, and those will
have to be replaced using existing <span class="application">Qt</span> 4 objects.
</p><p>
The <span class="application">Qt</span> (pronounced <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">cute</span>”</span>) toolkit
includes three major components, plus the <span class="application">QtCreator</span>
<acronym class="acronym">IDE</acronym> and the <span class="application">Qt</span>-
<acronym class="acronym">SDK</acronym>. They are produced by <span class="trademark">Nokia</span>™,
which purchased <span class="application">Qt</span> from the original developer,
<span class="trademark">Trolltech</span>™ so that <span class="trademark">Nokia</span>™ could use
<span class="application">Qt</span> to develop their mobile phone
<acronym class="acronym">OS</acronym>, <span class="trademark">Symbian</span>™. They also use
<span class="application">Qt</span> to support <span class="trademark">MeeGo</span>™, an open
source <span class="trademark">Linux</span>™ project which brings together the
<span class="trademark">Moblin</span>™ project, headed up by
<span class="trademark">Intel</span>™, and <span class="trademark">Maemo</span>™, by
<span class="trademark">Nokia</span>™, into a single open source activity.
<span class="trademark">Nokia</span>™ states that <span class="quote">“<span class="quote"><span class="trademark">MeeGo</span>™
integrates the experience and skills of two significant development
ecosystems, versed in communications and computing technologies. The
<span class="trademark">MeeGo</span>™ project believes these two pillars form the
technical foundations for next generation platforms and usages in the mobile
and device platforms space. <span class="trademark">MeeGo</span>™ currently targets
platforms such as netbooks/entry-level desktops, hand held computing and
communications devices, in-vehicle infotainment devices, connected
<acronym class="acronym">TV</acronym>s, and media phones.</span>”</span>
</p><div class="note" style="margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in;"><h3 class="title">Note</h3><p>
On February 11, 2011, <span class="trademark">Nokia</span>™ announced a
<span class="quote">“<span class="quote">partnership</span>”</span> with <span class="trademark">Microsoft</span>™ in which
<span class="trademark">Nokia</span>™ will replace <span class="trademark">Symbian</span>™ with
<span class="trademark">Windows Phone 7</span>™ in wealthy American and European markets,
but continue to use <span class="trademark">Symbian</span>™ in India and other poorer
regions. Because of a huge outcry by <span class="application">Qt</span> and open
source supporters who contributed to <span class="trademark">Symbian</span>™,
<span class="trademark">Meego</span>™, and <span class="trademark">Maemo</span>™,
<span class="trademark">Nokia</span>™ released a <a class="ulink" href="http://blog.qt.nokia.com/2011/02/12/nokia-new-strategic-direction-what-is-the-future-for-qt" target="_top">
blog message</a> the next day. It seems they need
<span class="application">Qt</span> in order to continue to support
<span class="trademark">Symbian</span>™ on the 200 million <span class="trademark">Nokia</span>™
phones that run it, and <span class="trademark">MeeGo</span>™ and
<span class="trademark">Maemo</span>™ for a <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">disruptive</span>”</span> presence in the
markets for which they are being offered. But, the partnership puts the
commercial version of <span class="application">Qt</span> in a questionable light due
to the influence of <span class="trademark">Microsoft</span>™ and the history of its
partnership with <span class="trademark">Novell</span>™ and others which no longer
exist.
</p></div><p>
</p><p>
<span class="application">Qt</span>'s three major components are the Designer, the
Linguist and the Application Programming Interface (<acronym class="acronym">API</acronym>).
The <span class="application">Qt</span> toolkit allows you to write source code for
advanced applications with graphical user interfaces on either
<span class="trademark">Linux</span>™, <span class="trademark">Windows</span>™, or
<span class="trademark">Mac</span>™. It compiles them on all three platforms and
embedded operating systems with little or no rewriting of the source code,
saving time and development costs.
</p><p>
Since the <span class="application">Qt</span> Toolkit is under the
<span class="trademark">GPL</span>™/<span class="trademark">LGPL</span>™, it is not threatened by
this partnership, and <span class="trademark">Canonical</span>™ announced that they are
going to use <span class="application">Qt</span> instead of
<span class="trademark">GNOME</span>™ to develop their <span class="trademark">Unity</span>™ 2D
desktop. So, considering that, and the fact that <span class="application">Qt</span>
is under the <span class="trademark">GPL</span>™/<span class="trademark">LGPL</span>™ license,
<span class="application">Qt</span> remains as viable a development tool as it was
before the announcement.
</p><p>
<span>Kubuntu</span> uses the <span class="trademark">KDE</span>™ desktop, and
<span class="trademark">KDE</span>™ was built with <span class="application">Qt</span>. Some
would say that <span class="application">Qt</span> is the most powerful
<acronym class="acronym">GUI RAD</acronym> tool available on <span class="trademark">Linux</span>™, and
<span class="trademark">Windows</span>™ as well.
</p><div class="sect2"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a name="idp3663712"></a>Installation of <span class="application">Qt</span></h3></div></div></div><p>
The entire <span class="application">Qt</span> toolkit is in the repository as qt-sdk
or as part of the <span class="application">Qt</span> <acronym class="acronym">SDK</acronym>
available from the <a class="ulink" href="http://qt.nokia.com/downloads" target="_top">http://qt.nokia.com/downloads</a>
website under either the <span class="trademark">LGPL</span>™ or a commercial license.
The latest version is 1.2 and is available from <span class="trademark">Nokia</span>™ in
either the <a class="ulink" href="http://qt.nokia.com/downloads/sdk-linux-x11-32bit-cpp" target="_top">
32 bit</a> or <a class="ulink" href="http://qt.nokia.com/downloads/sdk-linux-x11-64bit-cpp" target="_top">64 bit</a>
version. Each includes the <span class="application">QtCreator</span>, the Designer,
the Assistant (<acronym class="acronym">API</acronym>), the Linguist, and all the necessary
libraries and utilities. <span class="application">Qt</span> <acronym class="acronym">SDK</acronym>
can be installed in the user's home account and used to create applications
regardless of which version of <span class="application">Qt</span> libraries the
<span class="trademark">KDE</span>™ desktop requires, because the <acronym class="acronym">SDK</acronym>
startup script sets the shell environment to point to the
<acronym class="acronym">SDK</acronym> libraries.
</p><p>
To use the <span class="application">QtCreator</span> without installing the
<acronym class="acronym">SDK</acronym>, one must first install the
<span class="application">Qt</span> components from the repository so that the
<span class="application">Qt</span> libraries, qmake, moc, debugger, and other
utilities will be available to be automatically located by
<span class="application">QtCreator</span> when it is installed. Installing the
following necessary packages in the order given will establish a proper
<span class="application">QtCreator</span> development environment:
</p><div class="orderedlist"><ol class="orderedlist" type="1"><li class="listitem"><p>
qt4-dev-tools
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
qt4-doc (installs the <acronym class="acronym">API</acronym> locally
— to save <acronym class="acronym">HD</acronym> space, use the online
version)
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
qt4-designer
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
qt4-make
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
qt4-qtconfig
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
libqt4-sqlite
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
qtcreator
</p></li></ol></div><p>
</p><p>
Several other packages might be necessary depending on your needs. For example,
if you want to create database applications, then libqt4-sql-psql,
libqt4-sql-mysql, and libqt4-sql-sqlite will allow you to connect to a
<span class="trademark">PostgreSQL</span>™, <span class="trademark">MySQL</span>™ or
<span class="trademark">SQLite3</span>™ database, respectively. Also consider qt4-demos,
libqt4-dbg, libqt4-network, libqt4-script, libqt4-xml, python-qt4
(<span class="trademark">Python</span>™ bindings), and libqt4-webkit.
</p><p>
One can also create <span class="application">Qt</span> applications using just
Qt-Designer, the Assistant, and the Linguist, by installing all of the 6
necessary packages listed above except for qtcreator, which can be replaced
using <span class="application">Kate</span> or your favorite text editor. In this
case one runs the Qt-Designer to create the graphical user interfaces
independent of the text editor used.
</p></div><div class="sect2"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a name="idp3678496"></a><span class="trademark">Qt</span>™ Designer</h3></div></div></div><p>
The Designer is the graphical user interface (<acronym class="acronym">GUI</acronym>) designing
tool for graphical applications written using the <span class="application">Qt</span>
toolkit. <span class="application">Qt</span> provides the building blocks —
a broad set of customizable widgets, graphics canvas, style engine, and more
that you need to build modern user interfaces. You can incorporate 3D graphics,
multimedia audio or video, visual effects, and animations into your projects.
<span class="application">Qt</span>'s integration with the
<span class="trademark">WebKit</span>™ web rendering engine means that one can quickly
incorporate content and services from the web into their native application,
and can use the web environment to deliver their services and functionality.
</p></div><div class="sect2"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a name="idp3681424"></a><span class="trademark">Qt</span>™ Linguist</h3></div></div></div><p>
The Linguist is <span class="application">Qt</span>'s i18n tool (the word
"internationalization" has 18 letters between its first and last letter). It
allows for easy creation of translation files which are used with the translate
(tr()) function to allow the text displayed by an application to be localized
to the language of the user.
</p></div><div class="sect2"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a name="idp3682856"></a><span class="trademark">Qt</span>™ Assistant</h3></div></div></div><p>
The Assistant is <span class="application">Qt</span>'s Application Programming
Interface (<acronym class="acronym">API</acronym>) with world class documentation for
<span class="application">Qt</span>. It deals with more than just
<span class="application">Qt</span>'s tools and classes. The <acronym class="acronym">API</acronym>
for any release of <span class="application">Qt</span>, its tools and addons can be
found <a class="ulink" href="http://doc.qt.nokia.com" target="_top">here</a>. It includes the
following: Class index, Function index, Modules, Namespaces, Global
Declarations, and the elements of the new declarative tool
<span class="trademark">QML</span>™.
</p><p>
Other <span class="application">Qt</span> <acronym class="acronym">API</acronym> Topics are:
Programming with <span class="application">Qt</span>, Device <acronym class="acronym">UI</acronym>'s
and <span class="application">Qt</span> Quick, <acronym class="acronym">UI</acronym> Design with
<span class="application">Qt</span>, Cross-platform and Platform-specific info,
<span class="application">Qt</span> and Key Technologies, and How-To's and Best
Practices. Several dozen examples are documented. The Assistant also includes
tutorials, demos and <span class="trademark">QML</span>™ examples.
</p></div><div class="sect2"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a name="idp3689128"></a>QtCreator</h3></div></div></div><p>
<span class="application">QtCreator</span> is <span class="application">Qt</span>'s
graphical <acronym class="acronym">IDE</acronym>, linking a powerful text editor, the Designer
and debugger in a <acronym class="acronym">GUI</acronym> environment. The
<span class="trademark">LGPL</span>™ version includes connectivity to
<span class="trademark">PostgreSQL</span>™ and other open source databases. The
commercial license allows connectivity to those open source databases and to
proprietary databases like <span class="trademark">Oracle</span>™.
<span class="application">QtCreator</span> is similar in power to
<span class="trademark">Microsoft's Visual Studio C++</span>™. Simple applications can
sometimes be created without having to write a single line of code. The
internet and <span class="trademark">YouTube</span>™ is full of tutorials and videos
describing all levels of <span class="application">Qt</span> development.
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