Qt for Symbian

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What is Qt?

Qt [pronounced 'cute'] is a cross-platform application framework. Using Qt, you can develop applications and user interfaces, and deploy them across many desktop and embedded operating systems without needing to rewrite the source code.

The vision is to have Qt Everywhere and enable developers to create advanced applications with innovative user experiences while getting the applications to market quickly. Qt allows you to code once and deploy across major device and desktop operating systems.

In October 2008 at the Symbian Smartphone Show, Qt announced the porting of Qt to S60 on Symbian OS and made available a technology preview of the S60 port of Qt.

If you are new to Qt, it is recommended that you become familiar with Qt by evaluating it before using the Qt for Symbian technology preview. For more information, see How to Learn Qt.

Qt for Symbian Technology Preview

Qt is still in the process of being ported to S60. The current technology preview is called Tower. This release contains QtCore, QtTest, QtGui, QtNetwork, QtScript, QtSvg, QtSql, QtWebKit, Phonon, and QtXML as well as documentation and code examples. Visit the Qt for Symbian Technology Preview website for the download.

The Qt for Symbian Developer's Library is the main source of information for Qt for Symbian, including details about how Qt relates to S60 and Symbian OS.

For more information about installing Qt for Symbian, see the Qt for Symbian installation guide in the Qt for Symbian Developer's Library. The article Qt for Symbian - Installation packages describes the current technology preview installation kit and provides a list of the earlier technology previews.

Patches for the S60 development environment are available on the Qt for Symbian Technology Preview website.

Important Notice

Please note that the release of Qt for Symbian is only an early technology preview. It is not an official product. A significant part of the framework is still to be completed and some features may not perform as expected. So far, only a subset of the Qt modules has been ported to S60. The remaining modules are being worked on and will be available in the full release of Qt for Symbian. P

Learning Qt

The best way to learn Qt is to try it on one of the fully supported platforms, such as Microsoft Windows. To start with Windows, install the package found on the Qt for Application Development Platform web page.

Note: For Windows Vista, there can be a problem with the file mingwm10.dll missing from the C:\windows\system directory. To solve this problem, do a Google search for "mingwm10.dll download" and get a copy from one of the free websites. When the file has been placed in the correct directory, go to Start > All Programs > Qt by Nokia v4.4.3 (OpenSource) > Designer to open the Qt Designer GUI.

For extensive Qt documentation, see Reference Documentation for Qt.

Go through all the examples and demos that are included with the SDK.

Qt Creator IDE

Qt Creator IDE is a tool for creating Qt applications that eliminates the need for operating system or device emulators. The tool has also been implemented efficiently to minimise download size as well as processor and disk space requirements. The Qt Creator IDE is easy to install and the IDE enables developers to create Qt applications quickly and easily.

Qt tools

Qt is supplied with several command line and graphical tools to simplify and speed up the development process. Each tool is listed here with a link to its documentation.

Qt Designer: Create forms visually.
Qt Assistant: Quickly find the help you need.
Qt Linguist, lupdate, lrelease: Translate applications to reach international markets.
qmake: Create makefiles from simple platform-independent project (.pro) files.
Meta-Object Compiler (moc): Generate meta-object information for QObject subclasses.
User Interface Compiler (uic): Generate C++ code from user interface files.
Resource Compiler (rcc): Embed resources into Qt applications during the build process.
Configuring Qt (qtconfig): X11-based Qt configuration tool with online help.
Examples and Demos Launcher: A launcher for Qt's Examples and Demonstration programs for Platforms.
Qt's Examples and Demonstration programs for S60.
qt3to4 - The Qt 3 to 4 Porting Tool: A tool to assist in porting applications from Qt 3 to Qt 4. (Please note: Code ported from Qt 3 to Qt 4 will not be supported on Qt for Symbian).
QtDBus XML compiler (qdbusxml2cpp): A tool to convert D-Bus interface descriptions to C++ source code.
D-Bus Viewer: A tool for examining D-Bus objects and messages.

Qt Books

Nokia to Add LGPL to Qt Licensing Model

Qt for Symbian Developer's Library

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