Cross-Platform Applications using Qt

By ghutchis at Mon, Dec 7 2009 1:12pm |

One of the few modern cross-platform toolkits is Qt -- which allows near-native applications on Mac, Linux, Windows, and other UNIX platforms.

Yes, here at MacResearch, we prefer Mac-native applications. But if you want to run something on Linux or Windows as well as your Mac, Qt is a nice way to go. Recent versions even allow Cocoa-Qt hybrid coding, allowing you to add Mac-specific capabilities where you want.

I'll be adding a few tutorials on using Qt on Mac, but one of the best documentation sources is now completely online: C++ GUI Programming with Qt4, 2nd Edition.

Here's a link to each of the chapters:

  1. Getting Started
  2. Creating Dialogs
  3. Creating Main Windows
  4. Implementing Application Functionality
  5. Creating Custom Widgets
  6. Layout Management
  7. Event Processing
  8. 2D Graphics
  9. Drag and Drop
  10. Item View Classes
  11. Container Classes
  12. Input/Output
  13. Databases
  14. Multithreading
  15. Networking
  16. XML
  17. Providing Online Help
  18. Internationalization
  19. Look and Feel Customization
  20. 3D Graphics
  21. Creating Plugins
  22. Application Scripting
  23. Platform-Specific Features
  24. Embedded Programming
  25. Obtaining and Installing Qt
  26. Building Qt Applications
  27. Qt Jambi (i.e., Qt with Java)
  28. C++ for Java and C# Programmers

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Tue, 2009-12-08 09:53 — lbland

RE: Cross-Platform Applications using Qt

ANSI C is cross platform and has a user interface paradigm: it is called: printf() and scanf(). (that's a joke, but not really a joke as many see it that way). If you need more than that, then Qt is pretty good. Its layout managers are a lot different than Cocoa and turn the UI layout into a run-time algorithm. If you need ultimate precision in the UI then Cocoa is the way to go on the Mac and you will always fight Qt to get precision. But, Qt is definitely a quick solution to throw up some buttons and fields.

Some might contend that Java is the more modern cross-platform toolkit.

... for someone that is picky though, Cocoa is the only solution on the Mac (and MFC on Windows - am I allowed to mention MFC ? :-) ). ... of course, don't get me going on the heart-of-heart cross-plaform toolkits: the dreaded and lost yellowbox.

thanks!-
-lance
VVI