QT 4.5 Released, Plus New IDE and Analysis Tool
stoolpigeon writes "QT 4.5 has arrived and is now available for download. This new release is quite significant due to licensing changes that now make it simpler to use QT in a wider range of products without cost as well as a number of new features. The latest version of Webkit is now integrated into the product. Qt 4.5 sees the introduction of QtBenchLib, a new component to make measuring the performance of the toolkit and checking for regressions easier. Mac developers who use Qt will note a major reworking of 4.5 on the Mac, now providing 64-bit support. QT Creator is a new IDE that looks to have combined a number of previously separate tools. And there is much more."
Excellent. QuickTime from Apple is a great media viewer and I'm excited to see a new version released.
Interesting that there's nothing on the www.apple.com website about it... hmm... it must be released "on the QT" ( http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/qt?rdfrom=QT )
Qt is the most sensible C++ library I've ever used. And its sensibility reaches from string handling to the build process.
It allows you to untangle the mess that raw C++ is, and actually use the power.
Apple fanboy FAIL
In a world that's moving fast from native application to web-based applications, I believe their bet in integrating WebKit is an excellent choice.
At my company (a web company) we had to choose a platform for our native client and basically the choice boiled down to Mozilla's XUL platform, Adobe AIR and (just in time) Qt with WebKit. We decided for the latter and do not regret it!
While QtWebKit has a lot of rough edges in Qt 4.4, I believe there is a *lot* of potential, especially given the huge improvements they made in that area in Qt 4.5. JavaScript has seen a huge speed bump due to the SquirrelFish engine, you can expose C++ objects to JavaScript (already in 4.4), and with some work you can even connect native Qt signals to JavaScript methods, there now is support for HTML5 and CSS3 transformations. Without exaggeration, this really is the best of both worlds.
And now with the LGPL license option it's even available to about everyone who wants it. Good job!
The news does not mention that very importantly it is now provided under a third license, the LGPL. That will allow small companies to link the library in their proprietary products (for the best and the worse...) Certainly that should increase the use of Qt and probably decrease wxWindows usage at the same time.
Using Qt 4.5-rc1 from Debian Experimental and the Arora browser, I get 98/100 on Acid 3. It renders pretty fast as well.
And for those like me who were quite excited with the new licensing and wanted to use it with java... Don't think of it...
Qt Jambi - a port of Qt to the Java programming language - has been discontinued in order to focus resources on the Qt cross platform application and UI framework. Qt Jambi will be maintained for one year after the March 2009 release of Qt Jambi 4.5.0_01, and will be made available upon release under the LGPL license
QT Programming Language Support
This is great. I was a GTK+ advocate back in '05. I recently changed over to QT4 (this past weekend infact) and I kept saying to myself "This really needs a good IDE, something like VS".. and here it is. This saves me having to use Eclipse (which I can't stand). woot!
You are confusing QT with KDE
No sig for the moment.
Wow, blast from the past with errors compiling standard C++ I haven't had to worry about for a long time. The Windows bundle package comes with MinGW GCC 3.4.5 built in January 2006. TDM's GCC builds to the rescue!
Does anyone know if there are plans to offer the LGPL licensing option for PyQT Python bindings? Typically they have followed QT licensing, but I could see that it wouldn't necessarily be in their best interest to offer LGPL. Of course, if they don't someone could just fork it and put them out of business anyway...
As much as I like gtk+ and gnome apps better, I've been using QT for a while and it really is a joy to use, years ahead of any other toolkit in terms of features and elegance
.: sapelko dixit
You are confusing QT with Qt
I would like to be able to call SQL stored procedures. Thanks for listening.
Actually, editor fail. The article is referring to Qt - not QT.
You are confusing interesting with redundant.
If you like C++ and the Qt API and you want to develop for the web (true web 2.0 AJAX apps), you should try Wt.
Wt clones the Qt API but using Boost instead of Qt. You can compile your web application to a FastCGI module (which you can deploy with Apache, lighttpd, IIS, etc) or to an executable which includes an embedded HTTP(S) web server.
Oh, and there are Ruby bindings, too (code)
Oh, and best of all: you can link to any C and C++ library (including Qt). No more messing with Ruby/Python/PHP/whatever bindings!
Actually, editor fail. The article is referring to Qt - not QT.
You know, if you look at the posts below you will see people still think it's some acronym, QT. This reminds me of people who are "Lie-nicks" professionals and think they know what "day-mons" are. And if you do point these out to them, they will acknowledge it, but still call it QT. "What does the QT stand for?" "I dunno."
Well I'm done with ranting. There's just this small thread of ignorance in IT, that will never put forth effort into listening what the creators have to say about pronunciation of their own products.
Qt is now Cocoa, that is how they added 64bit support. They already had plans for Cocoa but Apple's move as ''If you want 64bit GUI, you need Cocoa'' made them move faster. That is how Apple pushes developers I guess.
It is huge news for OS X, both Developers and Users. Imagine Cocoa Opera, Google Earth, Skype etc. and even the entire KDE 4.
While there was a lot of FUD against Carbon I don't agree, I guess a Cocoa based Qt will end a lot of bad feedback about Qt based apps on OS X, especially text rendering? I think Opera will be the obvious application we would see changes once they adopt it. Hopefully they will move as early as version 10 (which is in alpha now). I was blaming CmdrTaco upgraded to Web 2.0 ;) but it seems Opera spends a lot of CPU time in text rendering, not Javascript.
If a real developer enlightened us about what would change when Carbon to Cocoa transition happens, it would be better of course.
Is it still tied to C++ like in the previews or are they supporting other languages/bindings now?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Oh, the irony in your signature...
It's not spelt like "linnux", it's spelt like "Linus", hence the correct American* pronunciation is "lie-nucks". Alas, only people who were using Linux before the turn of the century seem to know this. When Linux started to get a little popular, some typical dumbass journalist found out about it and fucked up the pronunciation, and then all you kiddies who came later only knew it by the popular, ignorant mispronunciation. So now we're stuck with it. Kind of like how "hacker" meant nothing to do with breaking into things, when the term was used back when I was a CS student in the late 80's/early 90's, it only meant someone who jumped right into coding without doing much or any design or thought first. We have another dumb, lazy journalist to thank for mixing this up and then it sticking among the clueless masses, too.
*And Torvalds pronounces his name sounding like "lee-", so if you don't want the Americanized pronunciation the OS's name would sound like "lee-nucks". Either way, there's absolutely no reason it should be "lin-nucks". Except that that's what everybody thinks it is these days.
I'd say you're the one who fails to see the ultra subtle sarcasm here. Triple puns! QT Qt Q.T.
Or maybe you are being sarcastic with your FAIL as well? So deeeeep.
Ah, if only emoticons weren't so lame... text just doesn't convey tone of voice.
Stupidity is its own reward.