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."

Comments

Excellent! QuickTime from Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

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 )

Nice

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

From native to web

[arendjr]

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!

Re:From native to web

[Anonymous Coward]

I dont get it, how do you port native code to the web? does it compile to some kind of html+js? or is it just using web stuff directly in the widgets of a native app?

Re:From native to web

[arendjr]

It's the latter. You can just use web controls as part of a native application. Basically you can just create a native application window, and render its entire contents using HTML/CSS. Or just a part of the window if you like. And all JavaScript code in those web parts can just call back to your native code where needed.

And the other way around is also possible. You can embed native controls into your web view just like how you embed a Flash object into a web page. And again, there's no problem in communicating between native code and JavaScript. Though if you want to pass complex data structures you will likely want to pass those as JSON objects (which in turn can be easily mapped to and from QVariantMaps, if you Google around you will find plenty solutions for that).

WebKit support and Acid 3

[MrHanky]

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.

Re:WebKit support and Acid 3

[IceFox]

After the rc was released the last fixes went in so 4.5.0 QtWebKit gets 100/100 on the acid3 test.

Re:WebKit support and Acid 3

[ardor]

99/100 here, using the official 4.5 release. Apparently, the link test fails.

Re:LGPL

[stoolpigeon]

This new release is quite significant due to licensing changes that now make it simpler to use QT in a wider range of products...
 
fully spelled out in the linked article.

Re:LGPL

[nedlohs]

You mean other than in the first fucking paragraph.

You know the paragraph that is about nothing except the addition of LGPL to the licenses.

Re:LGPL

[0racle]

The actual news item a little while ago about that change wasn't enough? For how long does it have to be mentioned every time QT is?

Jambi (Qt for Java) discontinued

[Maxwell42]

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

Re:Jambi (Qt for Java) discontinued

[zebslash]

Well, you forgot to paste the next paragraph:

To help faciliate the continued development of Qt Jambi, Qt Software will host and help maintain a community-driven Qt Jambi implementation.

So it is not completely ditched, it relies on the community to maintain it.

Re:Jambi (Qt for Java) discontinued

[Carewolf]

PyQt and several other Qt-bindings are community maintained, and I think there are more Java users in the world than the Python users. I could be wrong though, or the Java users could all be corporate slaves and not interested in free software development. Still I would put my money on Jambi surviving.

Re:Jambi (Qt for Java) discontinued

[pembo13]

PyQt is also currently in the middle of nowhere. And PyQt, as far as I can tell, isn't really community maintained. Its a very small group of guys doing all the work, and who as of yet haven't come to a decision on what will happen to the project now that the little revenue they got from commercial licensing will likely dry up.

I was hoping that Qt would actual pull in more projects and not drop them.

Re:Jambi (Qt for Java) discontinued

[Simon]

PyQt is developed as a commercial product which is available under a closed source license and under the GPL plus the other FOSS licenses that Qt itself used before the recent change to LGPL.

--
Simon

Re:Jambi (Qt for Java) discontinued

[ChunderDownunder]

It's a very small niche. I suspect the reason for the 'community-driven' spin-off is that Jambi has received a lukewarm response from commercial developers (who, until now, haven't had the benefit of LGPL).

Java has an extensive range of established frameworks and for UI toolkits Swing and SWT. I, and evidently Nokia, can't see the business case for adopting Jambi. Ignoring the technical details, it's much easier to assemble a team of experienced Swing developers.

I'm a Java developer by trade. If a project I worked on made the decision to use a Qt based frontend, I'd be inclined to back the mature C++ version (rather than an unsupported side-project), while using Java EE on the server as necessary.

Beware the Java-Cocoa experiment on OS X. Sorry to spread FUD but I think the community project will be limited to hobbyists only.

Awesome

[sjones130]

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!

Re:Awesome

[HatofPig]

You really need to keep your eye on KDevelop 4.0 then. Check out one of the main developer's blogs for tons of screenshots. It's a complete rewrite from 3.5 that takes advantage of just about everything KDE and Qt have to offer. I'm sure it is going to blow every other Qt/KDE IDE out of the water.

Re:The question for users

[Abreu]

You are confusing QT with KDE

GCC 3.4.5

[PhrostyMcByte]

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!

QT ftw

[sapelko]

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

Re:Excellent! QuickTime from Apple

[c_g_hills]

Actually, editor fail. The article is referring to Qt - not QT.