Qt Quick Tooling

Just in case you have not noticed it yet: 

>>>Qt 4.7 is out!<<< 

Wow! Time for us Trolls (and hopefully you) to celebrate :) Personally, I am enthusiastic - especially about the new QtDeclarative module and the QML language. This technology calls for excellent tooling, and we here in Berlin are working hard to provide exactly this in the upcoming Qt Creator 2.1, released later this year ... 

Before diving into the features planned for Qt Creator 2.1 let me make something clear: You do not have to wait for QtCreator 2.1 to develop in QML. Actually QtCreator 2.0.1 already comes with a full-blown QML text editor and integration of the qmlviewer. 

Anyhow, I'm sure you will enjoy the things we have in the pipe, namely further improvements of the QML editor, the Quick Designer, an advanced JavaScript/QML Debugger, and direct support for mixed C++/QML applications. 

QML Text Editor

No radical changes here, but lots of small improvements. The most visible addition in the QML text editor will be a 'Quick Toolbar', which allows you to change the various properties of QML elements through a graphical UI. For example, changing the font properties of a Text element is as easy as using a regular text editor now. 

Other additions include a new 'Outline' sidebar pane which also supports reordering elements and properties by drag&drop, a new indenter, 'Follow Symbol' fixes ... and general performance improvements. 

Qt Quick Designer 

The Qt Quick Designer is a visual editor for (simple) QML files. We started work on it a looong time ago. In its current state it is unfortunately not yet the Uber-Editor we once imagined, but it is of use for quickly prototyping things. You can for instance take a gimp2qml tool we're working on to quickly generate .qml files out of GIMP, and then do the final layout in Qt Quick Designer. (Yes, we're also looking into directly exporting stuff from other tools than GIMP ;) ). 

QML/JScript Debugger 

Gone are the times of 'debugging' QML/JScript by adding lots of 'print(...)' statements. You will be able to set breakpoints and inspect properties just like with the C++ debugger, and also debug the QML and C++ parts of your application in parallel. 

Developing & Deploying mixed C++/QML applications 

Ever wondered how to get a QML application on your phone without a qmlviewer? The easiest way is to write your own C++ application, and we will support exactly this with a new 'QML Application' wizard. This new project will supersede the '.qmlproject' file format, which depends on a qmlviewer to be available at run time. 

The wizard generates a qmake based project file, together with a C++ stub and the code needed to set up a QDeclarativeView in C++. The qmake part also includes the infrastructure for deploying applications to Symbian/Maemo. You should be able to compile & deploy your first 'hello world' application in no time! 

Disclaimer: These features are all parts of the git 'master' branch, which translates to 'your milage may vary'. The easiest way to try the features out is either downloading and compiling the master branch from git or installing the binary snapshots.


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