Qt, portable framework for desktop and mobiles

Qt (cute) is a multi-platform (including Linux and Windows) graphics library for the development of GUI, graphic user interface. It provides graphical interface components, the widgets, and others component for databases access to, XML processing, a system files API.
A development tool, Qt Creator if offered for free to develop Qt applications.

The main applications using Qt are the KDE Linux environment, the Opera browser (under Linux), VLC, Google Earth, Skype.

Qt Creator is a specialized IDE

Qt was developed by the Trolltech company, acquired in 2008 by Nokia. Trolltech becomes then Qt Software.

3D with Qt

It is possible to superimpose a Qt widget in a 3D scene, as seen in the WolfenQt demonstration.
By reusing the classical algorithm of the Wolfenstein 3D game, embedded in the scene is a widget to display any application on the walls of the maze.
The fast display is obtained by mixing the OpenGL graphics library and Qt the code.

See the video.

Qt and the browser

Qt can run on the Native Client platform under all browsers but Internet Explorer, so in a sandbox as does JavaScript.
We may so have applications running in the browser but that should be compiled for each operating system.

See the article Qt with a grain of salt. A video shows Qt running in Firefox.

Qt and mobile phones

After the announcement of the partnership between Nokia and Microsoft, and the choice of Windows 7 Phone as preferential system for smartphones, developers are worried about the future of Qt.
Indeed WP7 uses Silverlight and XNA as development tool and it is excluded (it is Nokia which says it) to bring Qt on that environment.

Nokia confirmed, however, support for Qt that runs on Symbian and Meego, and even will to expand it by hiring new developers.
After Meego replaced by Tizen, doubt again is back. But we know that Qt also works on Tizen, although the preferred interface is HTML 5.

See also

• QML. Langage of user interface for Qt.

References & resources

• Qt-Project. The new site for the open source project.
• Trolltech. Download and documentation.
• WolfenQt. The 3D demonstration.
• Criticism. Just an opinion.
• Qt for Android. For applications running both on mobiles and on the desktop.
• Qt Apps. List of application build over Qt. This includes KDE and Google Earth.
• Razor-Qt. Lightweight alternative to KDE, a  Qt-based desktop environment for Linux. This will not only satisfy those disappointed by KDE, it is also a solution to use a tablet as a desktop computer.