If you are a developer and developing or familiar with the QT platform, then you will be excited about the new update made to the Qt Quick tool. In case you don’t know, Qt allows you to develop your application once and deploy to multiple platforms at once. As a developer, you will be able to code less, create more and deploy everywhere.
In a way to take Qt Quick further, the team has announced the addition of ready-made UI building blocks to the Qt Quick. These are called building blocks Qt Quick components. Qt Quick component is a UI component set for Qt Quick application developers and designers. It helps to create a fresh and modern UX with added productivity. These new additions to the Qt Quick family are going to be in phases. In the first phase, the Symbian and MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan platforms will be covered.
Symbian
A component palette in Qt Quick Designer Qt Quick components 1.0 for Symbian is available now as an update for Qt SDK, and it includes targets, documentation and example code. You can obtain Qt Quick components for Symbian in either of the following ways:
- If you have Qt SDK 1.1 installed, open Qt SDK’s Maintenance tool in Qt Creator ( Help | Start Updater ) and find from “Package Manager” a “Qt Quick components for Symbian” update under “Experimental” category.
- If you don’t have Qt SDK installed yet, find a online installer http://qt.nokia.com/downloads and remember to select “Custom installation” and ”Qt Quick components for Symbian” under “Experimental”.
Once this is done, you only need to just import com.nokia.symbian and you have a fresh set of components at your disposal. Now developers and designers can easily start to use the Qt Creator’s application wizard and Qt Quick Designer. In addition to visible controls such as buttons, menus, dialogs and indicators, Qt Quick components 1.0 for Symbian provides invisible components for window and navigation handling.
A full list of components is available online as a part of Qt Quick components’ documentation at http://doc.qt.nokia.com/qt-components-symbian-1.0/qt-components.html. A good starting point to get touch with a code and see Qt Quick components in action, is to check code examples and demos in Qt SDK or online at http://doc.qt.nokia.com/qt-components-symbian-1.0/qt-components-examples.html
MeeGo Harmattan
Qt SDK was updated some weeks ago with the new target for MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan. This support, however, is not fully completed yet and maturation is ongoing. Qt Quick components for MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan are included in the target and applications developed by using it can be submitted to Nokia’s Ovi Store. The team further recommends that such applications should be tested using the final target (when available) and verified on device with updated SW. The good news is that this does not stop you from starting to develop your apps for the Nokia N9. To learn more about how you can achieve this, visit the Nokia N9 Qt page today. For more information about Qt Quick components for MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan, please refer to the documentation in Qt SDK.
To learn more about Qt Quick and its components, visit the Qt projects page. And you can take this further by actually developing your first innovative Qt Quick applications using Qt Quick components in Ovi Store. What are you waiting for? Start now!
