11 April 2011

Lunarcloud's Cross-Platform Qt App Template

When I write Qt Apps, or Java apps for that matter, there's a bunch of things I have to do to get it to a starting point that I'm happy about.

Although these are crossplatform languages/tools, it's very easy to write yourself into a specific platform, or easier, to look half-assed on platforms you care less about/ don't use much.

This is why I decided to create a Qt Creator template.


This template should provide something important for each of the big 3 OS's.

Windows
We enable blur behind, extending the glass to the toolbars, and other Windows sexiness found here: http://labs.qt.nokia.com/2009/09/15/using-blur-behind-on-windows/

Also, the taskbar icon and progress bar support from ECWin7 is included for use: http://www.msec.it/blog/?p=100

The only Windows 7 goody that couldn't be integrated was Jumplists. The only Qt implementation is found is a really nice commercial package. http://www.strixcode.com/q7goodies/ NOT INCLUDED - COMMERCIAL.

There's also an rc file and ico.

Mac OSX 
For Mac, I included an empty menu to add actions to, which will show up as the dock's menu.

I also turned on unified title and toolbar, creating the very mac effect of your toolbars being on the outside of the app, like in Finder or iTunes.

There's an included icns icon file.

Kubuntu / Ubuntu / Debian
For the debian family of Linux OS's, I included the files necessary to create a .deb using cdbs tools.
simply cd to your project directory and run

debuild --no-tgz-check
This will create unnecessary files, some of which can be cleared out by running
make clean

There's also a .desktop file,so when you install the deb you've made it'll show up in the gnome/kde menu, and a png icon.

Download
http://code.google.com/p/cross-platform-qt-template/downloads/list

No comments: