Re: [jamboost] Qt4 questions

From: Jürgen Hunold (hunold_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-07-07 01:43:45

Hi Volodya !

On Thursday, 7. July 2005 07:33, Vladimir Prus wrote:
> Hi,
> I've just tried the recently released Qt4, and have a couple of
> question about best modifications to qt.jam for Qt users out there.
>
> 1. Qt is now split into several libraries. Should we do the same in
> Boost.Build, so that users will write:
>
> exe hello : hello.cpp /qt//Qtgui ;
>
> ? This will mean that Jamfiles built against Qt4 will be incompatible
> with Jamfiles using Qt3, but those versions are not source compatible
> anyway.

Well, IMHO we need a different toolset for qt4 anyway. Comments at the 
end.
Yes, I think that's the way to go because I like the library split.

> 2. The include directory has subdirectories "Qt" with QApplication,
> QWidget and other similar headers (without .h), and subdirectories
> for each component. We clearly should add include path of
> <qt-prefix>/include/Qt, but what about component dirs. IOW, should it
> be possible to
>
> #include <QtGui/qapplication.h>
>
> ?

I've done some experimental porting to qt4 using qmake.
I think we must offer both options because you normally only have 
"qapplication.h" in old qt3 code and the qt3to4 porting tools don't add 
<QtGui/*> <QtXml/*> prefixes anyway.

> 3. Finally, how do we know we're using Qt4? Should we add version
> parameter to qt.init and require that it's always passed? Or there's
> another way to detect Qt version?

I think we need a complete new toolset named qt4.

Rationale:

the new moc has a build in preprocessor and should be called with the 
current toolset's <define> and <include>'s set on the command line.

qt4 has a new resouce compiler named rcc which converts .qrc files 
(XML-File containing paths to resources like icons (.png) to .cpp code.
This replaces the old "uic -embed" which was never supported by the old 
toolset.

These thing (I forgot something, I'm sure) have to be support in order 
to make BBv2 a full functional replacement to qmake.

Unfortunately, I fear I'm unable to spent much time on this because:
1. I'll be on vacation from July, 15 on.
2. I have some work to do.
3. We have decided not to move to qt4 till the end of the year just 
because it is a major project ;-)

Yours,

Jürgen

-- 
* Dipl.-Math. Jürgen Hunold ! Institut für Verkehrswesen, Eisenbahnbau
* voice: ++49 511 762-2529 ! und -betrieb, Universität Hannover  
* fax : ++49 511 762-3001 ! Appelstrasse 9a, D-30167 Hannover
* hunold_at_[hidden] ! www.ive.uni-hannover.de