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Qt for Android better than ever before

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Re: Qt for Android better than ever before

#51

Post by Buttons840 »

> The user of your application has to be able to re-link your application against a different or modified version of the Qt library. With LGPLv3 it is also explicitly stated that the user needs to be able to run the re-linked binary on it’s intended target device. It is your obligation to provide the user with all necessary tools to enable this process. For embedded devices, this includes making the full toolchain used to compile the library available to users. For parts licensed under LGPLv3 you are obliged to provide full instructions on how to install the modified library on the target device (this is not clearly stated with LGPLv2.1, although running the application against the modified version of the library clearly is the stated intention of the license).

Source: https://www.qt.io/faq/

Using the LGPL licensed Qt on Android looks difficult. Although, I suppose compliance would not be much work in comparison to the development of a significant app.

Has anyone else had to go through compliance with the above? How did you do it?

Re: Qt for Android better than ever before

#52

Post by monocasa »

krn wrote: post #14

What are the technical reasons to prefer Qt over JavaFX[1]? Even Bitwig Studio, which is a C++ audio application, went with JavaFX for its cross-platform UI. It can also be written in React-like declarative style[2], which is much easier to maintain. [1] https://openjfx.io/ [2] https://github.com/cljfx/cljfx

No Oracle dependencies?

Re: Qt for Android better than ever before

#53

Post by stefan_ »

If you were to make a list, building the damn thing would probably come last. Go to the store on your favorite platform, search "The Qt Company" and try some of their demo apps.

It's all complete dog. Looks terrible, behaves worse. It's like Flutter except with 1/100th of the developer firepower to make sure it behaves natively.

My personal favorite is the input controls. They haven't freaking implemented copy and paste! It is all just beyond unusable.

Re: Qt for Android better than ever before

#54

Post by cocoa19 »

mehhh wrote: post #13
pepijndevos wrote: post #10

I have in the past developed a fairly large (proprietary) Qt application that used the same codebase on Linux, Windows, and Android. I would say Windows and Android are tied for compile hell. This update looks really neat, and may solve some problems for some people. But personally my biggest gripe with Qt is qmake. When you are doing Android, lots of resources assume Gradle, and lots of Qt stuff assumes qmake. Neith…

Qt development using Python is similarly painful, I end up drafting things up in Qt Creator, taking that code and amending it to work in Python. The tooling for Qt needs help, I feel like this is a huge reason why shovelware Electron apps are so common now. Edit: Capitalization

I've been developing C++ for 10+ years.

I think the pain is unfairly attributed to Qt. A lot of the pain actually comes from the poor tooling in the C++ world.

Conan is supposed to come to the rescue, but after attempting to use it, it feels like it's still not as easy to use as any other package manager (npm, pypi, gems, etc). I love C++ and Qt, but It's extremely difficult to convince people to start any new projects in C++.

Common C/C++ questions and answers in stack overflow: how do I do x in C++ (e.g. trim whitespace), the usual responses: 1. It's trivial to implement, do it yourself. 2. Why would you want to do that.

Compare that to pulling up a library to do that, or it's already baked into the standard library (e.g. Java).

Re: Qt for Android better than ever before

#55

Post by amelius »

scrollaway wrote: post #16
pepijndevos wrote: post #10

I have in the past developed a fairly large (proprietary) Qt application that used the same codebase on Linux, Windows, and Android. I would say Windows and Android are tied for compile hell. This update looks really neat, and may solve some problems for some people. But personally my biggest gripe with Qt is qmake. When you are doing Android, lots of resources assume Gradle, and lots of Qt stuff assumes qmake. Neith…

I read somewhere a few months back that qt is dropping qmake in favour of cmake in the medium term. And everyone rejoiced.

That's a step in the right direction. The next thing would be to drop the compiler extensions (signal/slots macros) in favor of modern C++.

Re: Qt for Android better than ever before

#56

Post by mehhh »

cocoa19 wrote: post #54
mehhh wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Qt development using Python is similarly painful, I end up drafting things up in Qt Creator, taking that code and amending it to work in Python. The tooling for Qt needs help, I feel like this is a huge reason why shovelware Electron apps are so common now. Edit: Capitalization

I've been developing C++ for 10+ years. I think the pain is unfairly attributed to Qt. A lot of the pain actually comes from the poor tooling in the C++ world. Conan is supposed to come to the rescue, but after attempting to use it, it feels like it's still not as easy to use as any other package manager (npm, pypi, gems, etc). I love C++ and Qt, but It's extremely difficult to convince people to start any new projec…

I would not want to develop a new application in C++, both Google and Mozilla decided it was bad enough they had to write better languages (Go & Rust), and the speed at which I can write things in Python, Lua or another lanugage is much faster than C++.

That being said, my SO would love you! He is always trying to get me to write things in C :D

Re: Qt for Android better than ever before

#57

Post by akavel »

dTal wrote: post #42

I've been looking for a way to write cross-platform apps without a painful language or build hell, and I've just come across EQL5-Android, which binds Qt for Android with Embeddable Common Lisp. I don't know Common Lisp, but I like Scheme and I'll try anything to avoid Java or C++. So far it's looking very slick... https://gitlab.com/eql/EQL5-Android

You may be also interested in my hobby project, a WIP tool for writing Android apps in Nim, completely without Java and/or Android Studio: https://forum.nim-lang.org/t/4840. I'm slowly pushing it further since the initial PoC announcement above, but it's not yet there for a second phase of loud publicity. Still, you may like to watch for releases on GitHub. As you can see from this project, I'm also desperate to avoid Java or C++... ;)

Re: Qt for Android better than ever before

#58

Post by wtracy »

Kenji wrote: post #35
tipsysquid wrote: post #3

I've been getting more and more interested with qt development. As a linux user, I'm exhausted from the bloat and cycle stealing electron apps ( with VSCode being a notable exception to this rule). But more recently, the idea of writing one app in Qt, running it everywhere between Android, a Librem 5, and desktop platfoms is really exciting.

Why not GTK? You have even less bloat than in qt.

GTk has zero out of the box support for mobile.

Re: Qt for Android better than ever before

#59

Post by HappySweeney »

dTal wrote: post #42

I've been looking for a way to write cross-platform apps without a painful language or build hell, and I've just come across EQL5-Android, which binds Qt for Android with Embeddable Common Lisp. I don't know Common Lisp, but I like Scheme and I'll try anything to avoid Java or C++. So far it's looking very slick... https://gitlab.com/eql/EQL5-Android

Dart+Flutter can do cross-platform desktop, web, android and ios.

Re: Qt for Android better than ever before

#60

Post by wtracy »

Buttons840 wrote: post #51

> The user of your application has to be able to re-link your application against a different or modified version of the Qt library. With LGPLv3 it is also explicitly stated that the user needs to be able to run the re-linked binary on it’s intended target device. It is your obligation to provide the user with all necessary tools to enable this process. For embedded devices, this includes making the full toolchain us…

Typically you get a commercial license for mobile development. That's the only way to distribute Qt apps through Apple's store.

https://www.qt.io/start-up-plan/

I thought there was a small business license available for a one-time fee of $100, but now I only see recurring subscription options.

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