Tutorials: Qt / Qt for Symbian and Maemo

Documents about Qt development in general as well as for the Symbian / Maemo platforms are provided in this section. The materials require basic C++ knowledge, background information about Symbian OS is recommended.

Complete Download: Available soon.

Qt — Introduction

This module introduces you to the unique aspects of Qt cross-platform development. First, the background and history of Qt is presented. Afterwards, you will get an overview of the package that Qt offers: this includes the available tools, modules and the target platforms. At the end of this part, book recommendations will help you select additional materials for self-studies.

Contents:

• Qt in a Nutshell
• History of Qt
• Platforms
• Terms and Modules
• Book-Recommendations

Level: Basic
Version: v2.0, October 2009
Based on: Qt 4.6

Download:
Materials: Qt Introduction

Qt — Basics

After an overview of Qt and its tools, a Hello World application quickly demonstrates the basic principles. Qt is mainly famous for its intelligent concepts of signals and slots, which is explained together with examples for how to use widgets (UI controls). At the end, the foundations of the meta-object system and its implications on memory management are explained.

Contents:

• Hello World
• Widgets, Layouts and Styles
• Signals and Slots
• Meta-Objects and Memory Management

Level: Basic
Version: v2.0, October 2009
Based on: Qt 4.6

Download:
Materials: Basics of Qt
Exercise: Hello World (Coming soon!)
Exercise: Simple Calculator (Coming soon!)

Qt — UI Development

Continuing where module 2 left off, this part of the course explains signals and slots in more detail and tells you how to extend functionality of existing widgets by subclassing them. In real applications, widgets are often used in dialogs or inside the main window, which is a container for widgets and by default supports menus, toolbars and actions. These topics are all demonstrated via small examples. Afterwards, important concepts are explained. These include properties of QObjects, data types, QString and various list types. A section about internationalization demonstrates the process step-by-step, showing all required components to make your application multi-lingual.

Contents:

• Subclassing Widgets (Signals & Slots, continued)
• Dialogs
• Main Window
• Menus, Toolbars and Actions
• Properties
• Data Types
• Internationalization

Level: Basic
Version: v2.0, October 2009
Based on: Qt 4.6

Download:
Materials: Qt UI Development
Exercise: Guess-A-Number (Coming soon!)

Qt — External Interaction

This module explores the remaining aspects of writing own widgets and explains how to handle low-level events, which can originate from for example the mouse or the keyboard. Low level painting, however, can not only be used to draw custom widget - a short overview gives you an idea of the power behind the QPainter class. If your application has to manage multiple graphics items or if you want to build a dynamic UI, the section about the graphics view framework will contain an overview of the classes required to build scene-graph-like user interfaces. At the end of this module, a few slides explain optimizing images, which is important to keep the file sizes and loading times down on mobile devices.

Contents:

• Events
• Low Level Painting
• Graphics View
• Optimizing Images

Level: Intermediate
Version: v2.0, October 2009
Based on: Qt 4.6

Download:
Materials: Qt External Interaction
Exercise: Rotating Quad (Coming soon!)

Qt — Communication

Most applications will need to communicate with other services or devices at some point, or at least save settings on the host computer. These concepts are covered in this module. After introducing the generic concept behind devices, short examples show how to use files. Special classes in Qt provide even more convenient APIs if you want to save settings in the right way for the target platform. Afterwards, the module covers networking and its representation in Qt. In addition to providing classes for handling low level sockets, network managers simplify handling web service requests and responses like for the HTTP protocol. At the end, a short section explains the basics of different methods of parsing XML in Qt, including DOM trees, SAX, pull parsing and XQuery/XPath.

Contents:

• Devices
• Files
• Settings
• Networking / Sockets
• High Level Protocols
• XML

Level: Intermediate
Version: v2.0, October 2009
Based on: Qt 4.6

Download:
Materials: Qt Communication
Exercise: Geocoding Web Service (Coming soon!)

< Back to the tutorials overview page...