Qt 4 Application and UI Framework for eCS (OS/2)

Qt is a cross-platform application and UI framework. Using Qt, you can write applications once and deploy them across many desktop and embedded operating systems without rewriting the source code. (See ​http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_(toolkit).) Availability for eCS means being able to port a ​large number of existing applications.

History

A few years ago netlabs.org hired Dmitry A. Kuminov (aka dmik) to port version 3 of the toolkit to the eCS (OS/2) platform. This port is working well and made it possible to port many applications to our platform.

Some time ago Qt 4 got introduced. New Qt applications use this version of the toolkit, of course, but also more and more existing Qt 3 applications have been making the switch. To make sure we can port those applications again, we have to invest some more work into the eCS (OS/2) port, as Qt 4 redid a lot of things from scratch. Dmitry offered us to work on the port again. Our goal would be to hire him for about 5 months, but we cannot do that ourself without help from the community.

Sponsoring

We do have some money in the queue but it's not enough yet. If you would like to contribute to this port, you are welcome to buy a sponsoring unit for that at Mensys. 100% of that money will be transferred to netlabs.org.

The Mensys sponsor link is: ​http://www.mensys.com/NetlabsQT4

The current donation meter is available at: ​http://qt.netlabs.org/en/site/index.xml

Current Status

As of the 5th of February, 2010, the Qt framework version 4 for OS/2 is generally available! This means that the major parts of the Qt toolkit have been ported to OS/2 which makes dozens of Qt 4 applications potentially available to the OS/2 platform. Qt 4 for OS/2 is distributed in a convenient way using WarpIn packages which makes it very easy to install and use it. These packages are maintained by netlabs.org and provide a so-called official build of the Qt 4 toolkit which ensures that all Qt applications use the same set of Qt 4 runtime libraries to save system resources and improve general stability. Below you will find download links to the available packages along with their descriptions.

You may find more detailed information about the project progress and future plans on the ​Roadmap page.

If you are an end-user, there already are some ​applications available for testing.

Latest Version

The latest version is 4.6.2 released on 14.05.2010. This is the latest release of Qt 4 from Nokia and it includes a bunch of new features and improvements, many of which appear in the OS/2 port as well. Besides that, the following key improvements specific to the OS/2 port are brought by this release:

• Complete printing support through CUPS (requires ​eCUPS to be installed).
• Painting in widgets using DIVE, which makes all graphical operations up to 4 times faster comparing to 4.5.1 GA (the actual numbers depend on the combination of the graphics hardware, video driver and the current screen mode). The non-DIVE painting mode is also optimized, with the performance boost varying from 30% to 200%.
• webkit module (used in many complex web-based applications such as web browsers to implement the JavaScript support).
• help module (used for context sensitive help in applications).
• Qt Assistant tool.

The more detailed list of changes can be found here​.

Version 4.6.2 is available for downloading in the following packages and formats.

Prerequisites

GCC 4 Core Libraries	​WPI	GCC 4 runtime libraries needed for all Qt 4 installations.
eCUPS Installer	​WPI	eCUPS support necessary for printing to work in Qt 4 applications (optional).

Qt 4 Packages

Qt Runtime Libraries and Plugins	​WPI	This is the official Qt 4 runtime that is necessary to run applications created using the Qt4 framework.
Qt Runtime Libraries and Plugins (no XWP dependency)	​WPI	This is the official Qt 4 runtime which does not require XWorkplace to be installed (this makes the system tray support and improved file watching unavailable).
Qt Development Libraries and Tools	​WPI	This is necessary to compile applications created using the Qt4 framework (make sure you read this​ to understand what this package is for). Requires the Qt Runtime Libraries and Plugins package.
Qt Reference Documentation	​WPI	Documentation for the Qt library and tools. Requires Qt Development Libraries and Tools.
Qt Demo and Example Applications	​WPI	Standard Qt demo and example applications (with the source code) that demonstrate the Qt4 features. Requires Qt Development Libraries and Tools.
Full Qt Source Code	​ZIP	Take this if you want to build the Qt library yourself (recommended as the development environment if you regularly develop or port Qt applications).

Alternatively, if you want to play with the latest development version, you can check it out directly from the SVN repository. In order to do so you need to download and install the subversion client for eCS (OS/2). Use the following command to check out the full source tree to a <local_directory>:

svn checkout http://svn.netlabs.org/repos/qt4/trunk <local_directory>

The required tools and build instructions are described in the README.OS2​ file.

The older downloads are available ​here.

Reporting Bugs

Reporting bugs and requesting new features is done through the ticket system. You can view existing tickets, add comments to them and create new tickets using the corresponding buttons at the top of every page. If you want to submit a new bug or request a feature, please use the Search function first to make sure there is no ticket for this task already created.

Anonymous access to the ticket system has been restricted due to multiple attacks of stupid spammers we've been suffering from lately. In order to create a new ticket or comment the existing one, you need to login with your Netlabs login id. If you do not have a login id, you can request one at ​http://www.netlabs.org/en/site/member/member.xml. We are sorry for inconvenience, but at the present time this is the only way to avoid extremely annoying spam.

Mailing Lists

Project discussion is done through mailing list conversations. Currently, the following mailing lists are available:

• qt-user()netlabs.org ​[http://news.gmane.org/gmane.org.netlabs.qt.user read online

This mailing list is intended to discuss the usage of the eCS (OS/2) version of the Qt Toolkit for creating or porting applications. Announces of new releases are also posted to this list.

• qt-dev()netlabs.org ​[http://news.gmane.org/gmane.org.netlabs.qt.devel read online

This mailing list is for developers of Qt for eCS (OS/2). All ticket changes are automatically posted to this list. Please don't post user questions there!

Credits

• Dmitry A. Kuminov (development)
• Silvan Scherrer (management)

• netlabs.org (hosting & support)

• Nokia Corporation (original Qt library)

We also want to thank all individuals and organizations who made the donations to this project and helped to make it happen. Please go to ​this page to get the full list of sponsors.

Award

Screenshots

The downloadlink for most of the applications below is found on the ​QtApps page.

SMPlayer v. 0.6.8

SMPlayer v. 0.6.8 with SystemTray support (part of Qt beta4)

KDiff3 v. 0.9.95

mp3diags

blubbels v. 0.9

CuteGomoku

Abby 0.4.3

Simsu 1.2.1

Tubularix

QBittorrent 1.5.4