Qt is a free cross-platform application framework that is widely used for developing application software with a graphical user interface (GUI), and also used for developing non-GUI programs such as command-line tools and consoles for servers. It is also used for compiling the Netcruzer USB Bootloader and Netcruzer USB Terminal applications, and is required for making modifications.
It can be downloaded for free from here. For installation, following options are available:
- Custom Installation, small download size (less than 400 MB).
- Windows Online Installer. This is the easiest way to install, but download size big - over 1 GB.
- Download and run "Offline Installer". Also easy, but largest download size of 1.7 GB.
Windows Online Installer
The simplest way to install is to use the Online Installer. For Windows, download and run "Windows Online Installer". To limit size of download, during installation:
- Select "Custom" installation
- In <Development Tools>, remove Symbian
- In <Documentation>, remove Symbian
- For some reason, Qt 4.8.0 and Qt 4.8.1 were selected in the <Development Tools><Desktop Qt> section. This adds lots more to required download. We removed Qt 4.8.0, and only installed Qt 4.8.1.
Custom Installation
In stead of downloading the entire "Qt SDK" (about 1.7GByte for Windows) as described in the Windows Online Installer section above, you can just download MinGW, Qt Creator and Qt libraries (minGW). This is all that is needed to compile Netcruzer software.
Download and Install MinGW
Netcruzer project use the MinGW compiler, so it must first be installed. It can either be downloaded and installed from official MinGW site, or from Nokia's site. We had problems with the one from official MinGW site, so downloaded one from Nokia's FTP site.
From Nokia's FTP Site
To install MinGW from Nokia's FTP site:
From MinGW site
To install MinGW from official site:
- Download MinGW from here. At the time of writing this, top of page had a link to mingw-get-inst (mingw-get-inst-20120426.exe). Download and run this.
- During installation, keep all default options. Select "C Compiler" and "C++ Compiler". We installed to "c:/minGW".
- IMPORTANT - In Select Components part of installation, select "C Compiler" and "C++ Compiler". The "C++ Compiler" check box
Download and Install Qt Creator
- Download and install "Qt Creator" from here. At time of writing this, it was a file called "qt-creator-win-opensource-2.5.0.exe"
- Install and choose all default options
Download and Install Qt libraries (minGW)
- Download and install "Qt libraries (minGW)" from here. At time of writing this, it was a file called "qt-win-opensource-4.8.2-mingw.exe"
- When asked for "MinGW Installation", specify MinGW folder of location you just installed it to. For our installation, this was "c:/minGW". If installer complains about g++ not found, just ignore and continue installation.
Loading and running projects
Now "Qt Creator" must be configured, Run "Qt Creator"
- Go to <Tools><Options> and in "Tool Chains" section and add MinGW. Add path to gcc.exe and gdb.exe in "Compiler Path" and "Debugger" boxes. For our installation "C:\MinGW\bin\gcc.exe" and "C:\MinGW\bin\gdb.exe"
- Go to <Tools><Options> and in "Build & Run" section and add Qt version (location of qmake.exe). For example "c:\qt\4.8.2\bin\qmake.exe"
If after loading and building a project in "Qt Creator", it complains about invalid qmake (Error while building/deploying project when executing step 'qmake')
- In left pane, click on "Projects". This shows project properties for currently open project
- Go to "Build Settings" tab, and select valid Qt version in "Qt version" edit box.
1.8.4