Qt and Fremantle
 

Hello guys.

I recently started to move from the Symbian wagon to the Maemo wagon, but I'm still in a very preliminary stage.

Being Qt the framework that Nokia is going to endorse across their platform, for me it represent the obvious choice to go forward.

Now, I set up my Fremantle SDK, installed Qt packages from "Extras" and "Extras-devel" etc... and arrived to compile apps written in Qt on Maemo and run within the Scratchbox environment. I have to say: piece of cake ;) (thanks to Linux, not me :P).

Problem is: Qt doesn't seems to be properly working.
I followed a bit of discussions about Qt, the fact that the Hildon Widgets are not written (yet) etc, but I'm facing problems that are very "weird".

For example:
1) I don't really manage to go online: one of my test app is a self-cooked browser and it doesn't seems to get a network connection.
2) The UI is unresponsive and looks like whatever I click nothing happens (or, worse, crashes)
3) I saw that without running Hildon within the Xypher, somehow the app works... but the absence of a DBUS session makes it crash straight after.

So, I'm wondering:
is the Qt4 lib available on the repositories stable?
is it advisable to compile Qt from the Git repository and try again with a fresh build of it?
If yes, which branch?

From the GIT repository of Qt Maemo looks like a guy, Antonio Aloisio, is doing a lot of work and it would be great to have his idea here as well (Antonio, se ci sei batti un colpo - PS Ma sei di Napoli?).

Hope anyone can give me some hints.
In the meantime: thanks in advance.

Ivan

Re: Qt and Fremantle
 

The most important question - are you running apps under the ARMEL or X86 target ? ARMEL is for compiling only, if you try to run stuff you get problems like you described.

Important note - some, Fremantle specific widgets are not implemented yet. Most of them (especially those present in Diablo) are present and usable.

Make sure that your scratchbox has network connectivity. If it doesn't work for it, it won't work for your app either.

Don't forget, you're running a fair number of emulation layers in there, so it's not really representative of the speed of things on real devices.

If you want the latest features, go for the git version. I would, however recommend to go for the Diablo edition for now as the Fremantle one is pretty fluid - unless you need specific Fremantle functionality. The base Qt version in both is the same.

Antonio follows the lists but have not seen him here recently. If you have specific questions, best to ask them on the qt4-devel mailing list.

Re: Qt and Fremantle
 

Ciao Ivan,
the packages in extras-devel are a bit outdated.
They worked fine in scratchbox...but looks like that them are not working there anymore

I m going to upload new packages as soon as I've a bit of time...
So far the best way to use Qt is compile them from git.

You won't have those problem anymore....

ps: non sono Napoletano.

Ciao,
Antonio

Re: Qt and Fremantle
 

This is the status of this community... nothing actually working, but it will be uploaded tomorrow... pathetic.

I posted few questions about C++ IDE if there is any, about Java and almost no answer, or nothing useful.

Someone posted that not even a simple combo-box is running on Maemo from Qt (he said it worked only on the emulator but not on the device)... and what the leaders of the community , at least the council candidates... (qole, zerojay, texrat, etc) are doing here? Just kick butts of people re-posting something from Eldar or other things... this shows me how BAD is this community and how BAD are the people that are their "council". Maybe Quimm Gil comments a bit on how good is this community, and where are the simple steps or guides if anybody wants to write a small application...

Re: Qt and Fremantle
 

Here:
http://maemo.org/development/

Here:
http://maemo.org/development/sdks/

Here:
http://maemo.org/maemo_release_docum...1.x/node4.html

Here:
https://garage.maemo.org/svn/maemoex...ags/maemo_4.1/

Here:
http://maemo.org/maemo_release_docum...on/maemo4.1.x/

And here:
http://wiki.maemo.org/Documentation/...eveloper_Guide

Re: Qt and Fremantle
 

X86, don't worry ;)

I don't have (yet, I could get lucky today) a Diablo device.
I have only an N900 prototype with broken telephony stack. Will get an N900 soon.

Lynx works pretty well in FREMANTLE_X86 ;)
Taking a look at the console output of Qt apps, I think there is something related to DBUS.

When I say "unresponsive" I mean that I click and nothing happens, not even slowly.
I tried also the application "minitube": it compiled but nothing more.

I think I'll go for that.
Compiling right now with default "configure" parameters.
If you think it needs particular params, please advice ;)

Thanks

Re: Qt and Fremantle
 

What branch do you advice me to compile between:
- master
- 4.5
- 4.5-fremantle
- qt-fremantle
???

I got congused by your surname: it sounded to me very Napolitan ;)

Thanks

Ah, once I'm here, I'd like to know if there is any specific channel (wikipage/blog/twitter/whatever) to follow the progresses of Qt on Maemo, apart of course from reading the log on Gitorious.

Re: Qt and Fremantle
 

Hey guy.
Go out to the street a bit, breathe deeply, count until three, and return later.

This community is AWESOME.

Re: Qt and Fremantle
 

Re: Qt and Fremantle
 

Please refrain from anecdotal evidence, it's not helping anyone. There are Qt based apps even in extras (not -devel) that are working just fine (like Qt mapper), and my own dev experience show that Qt is quite usable even in it's current state. Scratchboxing is not for the faint hearted, but let's not FUD folks.

Take a look at the wiki or some sources from extras - for example if you're interested in qt and C++, you should analyze qt-maemo-example. The biggest problem newbies face is the potential unfamiliarity with the linux/debian workflow, not Maemo itself (apart from some scratchbox magic, of course, but if that bothers you, just use Python until your linux skills sharpen).