Qt Support
This is an outctopping from the Native SDK suggestion (http://wpdev.uservoice.com/forums/110705-app-platform/suggestions/1755203-native-sdk). Please use this suggestion to vote and comment on your want/need for Qt support on the Windows Phone platform.
AdminCliff Simpkins
(Sr Product Manager, Windows Phone Developer)
shared this idea
Thank you for the suggestion and the spirited commentary on the this topic. While we understand that the Qt platform is important to many folks on this thread, we are not planning to add native support for the platform to the Windows Phone developer platform. That being said, we would be very supportive of the Qt community bringing a runtime to Windows Phone to allow Qt apps to run (and run well!) on the platform, very similar to the work that we’ve done to help bring other runtimes / engines such as Unity, Havok, PhoneGap, and Cocos2d. We feel that the work we’ve done to enable DirectX and the Windows Runtime could enable such a runtime, and would love to see the Qt platform come to Windows Phone.
176 comments
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Andrew Sakhno
commented
Now I rather switch to the iOS or Android than on WP.
- 3 vote to WP. -
Benjamin Zeller
commented
@Cliff Simpkins Of course, will there be some support for developers willing to put work into this? Like giving away developer devices?
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Mark S.
commented
As a developer who targets multiple platforms, its much easier to get excited about a platform if you can easily port an existing codebase to it
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Konstantin Maslyuk
commented
i'm opensource developer. i think it would be acceptable if microsoft will acquire sourcecode for native applications to recompile them from version to version of environment. for proprietary developers there would be agreement between developer and microsoft to not disclose or use sourcecode.
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Leonard
commented
@ Miak Hanhjarvi
While I hate to repeat my previous comments, I have to make you realize that Qt has no future on Windows Phone 8 and Windows RT, nor does it on iOS. As proprietory companies that push a closed system, Microsoft or Apple can't withstand a third-party developement tool to be popular on its platform. Apple would not be happy if a killer app on iOS can be easily port to WP8 using Qt. Similar to iOS, WP8/WinRT does not and will not need Qt to succeed. -
Mika Hanhijärvi
commented
I really hope that Qt will be ported to Windows Phone 8. It would be really great. Qt ofcourse would need to be integrated into platform, eg. accessing the smartphone features needs to be possible (Qt Mobility) etc.
All of my apps are made using Qt. Lack of Qt on Windows Phone is the main reason why I have not started to develop for it yet. If Windows Phone would have Qt, I would have nothing against developing for the platform. I definetely would start to develop for it. I'm currently developing for the Symbian and MeeGo using Qt. Qt on Windows Phone would allow me to create apps for it too.
And by the way, note that most of the new mobile Qt apps for the Symbian, MeeGo etc is made using QML. QML is THE way to create nice fluid mobile Qt applications. So full QML support is extremely important.
Qt makes development wery easy, even if you don't intend to port your app to several platforms. I'm sure developers would love to have Qt on Windows Phone, I know I would.
Nokia owns the Qt so it should not be a problem to port it to Windows Phone.
Here is some information about Qt for those who don't know Qt so well:
Qt IS NOT just a userinterface library, it is a full cross platform application framework. You can create your whole application using Qt. Qt has a crossplatform API for eg. accessing network, accessing web using webkit, sql and databases, audio and video, xml, opengl and much much much more.
Qt Mobility includes cross platform mobile APIs for eg accessing GPS, maps and navigation, phone contacts, phone calendar, notificating user, sending and receiving messages (SMS, MMS, Email), using Bluetooth in phone, usin NFC in phone, accessing phone sensors (accelerometer, compass, ambient light sensor, proximity sensor, gyroscope etc ), taking photos and videos using phone's camera, accessing phone's photo/video/document galleries, accessing system information, accessing phone multimedia features and much much more.
There is also in-app purchasing API and push notification API for the Qt
.
You can use all of these APIs to create cross platform application. APIs are wery well designed and easy to use, There is LOTS of documentation, examples, tutorials and wiki articles about using Qt.Even if you have to re-design the UI-part of your application to suit the target platform, most of your application code is still crossplatform and needs no modification. You can create your whole application using Qt, both UI and application logic.
You can create your apps using C++ or using QML. QML is wery wery nice for creating mobile applications. QML is not just for creating UI, you can create full application using it, or you can mix QML and C++ in the same application. There is also Qt Quick Components, which contains lots of UI components which you can use to build UI for the QML application.
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Eero Penttinen
commented
I think it would be awesome if Qt would work on WP8 (I would be extremely happy) - technically it is doable, but unless fully supported my Microsoft and fully integrated into WP8 platform, the end-2-end experience would be crippled for both developers and end users downloading potential Qt based apps. So, I have no hope Qt will be supported to make it even close to 1st class citizen - it is not about the technology, it is about the ecosystem and focusing on those which are important for Microsoft. Qt is unfortunately not part of that game, if it would, it would have been ported to WP 7.5 after the Feb 11 announcement. I'm sorry to say this, but it is better that people do not have any unrealistic expectations.
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godidier
commented
Qt is a great platform, i think it MUST be support. It will also widely expand the WP developer community (in a short amount of time)...
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Gerhard de Clercq
commented
yes please
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Jasper
commented
I think Qt developers will be happy. All you need is to get the Qt team (Nokia?) implement a DirectX front-end and you should be good to go. Native Code FTW!
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Anonymous
commented
do i need to register my handset and have developer account which cost 99 dollar to test my app
or it will be open like android -
Leonard
commented
to serkol, forget about Qt, use WinRT instead.
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serkol
commented
So now we know that WP8 will support native C and C++. What about Qt?
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Alexandre Souza commented
100% of my applications is write on Qt, at this time i'm working with necessitas for android and i think that Windows Phone can open for many programmer to use this plataform.
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Ahmed F Al-Shebli commented
Sorry for English mistakes, am writing on my phone
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Lets think why android us growing, basically you can just do what you want, even if you want to code using your android tablet, there is a way :) why windows is successfull, you can program the way you like, you can download the app you want, customize it, many people are changing from IOS to other systems due to restriction, android is not good, but at that time, its a better choice, am using wp7 now, and I see a lot inside this is amazing, but I miss a lot, some apps, for Qt, if Qt wasn't good, why Skype is developed using Qt, why google earth is developed using Qt, why big companies uses Qt, why flight software inside the planes is built on Qt, why medical devices software is built with Qt in top of windows CE?
I hope that day won't come where I move to something other than Qt
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Qt is great for making games, I don't mean any metro Apps, but basically, it's needed for easier C++ games
Great
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tonys
commented
Everytime also don't know what line can be support wp7 anti-virus and firewall support's......
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Benjamin Zeller
commented
@Leonard, Apple did not forbíd Qt on IPhone, what they did was to forbid the useage of shared libraries, but you can surely work around that.
MFC and COM are not really a good example for code libraries btw.
Using Qt for cross platform dev becomes only more difficult for UI code, and QML can fix this. This way you can have one backend and multiple QML based frontends.
The way companies try to lock in people is , in my opinion, the wrong way to bind their customers to their products. Instead they should do it by providing a good product so people don't WANT to go away. Locking them in does only work for a short time until the pressure to move to a better different product got high enough.
If the future of windows is bound to be proprietory it might be a bad future, because open standards and opensource is a big player these days. -
Anonymous
commented
Leonard, you should realize that Qt developers are familiar with not just qt but also other dev platforms and operating systems. Many of them do come from Microsoft development platforms. Yet they want Qt on all MS OSes.
