Advanced Qt Programming: Creating Great Software with C++ and Qt 4 (Prentice Hall Open Source Software Development Series) - Hardcover

Summerfield, Mark

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0321635906 ISBN 13: 9780321635907

Publisher: Prentice Hall, 2010

Synopsis

This book is aimed at existing C++/Qt programmers and presents ideas and techniques that are too advanced or specialized (although not necessarily difficult), for a first book on Qt.

Qt has now grown to over 700 classes and well over a million words of documentation, far too much to cover in a single volume. So instead of covering everything very thinly, the book focuses on key areas of Qt technology and tries to provide more comprehensive coverage than is available elsewhere.

The book is completely practical in emphasis, with every technique illustrated by working code. The examples show Qt best practices, and have been tested on Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows, using Qt 4.6 and where possible (e.g., using #if QT_VERSION), Qt 4.5. (The examples and a sample chapter can be downloaded from the book's web page. Amazon don't allow URLs so google for "qtrac" to find it.)

The book's main themes are hybrid desktop/Internet applications, threading, rich text handling, Qt's graphics/view architecture, and Qt's model/view architecture (to which four chapters are devoted), although many other topics are covered. Besides each chapter's main subject, lots of other classes, methods, and techniques are used wherever they make sense, to show as many Qt features as possible. So even the most experienced Qt programmer should discover aspects of Qt they weren't aware of, discover new techniques, and be inspired with new ideas.

About this title

From the Author

This is my third solo book--and beyond doubt the most difficult to write. The key dilemma I've faced throughout was respecting the first word of the title: "advanced". Some reader is bound to notice the use of some particular technique and exclaim "oh no, he didn't use a timewarp pointer--how can he call this advanced!". Well, although an expert in the book's subject area it is possible that I really don't know about timewarp pointers. However, it is more likely that I deliberately chose not to use them. My aim is to always show the clearest, simplest, most maintainable code possible, and to always prefer solid Qt best practices over fragile exotica. (For example, in the entire book there is only one use of a member function pointer.) Nonetheless, I think this book will take readers beyond what most other Qt books cover, and I'm confident that many readers will find much to challenge and interest them--as well as lots of practical code and ideas that they can make direct use of in their own Qt programming. (added by author)

From the Back Cover

Master Qt's Most Powerful APIs, Patterns, and Development Practices  
Qt has evolved into a remarkably powerful solution for cross-platform desktop, Web, and mobile development. However, even most experienced Qt programmers only use a fraction of its capabilities. Moreover, practical information about Qt's newest features has been scarce--until now.
 
Advanced Qt Programming shows developers exactly how to take full advantage of Qt 4.6's most valuable new APIs, application patterns, and development practices. Authored by world-renowned Qt expert Mark Summerfield, this book focuses on the techniques that offer the most power and flexibility with the least added complexity.
 
Summerfield focuses especially on model/view and graphics/view programming, hybrid desktop/Web applications, threading, and applications incorporating media and rich text. Throughout, he presents realistic, downloadable code examples, all thoroughly tested for Qt 4.6 and designed to anticipate future versions of Qt.
 
The book

• Walks through using Qt with WebKit to create robust hybrid desktop/Internet applications
• Shows how to use the Phonon framework to build powerful media applications without managing low-level details
• Presents state-of-the-art techniques for working with model/view table and tree models, delegates, and views
• Explains how to write more effective threaded programs with QtConcurrent and QThread
• Includes detailed coverage of creating rich text editors and documents
• Thoroughly covers graphics/view programming: architecture, windows, widgets, layouts, scenes, and more
• Introduces Qt's powerful animation and state machine frameworks

Edition details

• Publisher: Prentice Hall
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0321635906
• ISBN 13: 9780321635907
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 553