Finnish software and services firm Digia, which bought Qt from Nokia back in August, has released version 5.1 of the cross-platform application framework. Among the changes are ‘significant improvements’ to Qt Quick and preliminary support for Android and iOS.
The latter means Qt on Android and iOS are both considered Technology Previews, letting developers start building for the two mobile operating systems and porting apps from other platforms by reusing the same code base. Although most of the Qt functionality and tool integration is already in place to start developing mobile apps, Digia promises complete ports to Android and iOS will come with the release of Qt 5.2 “later this year.”
Qt Quick, for those who don’t know, is the Qt-specific declarative user interface language for developing graphically-rich UIs. Improvements to Qt Quick include the new Qt Quick Controls (a “toolbox” of reusable UI controls based on Qt Quick 2), Qt Quick Layouts, and more additions which reduce the amount of code developers have to actually write themselves.
Qt 5.1 is also fully integrated with the Qt Creator 2.7 IDE. The new version also adds new APIs and Digia claims it includes over 3,000 enhancements, particularly in performance and stability.
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Qt supports Windows, OS X, and Linux, embedded operating systems such as embedded Linux and Windows Embedded, as well as real-time operating systems for embedded devices such as VxWorks, Neutrino, and INTEGRITY. As for mobile, Qt supports BlackBerry and SailFish, but with today’s release it also offers Android and iOS support.
You can download a 30-day trial of Qt Enterprise from Digia’s Qt site. The open source version can meanwhile be snagged from Qt Project.
See also – Digia releases a new version (5.0) of the good old cross-platform application framework Qt and Finland’s Digia opens US office to push Qt development in the States
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