You can not select more than 25 topics
Topics must start with a letter or number, can include dashes ('-') and can be up to 35 characters long.
358 lines
20 KiB
358 lines
20 KiB
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
|
|
<!-- /home/espenr/tmp/qt-3.3.8-espenr-2499/qt-x11-free-3.3.8/doc/changes.doc:36 -->
|
|
<html>
|
|
<head>
|
|
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
|
|
<title>Key Features in TQt 3.0</title>
|
|
<style type="text/css"><!--
|
|
fn { margin-left: 1cm; text-indent: -1cm; }
|
|
a:link { color: #004faf; text-decoration: none }
|
|
a:visited { color: #672967; text-decoration: none }
|
|
body { background: #ffffff; color: black; }
|
|
--></style>
|
|
</head>
|
|
<body>
|
|
|
|
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%">
|
|
<tr bgcolor="#E5E5E5">
|
|
<td valign=center>
|
|
<a href="index.html">
|
|
<font color="#004faf">Home</font></a>
|
|
| <a href="classes.html">
|
|
<font color="#004faf">All Classes</font></a>
|
|
| <a href="mainclasses.html">
|
|
<font color="#004faf">Main Classes</font></a>
|
|
| <a href="annotated.html">
|
|
<font color="#004faf">Annotated</font></a>
|
|
| <a href="groups.html">
|
|
<font color="#004faf">Grouped Classes</font></a>
|
|
| <a href="functions.html">
|
|
<font color="#004faf">Functions</font></a>
|
|
</td>
|
|
<td align="right" valign="center"><img src="logo32.png" align="right" width="64" height="32" border="0"></td></tr></table><h1 align=center>Key Features in TQt 3.0</h1>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p> TQt 3.0 adds a lot of new features and improvements over the TQt 2.x
|
|
series. Some internals have undergone major redesign and new classes
|
|
and methods have been added.
|
|
<p> We have tried to keep the API of TQt 3.0 as compatible as possible with
|
|
the TQt 2.x series. For most applications only minor changes will be
|
|
needed to compile and run them successfully using TQt 3.0.
|
|
<p> One of the major new features that has been added in the 3.0 release
|
|
is a module allowing you to easily work with databases. The API is
|
|
platform independent and database neutral. This module is seamlessly
|
|
integrated into TQt Designer, greatly simplifying the process of
|
|
building database applications and using data aware widgets.
|
|
<p>
|
|
Other major new features include a plugin architecture. You can use
|
|
your own and third party plugins your own applications.
|
|
The Unicode support of TQt 2.x has been greatly enhanced, it now
|
|
includes full support for scripts written from right to left (e.g.
|
|
Arabic and Hebrew) and also provides improved support for Asian
|
|
languages.
|
|
<p> Many new classes have been added to the TQt Library. Amongst them are
|
|
classes that provide a docking architecture
|
|
(<a href="ntqdockarea.html">TQDockArea</a>/<a href="ntqdockwindow.html">TQDockWindow</a>), a powerful rich text editor
|
|
(<a href="tqtextedit.html">TQTextEdit</a>), a class to store and access application settings
|
|
(<a href="tqsettings.html">TQSettings</a>) and a class to create and communicate with processes
|
|
(<a href="tqprocess.html">TQProcess</a>).
|
|
<p> Apart from the changes in the library itself a lot has been done to
|
|
make the development of TQt applications with TQt 3.0 even easier than
|
|
before. Two new applications have been added: TQt Linguist is a tool to
|
|
help you translate your application into different languages; TQt
|
|
Assistant is an easy to use help browser for the TQt documentation that
|
|
supports bookmarks and can search by keyword.
|
|
<p> Another change concerns the TQt build system, which has been reworked
|
|
to make it a lot easier to port TQt to new platforms. You can use this
|
|
platform independent build system for your own applications.
|
|
<p> <h2> The TQt Library
|
|
</h2>
|
|
<a name="1"></a><p> A large number of new features has been added to TQt 3.0. The following
|
|
list gives an overview of the most important new and changed aspects
|
|
of the TQt library. A full list of every new method follows the
|
|
overview.
|
|
<p> <h3> Database support
|
|
</h3>
|
|
<a name="1-1"></a><p> One of the major new features in TQt 3.0 is the <a href="sql.html">SQL
|
|
module</a> that provides multiplatform access to SQL databases,
|
|
making database application programming with TQt seamless and portable.
|
|
The API, built with standard SQL, is database-neutral and software
|
|
development is independent of the underlying database.
|
|
<p> A collection of tightly focused C++ classes are provided to give the
|
|
programmer direct access to SQL databases. Developers can send raw SQL
|
|
to the database server or have the TQt SQL classes generate SQL queries
|
|
automatically. Drivers for Oracle, PostgreSQL, MySQL and ODBC are
|
|
available and writing new drivers is straightforward.
|
|
<p> Tying the results of SQL queries to GUI components is fully supported
|
|
by TQt's SQL widgets. These classes include a tabular data widget
|
|
(for spreadsheet-like data presentation with in-place editing), a
|
|
form-based data browser (which provides data navigation and edit
|
|
functions) and a form-based data viewer (which provides read-only
|
|
forms). This framework can be extended by using custom field editors,
|
|
allowing for example, a data table to use custom widgets for in-place
|
|
editing. The SQL module fully supports TQt's signal/slots mechanism,
|
|
making it easy for developers to include their own data validation and
|
|
auditing code.
|
|
<p> TQt Designer fully supports TQt's SQL module. All SQL widgets can be
|
|
laid out within TQt Designer, and relationships can be established
|
|
between controls visually. Many interactions can be defined purely in
|
|
terms of TQt's signals/slots mechanism directly in TQt Designer.
|
|
<p>
|
|
<h3> Plugins
|
|
</h3>
|
|
<a name="1-2"></a><p> The <a href="ntqlibrary.html">TQLibrary</a> class provides a platform independent wrapper for runtime
|
|
loading of shared libraries. TQPluginManager makes it trivial to implement
|
|
plugin support in applications. The TQt library is able to load
|
|
additional styles, database drivers and text codecs from plugins.
|
|
<p> TQt Designer supports custom widgets in plugins, and will use the
|
|
widgets both when designing and previewing forms.
|
|
<p> See the <a href="plugins-howto.html">plugins documentation</a>.
|
|
<p> <h3> Rich text engine and editor
|
|
</h3>
|
|
<a name="1-3"></a><p> The rich text engine originally introduced in TQt 2.0 has been further
|
|
optimized and extended to support editing. It allows editing formatted
|
|
text with different fonts, colors, paragraph styles, tables and
|
|
images. The editor supports different word wrap modes, command-based
|
|
undo/redo, multiple selections, drag and drop, and many other
|
|
features. The new <a href="tqtextedit.html">TQTextEdit</a> engine is highly optimized for proccesing
|
|
and displaying large documents quickly and efficiently.
|
|
<p> <h3> Unicode
|
|
</h3>
|
|
<a name="1-4"></a><p> Apart from the rich text engine, another new feature of TQt 3.0 that
|
|
relates to text handling is the greatly improved Unicode support. TQt
|
|
3.0 includes an implementation of the bidirectional algorithm (BiDi)
|
|
as defined in the Unicode standard and a shaping engine for Arabic,
|
|
which gives full native language support to Arabic and Hebrew speaking
|
|
people. At the same time the support for Asian languages has been
|
|
greatly enhanced.
|
|
<p> The support is almost transparent for the developer using TQt to
|
|
develop their applications. This means that developers who developed
|
|
applications using TQt 2.x will automatically gain the full support for
|
|
these languages when switching to TQt 3.0. Developers can rely on their
|
|
application to work for people using writing systems different from
|
|
Latin1, without having to worry about the complexities involved with
|
|
these scripts, as TQt takes care of this automatically.
|
|
<p> <h3> Docked and Floating Windows
|
|
</h3>
|
|
<a name="1-5"></a><p> TQt 3.0 introduces the concept of Dock Windows and Dock Areas. Dock
|
|
windows are widgets, that can be attached to, and detached from, dock
|
|
areas. The commonest kind of dock window is a tool bar. Any number of
|
|
dock windows may be placed in a dock area. A main window can have dock
|
|
areas, for example, <a href="tqmainwindow.html">TQMainWindow</a> provides four dock areas (top, left,
|
|
bottom, right) by default. The user can freely move dock windows and
|
|
place them at a convenient place in a dock area, or drag them out of
|
|
the application and have them float freely as top level windows in
|
|
their own right. Dock windows can also be minimized or hidden.
|
|
<p> For developers, dock windows behave just like ordinary widgets. TQToolbar
|
|
for example is now a specialized subclass of a dock window. The API
|
|
of TQMainWindow and <a href="tqtoolbar.html">TQToolBar</a> is source compatible with TQt 2.x, so
|
|
existing code which uses these classes will continue to work.
|
|
<p> <h3> Regular Expressions
|
|
</h3>
|
|
<a name="1-6"></a><p> TQt has always provided <a href="tqregexp.html#regular-expression">regular expression</a> support, but that support
|
|
was pretty much limited to what was required in common GUI control
|
|
elements such as file dialogs. TQt 3.0 introduces a new regular
|
|
expression engine, <a href="tqregexp.html">TQRegExp</a>, that supports most of Perl's regex
|
|
features and is Unicode based. The most useful additions are support
|
|
for parentheses (capturing and non-capturing) and backreferences.
|
|
<p> <h3> Storing application settings
|
|
</h3>
|
|
<a name="1-7"></a><p> Most programs will need to store some settings between runs, for
|
|
example, user selected fonts, colors and other preferences, or a list
|
|
of recently used files. The new <a href="tqsettings.html">TQSettings</a> class provides a platform
|
|
independent way to achieve this goal. The API makes it easy to store
|
|
and retrieve most of the basic data types used in TQt (such as basic
|
|
C++ types, strings, lists, colors, etc). The class uses the registry
|
|
on the Windows platform and traditional resource files on Unix.
|
|
<p> <h3> Creating and controlling other processes
|
|
</h3>
|
|
<a name="1-8"></a><p> <a href="tqprocess.html">TQProcess</a> is a class that allows you to start other programs from
|
|
within a TQt application in a platform independent manner. It gives you
|
|
full control over the started program, for example you can redirect
|
|
the input and output of console applications.
|
|
<p> <h3> Accessibility
|
|
</h3>
|
|
<a name="1-9"></a><p> Accessibility means making software usable and accessible to a wide
|
|
range of users, including those with disabilities. In TQt 3.0, most
|
|
widgets provide accessibility information for assistive tools that can
|
|
be used by a wide range of disabled users. TQt standard widgets like
|
|
buttons or range controls are fully supported. Support for complex
|
|
widgets, like e.g. <a href="ntqlistview.html">TQListView</a>, is in development. Existing applications
|
|
that make use of standard widgets will become accessible just by using
|
|
TQt 3.0.
|
|
<p> TQt uses the Active Accessibility infrastructure on Windows, and needs
|
|
the MSAA SDK, which is part of most platform SDKs. With improving
|
|
standardization of accessibility on other platforms, TQt will support
|
|
assistive technologies on other systems, too.
|
|
<p> <h3> XML Improvements
|
|
</h3>
|
|
<a name="1-10"></a><p> The XML framework introduced in TQt 2.2 has been vastly improved. TQt
|
|
2.2 already supported level 1 of the Document Object Model (DOM), a
|
|
W3C standard for accessing and modifying XML documents. TQt 3.0 has
|
|
added support for DOM Level 2 and XML namespaces.
|
|
<p> The XML parser has been extended to allow incremental parsing of XML
|
|
documents. This allows you to start parsing the document directly
|
|
after the first parts of the data have arrived, and to continue
|
|
whenever new data is available. This is especially useful if the XML
|
|
document is read from a slow source, e.g. over the network, as it
|
|
allows the application to start working on the data at a very early
|
|
stage.
|
|
<p> <h3> SVG support
|
|
</h3>
|
|
<a name="1-11"></a><p> SVG is a W3C standard for "Scalable Vector Graphics". TQt 3.0's XML
|
|
support means that <a href="tqpicture.html">TQPicture</a> can optionally generate and import static
|
|
SVG documents. All the SVG features that have an equivalent in
|
|
<a href="tqpainter.html">TQPainter</a> are supported.
|
|
<p> <h3> Multihead support
|
|
</h3>
|
|
<a name="1-12"></a><p> Many professional applications, such as DTP and CAD software, are able
|
|
to display data on two or more monitors. In TQt 3.0 the <a href="tqdesktopwidget.html">TQDesktopWidget</a>
|
|
class provides the application with runtime information about the
|
|
number and geometry of the desktops on the different monitors and such
|
|
allows applications to efficiently use a multi-monitor setup.
|
|
<p> The virtual desktop of Mac OS X, Windows 98, and 2000 is supported, as well
|
|
as the traditional multi-screen and the newer Xinerama multihead setups on
|
|
X11.
|
|
<p> <h3> X11 specific enhancements
|
|
</h3>
|
|
<a name="1-13"></a><p> TQt 3.0 now complies with the NET WM Specification, recently adopted
|
|
by KDE 2.0. This allows easy integration and proper execution with
|
|
desktop environments that support the NET WM specification.
|
|
<p> The font handling on X11 has undergone major changes. <a href="tqfont.html">TQFont</a> no longer
|
|
has a one-to-one relation with window system fonts. TQFont is now a
|
|
logical font that can load multiple window system fonts to simplify
|
|
Unicode text display. This completely removes the burden of
|
|
changing/setting fonts for a specific locale/language from the
|
|
programmer. For end-users, any font can be used in any locale. For
|
|
example, a user in Norway will be able to see Korean text without
|
|
having to set their locale to Korean.
|
|
<p> TQt 3.0 also supports the new render extension recently added to
|
|
XFree86. This adds support for anti aliased text and pixmaps with
|
|
alpha channel (semi transparency) on the systems that support the
|
|
rendering extension (at the moment XFree 4.0.3 and later).
|
|
<p> <h3> Printing
|
|
</h3>
|
|
<a name="1-14"></a><p> Printing support has been enhanced on all platforms. The <a href="tqprinter.html">TQPrinter</a>
|
|
class now supports setting a virtual resolution for the painting
|
|
process. This makes WYSIWYG printing trivial, and also allows you to
|
|
take full advantage of the high resolution of a printer when painting
|
|
on it.
|
|
<p> The postscript driver built into TQt and used on Unix has been greatly
|
|
enhanced. It supports the embedding of true/open type and type1 fonts
|
|
into the document, and can correctly handle and display Unicode.
|
|
Support for fonts built into the printer has been enhanced and TQt now
|
|
knows about the most common printer fonts used for Asian languages.
|
|
<p> <h3> <a href="tqhttp.html">TQHttp</a>
|
|
</h3>
|
|
<a name="1-15"></a><p> This class provides a simple interface for HTTP downloads and uploads.
|
|
<p> <h3> Compatibility with the Standard Template Library (STL)
|
|
</h3>
|
|
<a name="1-16"></a><p> Support for the C++ Standard Template Library has been added to the
|
|
<a href="qt-template-lib.html">TQt Template Library (TQTL)</a>. The TQTL
|
|
classes now contain appropriate copy constructors and typedefs so that
|
|
they can be freely mixed with other STL containers and algorithms. In
|
|
addition, new member functions have been added to TQTL template classes
|
|
which correspond to STL-style naming conventions (e.g., push_back()).
|
|
<p> <h2> TQt Designer
|
|
</h2>
|
|
<a name="2"></a><p> <a href="designer-manual.html">TQt Designer</a> was a pure dialog
|
|
editor in TQt 2.2 but has now been extended to provide the full
|
|
functionality of a GUI design tool.
|
|
<p> This includes the ability to lay out main windows with menus and
|
|
toolbars. Actions can be edited within TQt Designer and then plugged
|
|
into toolbars and menu bars via drag and drop. Splitters can now be
|
|
used in a way similar to layouts to group widgets horizontally or
|
|
vertically.
|
|
<p> In TQt 2.2, many of the dialogs created by TQt Designer had to be
|
|
subclassed to implement functionality beyond the predefined signal and
|
|
slot connections. Whilst the subclassing approach is still fully supported,
|
|
TQt Designer now offers an alternative: a plugin for editing
|
|
slots. The editor offers features such as syntax highlighting,
|
|
completion, parentheses matching and incremental search.
|
|
<p> The functionality of TQt Designer can now be extended via plugins.
|
|
Using TQt Designer's interface or by implementing one of the provided
|
|
interfaces in a plugin, a two way communication between plugin and TQt
|
|
Designer can be established. This functionality is used to implement
|
|
plugins for custom widgets, so that they can be used as real widgets
|
|
inside the designer.
|
|
<p> Basic support for project management has been added. This allows you
|
|
to read and edit *.pro files, add and remove files to/from the project
|
|
and do some global operations on the project. You can now open the
|
|
project file and have one-click access to all the *.ui forms in the
|
|
project.
|
|
<p> In addition to generating code via uic, TQt Designer now supports the
|
|
dynamic creation of widgets directly from XML user interface
|
|
description files (*.ui files) at runtime. This eliminates the need of
|
|
recompiling your application when the GUI changes, and could be used
|
|
to enable your customers to do their own customizations. Technically,
|
|
the feature is provided by a new class, <a href="tqwidgetfactory.html">TQWidgetFactory</a> in the
|
|
TQResource library.
|
|
<p> <h2> TQt Linguist
|
|
</h2>
|
|
<a name="3"></a><p> <a href="linguist-manual.html">TQt Linguist</a> is a GUI utility to
|
|
support translating the user-visible text in applications written with
|
|
TQt. It comes with two command-line tools: lupdate and lrelease.
|
|
<p> Translation of a TQt application is a three-step process:
|
|
<p> <ul>
|
|
<li> Run lupdate to extract user-visible text from the C++ source
|
|
code of the TQt application, resulting in a translation source file
|
|
(a *.ts file).
|
|
<li> Provide translations for the source texts in the *.ts file using
|
|
TQt Linguist.
|
|
<li> Run lrelease to obtain a light-weight message file (a *.qm file)
|
|
from the *.ts file, which provides very fast lookup for released
|
|
applications.
|
|
</ul>
|
|
<p> TQt Linguist is a tool suitable for use by translators. Each
|
|
user-visible (source) text is characterized by the text itself, a
|
|
context (usually the name of the C++ class containing the text), and
|
|
an optional comment to help the translator. The C++ class name will
|
|
usually be the name of the relevant dialog, and the comment will often
|
|
contain instructions that describe how to navigate to the relevant
|
|
dialog.
|
|
<p> You can create phrase books for TQt Linguist to provide common
|
|
translations to help ensure consistency and to speed up the
|
|
translation process. Whenever a translator navigates to a new text to
|
|
translate, TQt Linguist uses an intelligent algorithm to provide a list
|
|
of possible translations: the list is composed of relevant text from
|
|
any open phrase books and also from identical or similar text that has
|
|
already been translated.
|
|
<p> Once a translation is complete it can be marked as "done"; such
|
|
translations are included in the *.qm file. Text that has not been
|
|
"done" is included in the *.qm file in its original form. Although TQt
|
|
Linguist is a GUI application with dock windows and mouse control,
|
|
toolbars, etc., it has a full set of keyboard shortcuts to make
|
|
translation as fast and efficient as possible.
|
|
<p> When the TQt application that you're developing evolves (e.g. from
|
|
version 1.0 to version 1.1), the utility lupdate merges the source
|
|
texts from the new version with the previous translation source file,
|
|
reusing existing translations. In some typical cases, lupdate may
|
|
suggest translations. These translations are marked as unfinished, so
|
|
you can easily find and check them.
|
|
<p> <h2> TQt Assistant
|
|
</h2>
|
|
<a name="4"></a><p> Thanks to the positive feedback we received about the <a href="helpsystem.html#help-system">help system</a>
|
|
built into <a href="designer-manual.html">TQt Designer</a>, we decided
|
|
to offer this part as a separate application called <a href="assistant.html">TQt Assistant</a>. TQt Assistant can be used to
|
|
browse the TQt class documentation as well as the manuals for TQt
|
|
Designer and TQt Linguist. It offers index searching, a contents
|
|
overview, bookmarks history and incremental search. TQt Assistant is
|
|
used by both TQt Designer and TQt Linguist for browsing their help
|
|
documentation.
|
|
<p> <h2> qmake
|
|
</h2>
|
|
<a name="5"></a><p> To ease portability we now provide the <a href="qmake-manual.html">qmake</a> utility to replace tmake. TQMake is a C++ version of
|
|
tmake which offers additional functionallity that is difficult to
|
|
reproduce in tmake. Trolltech uses qmake in its build system for TQt
|
|
and related products and we have released it as free software.
|
|
<p>
|
|
<!-- eof -->
|
|
<p><address><hr><div align=center>
|
|
<table width=100% cellspacing=0 border=0><tr>
|
|
<td>Copyright © 2007
|
|
<a href="troll.html">Trolltech</a><td align=center><a href="trademarks.html">Trademarks</a>
|
|
<td align=right><div align=right>TQt 3.3.8</div>
|
|
</table></div></address></body>
|
|
</html>
|