Choosing the right CI/CD tool can make or break your development workflow. In this post, KDAB’s Jan Marker compares Buildbot, Jenkins, and GitHub Actions - exploring their strengths, trade-offs, and ideal use cases. You’ll also learn about helper tools like CMake Presets and pre-commit that can make your CI setup smoother and more efficient.

This workflow uses Git's --rebase-merges and --update-refs features to manage multiple branches without ever switching between them. By committing everything to a single integration branch and using interactive rebase to restructure and update multiple branches at once, you maintain clean history, adapt to any review system, and avoid branch divergence - all using native Git tools.

Robust embedded software quality relies on integrated testing: unit tests with frameworks like Google Test, HAL to isolate hardware, HIL or virtual hardware testing, data-driven test automation, and streamlined crash reporting to ensure reliability and maintainability.

Mozilla is the maker of the famous Firefox web browser and the birthplace of the likes of Rust and Servo (read more about Embedding the Servo Web Engine in Qt). Firefox is a huge, multi-platform, multi-language project with 21 million lines of code back in 2020, according to their own blog post. Navigating in projects […]

In a recent email, KDABian Leon Matthes highlighted some of his go-to command line tools for everyday use on Unix. His recommendations sparked a lively exchange among our colleagues, each sharing their own favorite utilities. Many of these tools offer efficient alternatives to standard Unix programs, speeding up the workflow or otherwise enriching the development […]

We just released CXX-Qt version 0.7! CXX-Qt is a set of Rust crates for creating bidirectional Rust ⇄ C++ bindings with Qt. It supports integrating Rust into C++ applications using CMake or building Rust applications with Cargo. CXX-Qt provides tools for implementing QObject subclasses in Rust that can be used from C++, QML, and JavaScript. […]

In recent years, a lot has been happening to improve performance, maintainability and tooling of QML. Some of those improvements can only take full effect when your code follows modern best practices. Here are 10 things you can do in order to modernize your QML code and take full advantage of QML's capabilities. 1. Use […]

We’re pleased to announce the release of KD Reports 2.3.0, the latest version of our reporting tool for Qt applications. This marks our first major update in two years, bringing several bug fixes and new features that further improve the experience of generating reports. What is KD Reports? KD Reports is a versatile tool for […]

Adopting proven practices like continuous integration (CI) and continuous deployment (CD) is a key part of modern software design. These methodologies enhance software quality and team productivity while shortening development cycles – what’s not to love? Arguably, it’s the short-term pain of getting these systems installed and configured for your environment and the long-term pain […]

Creating applications for cross-platform compatibility is a modern best practice. It increases deployment flexibility and allows applications to reach a wider audience. However, doing it properly can involve some trial and error. At KDAB, we’ve built many multiplatform desktop applications. Here, we’ve compiled a few insights from that process to help you build better software. […]

It's been around 10 months since the last release, and we're pleased to introduce GammaRay 3.1. GammaRay is a powerful tool for developers using Qt, providing deep inspection capabilities to help you understand and troubleshoot your applications. With this new release, we've made several important updates and improvements to further streamline your development process. What […]

Building system images for embedded devices from the ground up is a very complex process, that involves many different kinds of requirements for the build tooling around it. Traditionally, the most popular build systems used in this context are the Yocto project and buildroot. These build systems make it easy to set up toolchains for […]

Qt Test is a framework designed for unit testing applications and libraries built with Qt. It provides all the standard features commonly found in unit testing frameworks, making it easier to write unit tests for Qt-based projects. We're happy to introduce the QtTest Runner - a Visual Studio Code extension for running Qt Tests via […]

Since we first announced it last year, our Vulkan wrapper KDGpu has been busy evolving to meet customer needs and our own. Our last post announced the public release of v0.1.0, and version 0.5.0 is available today. It's never been easier to interact with modern graphics technologies, enabling you to focus on the big picture […]

KDDockWidgets has launched its latest version 2.1. This release comes packed with over 500 commits, offering enhanced stability over its predecessor, version 2.0, without introducing any breaking changes. KDDockWidgets is a versatile framework for custom-tailored docking systems in Qt written by KDAB’s Sérgio Martins. For more information about its rich set of features, have a […]

Hotspot is a standalone GUI designed to provide a user-friendly interface for analyzing performance data. It takes a perf.data file, parses and evaluates its contents, and presents the results in a visually appealing and easily understandable manner. Our goal with Hotspot is to offer a modern alternative to perf report, making performance analysis on Linux […]