The cmake-project Script, Fast Duplicate Tracking, The practical programmer’s guide to C++ 20, How containers improve the way we develop software, Qt 6.2 & Beyond, Multimedia with Qt and much more.

Welcome to our September Newsletter

We bring you The cmake-project Script: Generating a CMake Project For a Single Executable in C++ followed by Fast Duplicate Tracking: DuplicateTracker Merged to KDToolBox and two meaty whitepapers, The practical programmer’s guide to C++ 20 and How containers improve the way we develop software.

We also have an interview with Maurice Kalinowski on Qt 6.2 and Beyond, and a feast of Video releases including, How to get good looking demos – Integrating 3D Scenes and a brand new series, Multimedia with Qt.

Last but not least, there’s a good deal of Event News, including the Qt World Summit, online in November.

But first. . .

KDAB is Hiring

We are looking for talented software engineers. If you think you have what it takes to join our community of excellence, let us know.

Find out more

The cmake-project Script

Generating a CMake Project For a Single Executable in C++

by David Faure

If you ever need to create a project around a single C++ file (or just a few C++ files) in CMake, as you might for quick test cases, you might find it tedious to write a CMakeLists.txt file by hand every time.

To make this easier, I’ve written a script called cmake-project that you can use to generate an initial CMakeLists.txt for you.

Read on . . .

Fast Duplicate Tracking

DuplicateTracker Merged to KDToolBox

by Marc Mutz

In 2019, I optimized QStringList::removeDuplicates() by using std::pmp::unordered_set with a std::pmr::monotonic_buffer_resource, when available. The class that I wrote to encapsulate this optimization has since been re-implemented three times. The latest iteration has recently landed in KDToolBox.

Read on, especially if you have code that looks a bit like this →.

Whitepapers

The practical programmer’s guide to C++ 20

by Giuseppe D’Angelo and Ivan Čućik

The new standard has many changes that will mostly be of interest to library builders and language experts, things like consteval, constinit, no_unique_address, lambda function improvements, and others. These all help to improve the foundation of the language, make code more efficient or easier to write, close gaps in the standard, or lay groundwork for upcoming changes in C++23. But the six additions that we talk about in this whitepaper are the ones we think will make the biggest difference in the lives of practical programmers.

Read the whitepaper.

How containers improve the way we develop software

by Andrew Hayzen

Containers are known as an amazing tool for cloud development, allowing software to run reliably when moved from one computing environment to another. But there are many other ways in which they can improve our lives as developers. This article by KDAB’s Andrew Hayzen, published in www.embedded.com, looks at how to use containers to their greatest advantage and how to work around problem areas when they arise.

Read the whitepaper.

Qt 6.2 and Beyond

an Interview with Maurice Kalinowski, for KDAB News

Maurice, from The Qt Company, was going to talk about this for our Qt Developer Conference, but as you probably know, that got postponed to next June. So we invited Maurice to tell us something about the latest developments with Qt 6.2 in our summer edition of KDAB News. He gave us lots to think about.

Watch the interview on KDAB News.

Multimedia with Qt – a new series

Introduction & Parts 2 & 3

jean-Michäel Celerier introduces the series in Part 1 and defines what multimedia is. He gives an overview of the current state of tasks such as displaying videos, playing sounds and getting camera feeds, and an overview of the various libraries available to integrate with Qt.

Other issues related to

cross-platform multimedia such as codec support and hardware encoding / decoding are introduced.

Click on the images to go to each one, or check out the series so far. There will be 5 altogether.

How to get good looking demos

Integrating 3D Scenes

Usually, to update or integrate 3D models into applications, you, the Developer, have to ask Designers for all the parts and then reassemble them manually each time. With Kuesa, all this is simplified, saving you time, without compromising on the 3D model’s quality as you directly use the scene (models + animations) created by the Designer.

Sounds too good to be true? Watch this video to find out how it works.

6 Steps for Legacy Software Migration

with Robert Brock and Kevin Funk

Porting legacy code from Motif, MFC, Photon or previous Qt versions to a more recent Qt version can be a big challenge. Sometimes it’s definitely worth the time and money to port software to a new toolkit rather than doing a complete rewrite, other times it’s not. In less than 3 minutes, this video will show you the most important steps to consider before you start.

Watch the video.

Qt Widgets and More – 3 new videos

Enum Class and Model/View

You want enum class over just enum, right? That is, however, a bit troublesome with Qt’s model/view framework, where you often use int. Watch the video.

Setting up Radio Buttons in Button Groups in Qt Designer

If you didn’t already know how to do that (or even, that it was possible), this video is for you.

Reverse Debugging using rr

A debugger is without a doubt a very useful tool to have, however, sometimes you debug just one step too far, and would wish you had a time machine to go back. Such a time machine does actually exist on Linux, it’s called ‘rr’ . . . Let Jesper Pedersen show you how to use it.

Events

QtDay Italy, Oct 7

We are sponsors for this year’s QtDay Italy and on the 7th of October you can hear Tommaso Bonvici talking, in Italian, about Proof of concept di Alexa Smart Screen con Qt. It’s free, online.

Sign up now.

CppCon, Oct 24 – 29

This is The Big C++ event of the year, a hybrid event, with talks and activities at the gorgeous Gaylord Rockies venue in Colorado, and online. KDAB is a sponsor and Bjarne Sjoustroup will offer a Keynote.

Though the main program hasn’t yet been announced, KDAB’s Ivan Čukić will give a talk.

Register now.

Qt World Summit, Nov 3 – 4

KDAB is proud to be Gold Sponsor at this online event. Jesper Pedersen will give a talk on Qt Productivity tips – highlights from Qt Widgets and More and there will be four case studies. The program also offers a deep-dive into Qt 6.2 from The Qt Company CTO, Lars Knoll, and a host of technical talks on cross platform development, the future of QML and more. Registration is free.

Check it out.

Meeting C++ 2021, Nov 10 – 12

KDAB is once again sponsoring Meeting C++ and this week a first version of the live schedule is released.

KDAB’s Marc Mutz will present C++ Co-routines as an API Principle, and Leon Matthes will talk about Reimplementing Signals, Slots, Properties and Bindings from Qt in pure C++17.

The program will feature 3 tracks and 6 AMAs. A total of 29 talks will be given by 31 Speakers – online.

Find out more and Register.