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What's Cooking in Qt 6.12?
New Features, LTS and Workflows
23 October 2026
What’s new in Qt 6.12 and what does it mean for your next project? Jesper Pedersen welcomes Maycon Stamboroski and Ulf Hermann from Qt Group for a candid discussion of the latest Qt release, from GPU-accelerated 2D drawing to a new approach to styling Qt Quick and Widgets applications.
The conversation explores what Qt 6.12 brings as a long-term support release, which features are ready for production, and which are still evolving. Expect technical explanations, questions about API design and developer workflows, and the occasional disagreement about where application state belongs.
Topics include:
- Qt Canvas Painter and Canvas2D: GPU-accelerated drawing and how the new Canvas2D type differs from the existing QML Canvas.
- QRangeModel: improvements to headers and item customization, plus the thinking behind its traits-based approach.
- StyleKit: an experimental Qt Labs module for creating styles, with the goal of supporting both Qt Quick and Widgets.
- Security and the Cyber Resilience Act: dependency maintenance, software bills of materials (SBOMs), and the move to independent Qt WebEngine and Qt PDF updates.
- Qt Creator and AI: agent-assisted workflows, tooling integration, and Qt’s role when more code is generated by AI.
- QML hot reload: updating bindings in a running application, how it differs from preview, and when components still need rebuilding.
There’s also a look ahead to Qt 6.13, a discussion of whether Qt 7 is on the horizon, and a closing quiz that puts the guests’ knowledge of Qt history to the test.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction
01:28 Qt 6.12 and long-term support
03:19 Quiz: What changed since Qt 6.8?
05:13 Qt Canvas Painter and Canvas2D
08:22 QRangeModel improvements and API design
12:50 Qt Labs and the experimental StyleKit module
17:35 Styling Qt Quick and Widgets with StyleKit
24:31 QML hot reload: how it works and its limitations
31:31 Hot reload tooling, CMake, and IDE support
35:37 Security, CRA, and independent WebEngine/PDF updates
40:16 Dependency maintenance, SBOMs, and commercial support
44:40 Qt Creator and agent-assisted workflows
48:07 How AI is influencing Qt development
51:33 AI-generated contributions and code review
54:47 Why use Qt in an AI-driven development workflow?
56:57 Qt 6.13 and the question of Qt 7
Links
- KDAB’s evaluation of Qt style-sheets
- Agentic Development in Qt Creator
- Interview with Paul Olav Tvete (Troll #4)
About the Guests
Maycon Stamboroski is a Senior Product Lead at Qt Group, specializing in graphics and user interface design. He focuses on both 2D and 3D rendering, ensuring that every pixel is thoughtfully crafted. Passionate about creating intuitive and visually compelling interfaces, Maycon is the go-to expert for any technical questions related to UI and graphics. Having a dual background in UX design and software engineering, allows him to understand the needs and preferences of users, as well as the technical challenges and opportunities of product development.
Ulf Hermann has been working with the Qt Company since 2013. He is the maintainer of the QtQml module and the QML language. Currently, he is working hard to make QML more efficient by compiling ahead of time to C++.
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