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diff --git a/dist/changes-2.1.0 b/dist/changes-2.1.0 new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..9d03a10b35 --- /dev/null +++ b/dist/changes-2.1.0 @@ -0,0 +1,314 @@ +Qt 2.1 introduces new features as well as many improvements over the +2.0.x series. This file will only give an overview of the main changes +since version 2.0.2. A complete list would simply be too large to be +useful. For more detail see the online documentation which is included +in this distribution, and also available on +http://qt.nokia.com/doc/ + +The Qt version 2.1 series is binary compatible with the 2.0.x +series - applications compiled for 2.0 will continue to run with 2.1. + +As with previous Qt releases, the API and functionality of Qt is +completely portable between Microsoft Windows and X11. It is also portable +between Windows 95, 98 and NT; unlike most toolkits, Qt lets a single +executable work on all three. + +**************************************************************************** +* Overview * +**************************************************************************** + +As usual, large sections of the documentation have been revised and +lots of new documentation has been added. + +Much work went into existing classes, based on all the feedback we got +from our users. A warm thank you to you all at this point, we honestly +hope to satisfy most of your wishes with the new release. + +Among the things that got a lot of polishing is the new geometry +management system that was introduced with the 2.x series. Some +classes, such as QBoxLayout, have been rewritten and many size hints +and size policies were optimized. As usual with newly introduced +systems, the occasional bug has been fixed as well. As a result, +layout in Qt-2.1 is not only nicer but also faster. + +Big parts of the file dialog have been rewritten. It is now +synchronized in terms of features with the common Windows dialog, +including fancy drag'n'drop and in-place renaming. You can customize +both parts of the dialog, the front-end with info and preview widgets, +the back-end with different network protocols (see the QFileDialog and +QNetworkProtocol documentation for details). + +Especially interesting for dynamic Qt applications is the newly +introduced property system. Many interesting things, from scripting up +to graphical user interface builders, become easier. The technology +requires a new macro Q_PROPERTY and a new revision of Qt's meta object +compiler (moc). See the Qt documentation for details. + +Due to strong customer demand, we added a cross-platform way to easily +implement multi-document interfaces (known as 'MDI'). The widget is +called QWorkspace and makes this task trivial. + +On X11, text dropping from Motif drag'n'drop applications has been +added, to make your Qt applications inter-operable with those Motif +applications that survived Y2K. + +The rich text system, first introduced in Qt-2.0, has been +revised. Apart from great speed improvements, it now supports HTML +tables as well as floating images. + +QMultiLineEdit, the text input field in Qt, got the missing word wrap +functionality. It's probably the last big extension we will add to +that widget. In Qt 3.0, it will be replaced by a fancier, faster and +more powerful QTextEdit widget that also deals with different colors +and fonts in a way similar to the existing QTextView. + +Qt follows the respective GUI style guides even more closely. This +includes honoring desktop settings, and keyboard shortcuts such as +Ctrl-Z/Y for undo/redo in line edit and multi-line edit +controls. Dialog handling for both modal and non-modal dialogs has +been improved to follow the platform conventions precisely. + +With QIconView, we added a powerful new visualization widget similar +to QListView and QListBox. It contains optinally labelled pixmap items +that the user can select, drag around, rename, delete and more. + +Compared to the previous release, we have managed to reduce overall +memory consumption while improving execution speed and features. + +Below is a list of the major new features in existing classes as well +as short descriptions of all new classes and the changes in some of +the extensions shipped with Qt. + + +**************************************************************************** +* New major features in existing classes * +**************************************************************************** + +QApplication - new function wakeUpGuiThread() to simplify using threads + with Qt. + +QArray - added sorting and binary search. + +QColor - custom color support added. qRgb(r,g,b) helper function + now sets an opaque alpha value instead of a transparent + one. + +QComboBox - support for text items with icons. + +QFileDialog - many new features including fancy drag'n'drop + and in-place renaming. + Methods like setInfoPreviewWidget()and + setContentsPreviewWidget() make it easy to customize + the dialog extensively. With QUrlOperator and the + QNetworkProtocol abstraction, the dialog can operate + transparently by various different network protocols, + such as HTTP and FTP (see the Network Extension). + +QFocusEvent - carries a reason() for the event. Possible reasons are + Mouse, Tab, ActiveWindow, ShortCut and other. The + addition makes line edit controls behave properly. + +QHeader - added optional visual sort indicator. Revisited API that + operates on sections only (solves the 'logical' vs. 'actual' + index confusion). A reworked 'table' example shows how + to use QHeader in combination with a scrollview to create + a simple spreadsheet. + +QListBox - many signals and functions added for convenience and + greater flexibility. + +QListView - various selections modes similar to QListBox, many + new functions and signals added for convenience and + greater flexibility. + +QMainWindow - implemented draggable and hidable toolbars. A menubar + can be made draggable by simply putting it in a toolbar. + +QMetaObject - Parts of the API made public. The meta object allows + applications to access information about an object's + properties as well as its signals and slots. + +QMultiLineEdit - added different word wrap modes: WidgetWidth, + FixedPixelWidth and FixedColumnWidth. + +QObject - property access functions property() and setProperty(). + +QPen - added adjustable cap and join styles. + +QPopupMenu - added support for tear-off menus, custom items + and widget items. + A new function setItemParameter() makes it possible + to distinguish between several menu items connected to + one single slot. + +QPrinter - Now allows printing to the default printer without doing + setup() first. + +QProgressDialog - auto-reset and auto-close modes. + +QPushButton - added a menu button mode with setPopup(). + +QScrollView - support for auto-scrolling on drag move events (drag + auto scroll mode). + +QSignal - optional additional integer parameter for the emitted + signal. + +QSimpleRichText - added adjustSize() function that implements a clever + size hint. Vertical break support for printing. inText() + hit test. + +QSpinBox - different button symbols, currently UpDownArrows and + PlusMinus. + +QSplitter - supports three resize modes now, Stretch, KeepSize + and FollowSizeHint. + +QString - new functions setUnicode(), setUnicodeCodes(), setLatin1(), + startsWith() and endsWith() + +QStringList - new functions fromStrList(), split(), join() and grep(). + +QStyle - some extensions for menu button indicators, default + button indicators, variable scrollbar extends and toolbar + handles. + +QStyleSheet - a couple of tags added to the default sheet, such as + U, NOBR, HEAD, DL, DT, DD and table support (TABLE, TR, + TD, TH). Many attributes added to existing tags. + +QTextView - basic table support. Contents is selectable, selections + can be pasted/dragged into other widgets. + +QToolBar - stretchable depending on the orientation (setHorizontalStretchable() + and setVerticalStretchable(). Added orientationChanged() signal. + +QToolButton - added optional delayed menu with setPopup() and + setPopupDelay(). Auto-raise behaviour adjustable. + +QWidget - new widget flag WStyle_ContextHelp that adds a + context-help button to the window titlebar. The + button triggers "What's This?"-help. The flag works + with MS-Windows and future versions of X11 desktops + such as KDE-2.0. + + - New function showFullScreen(). + + - Enabling and disabling with setEnabled() propagates to + children. + + - Changed isVisible(). It now returns whether a widget + is mapped up to the toplevel widget (the previous + implementation only returned isVisibleTo(parentWidget()). + + - New property 'backgroundOrigin' that lets a widget draw + its background relatively to its parent widget's coordinate + system. This makes pseudo-transparency possible, without + the overhead of a real widget mask. + + +**************************************************************************** +* New clases * +**************************************************************************** + +QCustomMenuItem - an abstract base class for custom menu items in + popup menus. + +QFontDataBase - provides information about the available fonts. Not really + a new class (it was used internally for the QFontDialog), + but for the first time public API. + +QGuardedPtr - a template class that provides guarded pointers to + QObjects. + +QIconView - a sophisticated new widget similar to QListView and + QListBox. An iconview contains optinally labelled pixmap + items that the user can select, drag around, rename, delete + and more. The widget is highly optimized for speed and + large amounts of icons. + +QInputDialog - a convenience dialog to get some simple input values from + the user. + +QMetaProperty - stores meta data about properties. Part of the meta + object system. + +QNetworkProtocol- base class for network protocols, provides + a common API for network protocols. + +QUrl/ +QUrlOperator - provides an easy way to work with URLs. + +QVariant - a tagged union for the most common Qt data types. + +QValueStack - a value-based stack container. + +QWorkspace - provides a workspace that can contain decorated + windows as opposed to frameless child widgets. + QWorkspace makes it easy to implement a multi-document + interface (MDI). + +QBig5Codec - provides support for the Big5 Chinese encoding. + + +**************************************************************************** +* Changes which may affect runtime behaviour * +**************************************************************************** + +QDataStream / QPicture + To accomodate for improved functionality, the stream serialization format + of QString and QPen has changed in Qt 2.1. The format version + number has been increased to 3. Compatibility has been kept, so + applications built with this version of Qt are automatically able to read + QDataStream and QPicture data generated by earlier Qt 2.x versions. But if + your application needs to generate data that must be readable by + applications that are compiled with earlier versions of Qt, you must use + QDataStream::setVersion() (if the data contains QString or QPen objects). + See the documentation of this function for further discussion. + +QPainter::drawPolygon() + An outline is no longer drawn in the brush color if NoPen is specified. + This matches the behaviour on Windows and ensures that the area + painted in this case is the same pixels defined by a QRegion made + from the polygon. To get the old behaviour, you can call + painter.setPen(painter.brush()) prior to painting, which will also + work on Windows. + +QPushButton::sizeHint() + The size hint of auto-default push buttons has been slightly + increased in order to reserve space for a default button indicator + frame. This is necessary for a proper Motif or Platinum emulation. If + this change destroys your geometry management, a auto-default button + is probably not what you wanted anyway. Simply call + setAutoDefault(FALSE) on these push buttons to get the old behaviour. + +QWidget + Font and palette propagation has changed totally (from "almost + brain-dead" to working). In practice, the only changes we've seen are + to the better. + +QColor + qRgb(r,g,b) now sets a default opaque alpha value of 0xff instead of + a transparent 0x00 alpha value formerly. Use qRgb(r,g,b,a) if you do + need a transparent alpha value. + +QPalette + It turned out that the old normal/active/disabled set of color groups + didn't work very well, except in the simplest hello-world examples, + that it couldn't be fixed without nasty hacks, and that during five + years nobody had discovered the bugs. So, we've dropped our broken + attempt at Tcl/Tk L&F compatibility, and added support for Windows + 2000 and Macintosh L&F compatibility instead. The Macintosh and + Windows 2000 looks differentiate between the window with focus and + other windows. Qt calls the color groups QPalette::active() and + QPalette::inactive() respectively. + +QGridLayout/QBoxLayout + setMargin() now also works on child layouts. As a result of this + change, the geometry() of a layout now includes margin(). This may + effect programs that use QLayout::geometry(). + +QToolButton + The now adjustable auto-raise behaviour defaults to TRUE only when + a button is used inside a QToolBar. That's usually what you want. If not, + call setAutoRaise(FALSE). |