Qt 3.3 introduces many new features as well as many improvements over the 3.2.x series. For more details, see the online documentation which is included in this distribution. The documentation is also available at http://qt.nokia.com/doc/ The Qt version 3.3 series is binary compatible with the 3.2.x series. Applications compiled for 3.2 will continue to run with 3.3. **************************************************************************** * General * **************************************************************************** Qt library ---------- Qt 3.3 is .NET enabled. This release shows how to use classes developed with Qt in a .NET environment. It includes an analysis of the different interoperability infrastructures provided by the .NET framework. An example demonstrates how to use both a manual approach with Microsoft's managed extensions to the C++ language, and also automated solutions based on COM and the ActiveQt framework to reuse native Qt classes and widgets in .NET projects. To learn more about Qt and .NET read the "Using Qt objects in Microsoft .NET" walkthrough found in the ActiveQt framework documentation. Qt 3.3 now supports IPv6 in addition to IPv4. New functions have been added for IPv6 support to QSocketDevice, QHostAddress and QDNns. Qt now includes a new tool class called QLocale. This class converts between numbers and their string representations in various languages. QLocale supports the concept of a default locale which allows a locale to be set globally for the entire application. Support for new 64bit platforms and compilers has been added for Qt 3.3. Qt now supports Itanium on both Linux (Intel) and Windows (VC++). Qt 3.3 now also officially supports FreeBSD. Qt 3.3 also supports precompiled headers for both Windows and Mac OS X. To use precompiled headers when compiling your Qt application simply add PRECOMPH and then specify the header file to precompile in your .pro file. To learn more about precompiled headers see the "Using Precompiled Headers" chapter in the qmake User Guide. Two new database drivers have been added to the SQL module, InterBase and SQLite. This makes it possible to write database applications that do not require a database server. SQLite is provided in the Qt 3.3 distribution and can be enabled with either -qt-sql-sqlite or -plugin-sql-sqlite. The InterBase plugin also works with Firebird, the open source version of InterBase. QWidget has a new function setWindowState() which is used to make a widget maximized, minimized, etc. This allows individual settings for the minimized/maximized/fullscreen properties. Support for semi-transparent top-level widgets on Mac OS X and Windows 2000/XP has also been added. Qt 3.3 includes in addition to this, numerous bug fixes and improvements. Special thanks goes to KDE for their reports and suggestions. Qt/Embedded ----------- Added support for SNAP graphics drivers from SciTech Software. This gives access to accelerated drivers for more than 150 graphics chipsets. Qt/Mac ------ Added support for Xcode project files in qmake. Added Tablet support for Mac OS X. Numerous visual improvements. Qt/X11 ------ Added support for Xft2 client side fonts on X servers without the RENDER extension. Added a new configure option (-dlopen-opengl) which will remove the OpenGL and Xmu library dependencies in the Qt library. The functions used by Qt in those libraries are resolved manually using dlopen() when this option is used. Improved support for the Extended Window Manager Hints. Qt/Windows ---------- Added support for Windows Server 2003 (Win64/Itanium). Qt Motif Extension ------------------ Clipboard operations now work between Qt and Motif widgets in the same application. Click-to-focus works with Motif widgets that are children of a QMotifWidget. ActiveQt Extension ------------------ Two new functions, QAxFactory::startServer() and QAxFactory::stopServer(), can be used to start and stop an out-of-process ActiveQt server at runtime. The new functions QAxFactory::serverDirPath() and QAxFactory::serverFilePath() return the location of the COM server binary. Server binaries no longer need to implement a main() entry point function. A default implementation is used for out-of-process servers. IClassFactory2 is supported for the development of licensed components, and QAxFactory supports the creation of non-visual COM objects. Class specific information can be provided directly in the C++ class declaration using the Q_CLASSINFO macro to control how objects and controls are registered and exposed. New helper classes and macros are avialable to make it even easier to expose object classes (see the QAxServer documentation for details). COM objects developed with ActiveQt are now supported in a wider range of clients, including Microsoft Office applications and .NET. Examples that demonstrate how to use the Qt objects from the examples in .NET languages like C# are included. QStringList is supported as a type, and QRect, QSize and QPoint are now supported datatypes for control properties and as reference parameters. Saving the controls to a storage or stream now includes the version number of the QDataStream used for the serialization (note that this might break existing storages). The QAxContainer library is now static even for shared configurations of Qt. This simplifies deployment and allows using both QAxServer and QAxContainer in one project, i.e. an OLE automatable application that uses COM objects itself. The semantics of QAxBase::setControl() have been extended to allow creating of COM objects on remote machines via DCOM, to create controls requiring a license key and to connect to already running objects. The implementation of QAxBase::dynamicCall() has been improved to support passing of parameter values directly in the function string. Three new classes, QAxScript, QAxScriptManager and QAxScriptEngine, can be used to script COM objects from within Qt applications using Windows Script Host. SAFEARRAY(BSTR) parameters are supported as QStringList. Calling COM object methods with out-parameters of type short is now supported (the parameters are of type int& in the Qt wrapper), and QVariants used for out-parameters don't have to be initialized to the expected type. Calling QByteArray functions in out-of-process controls no longer returns an error code. The control's client side is set to zero when the container releases the control. Qt Designer ----------- Qt Designer, Qt's visual GUI builder, has received some speed optimizations, along with minor improvements to the menu editor. Qt Assistant ------------ Qt Assistant now saves the states of the tab bars between runs. This enables users to start browsing where they ended their previous assistant session. Shortcuts for Find Next (F3) and Find Previous (Shift+F3) have been implemented. Compilers --------- Qt 3.3 adds support for two new compilers. The Intel C++ compiler is supported on Linux and FreeBSD. GNU gcc is supported on Windows using MinGW. Qt 3.3 no longer officially supports the Sun CC 5.0 compiler or the IRIX MIPSpro o32 mode. **************************************************************************** * Library * **************************************************************************** - QAction Added a setDisabled() slot similar to QWidget::setDisabled. Added an activate() slot which activates the action and executes all connected slots. Added showStatusMessage() and whatsThisClicked() signals. - QButtonGroup Added QButtonGroup::selectedId property to allow mapping with SQL property sets. - QCursor Added new enum value Qt::BusyCursor. - QDom The QDom classes are now reentrant. - QEvent Added new event type WindowStateChange, obsoleting ShowNormal, ShowMinimized, ShowMaximized and ShowFullScreen. - QHeader The sizeChange() signal is emitted when the section sizes are adjusted by double clicking. - QHostAddress Added new constructor for IPv6 and new functions isIPv6Address() and toIPv6Address(). Obsoleted the functions isIp4Addr() and ip4Addr(), replacing them with isIPv4Address() and toIPv4Address(). - QListView Improved alignment for text in QListViewItems. Right aligned text now has the ellipsis on the left. Keyboard search now uses the sort column as the column to start searching in. Improved branch drawing. - QLocale [new] This new tool class converts between numbers and their string representations in various languages. - QMacStyle Allow disabling of size constraints. - QMovie Added JNG support. - QPixmap Support full alpha-maps for paletted (8-bit) images. Support 16-bit grayscale PNG images with transparency. - QSocketDevice Added setProtocol() and protocol() for IPv6 support. - QSound Windows: Support loop related APIs. - QSplashScreen Less intrusive stay-on-top policy. - QSql Support for InterBase and SQLite. - QStatusBar Draw messages with the foreground() color of the palette, rather than with the text() color. - QString Added support for %lc and %ls to sprintf(). %lc takes a Unicode character of type ushort, %ls takes a zero-terminated array of Unicode characters of type ushort (i.e. const ushort*). Also added support for precision (e.g. "%.5s"). Changed arg() to support "%L1" for localized conversions. - QStyle Add a new primitive element: PE_RubberBand. - QTextEdit Reduced memory consumption by 20 bytes per line. Added a getter for the currently set QSyntaxHighlighter. - QVariant Comparison between variants where one of the variants is a numeric value will compare on the numeric value. Type casting between different variants is more consistent. - QWidget Added setWindowOpacity() and windowOpacity() to support transparent top-level widgets on Windows and Mac. Added windowState() and setWindowState() to allow individual setting of the minimized/maximized/fullscreen properties. - QWindowsStyle Qt supports toggling of the accelerator underlines using the Alt-key on Windows 98, 2000 and later. On other platforms this change has no effect.