As a result of our close cooperation with the platform software teams from leading system on chip (SoC) manufacturers, detailed developer guides, in the form of hardware-specific Qt “mkspecs” , have now been created and added to the publicly accessible Qt Gitorious repository.
These precise guides are designed to ease the usually complex and time-consuming task of bringing up Qt initially on the SoC selected for a device project. They also assist programmers to take full advantage of available hardware-accelerated graphics engines. Witnessing the ever-expanding role of Qt as the device UI and applications development framework of choice in consumer and industrial electronics device projects, Nokia Qt and many SoC companies teamed to make these guides a reality.
The leveragability of this work is evident, since all device development teams working on projects based on Qt and a particular SoC target can feel confident their initial Qt implementation will be achieved more quickly and will run efficiently, effectively and functionally. This should help developers get beyond the “getting started” phase and on to the business of building the intended device and necessary applications.
Housed at https://gitorious.org/qt-platform-mkspecs the “mkspecs” are the results of real team efforts between the Nokia Qt team and SoC teams who share a common vision of assisting joint customers and partners to become more efficient.
This work has also created a virtuous circle of enhancements as we ourselves have contributed to improvements in SoC platform software and our SoC partners have enhanced our understanding of their graphics engines. Together we’ve been able to refine and further improve performance and richness of our Qt-based demonstrations (as evidenced in areas such as QtMediaHub and the IVI demos), and they are now using these same demos themselves to showcase their hardware performance and to promote the “Qt development readiness” of their hardware.
We see the next step for this “mkspecs” project as building out a section of “Qt in Use” on our web site devoted to these hardware-specific collaborations. Once complete, this section will include detailed information for each of the SoCs upon which Qt has been pre-integrated, will highlight device projects successfully building upon Qt and the respective hardware, and will provide bilateral website linking with each SoC partner to further improve relevant information and access. In this way we intend to develop and supply sets of best practice processes of practical use when it comes to working to achieve top-class software integrations and device performance. And given that this all falls under the umbrella of the Qt Project, we also welcome any and all to use and contribute to the growing richness of the work.
We now make available Qt Mkspecs for Broadcom’s 7420 and 7425 platforms, Trident’s Shiner platform, Sigma Designs 8654 and 8656 platforms, TI’s Panda board, AM Logic’s 8726M platform, and ST Micro’s 7108. You may have been reading about Broadcom’s 2835-based development platform – better known as Raspberry Pi – we have Qt Mkspecs for that too.
We’ll add to these as our capabilities (and others’ contributions) permit. Part of this work will also include retesting these periodically (approx. every six months) against new hardware platform revisions. All of this is being done to continue to grow a broader Qt ecosystem as we move forward.
Source Qt Experts
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