This is the Safari online edition of the printed book.

The Only Official, Best-Practice Guide to Qt 4.3 Programming

Using Trolltech's Qt you can build industrial-strength C++ applications that run natively on Windows, Linux/Unix, Mac OS X, and embedded Linux without source code changes. Now, two Trolltech insiders have written a start-to-finish guide to getting outstanding results with the latest version of Qt: Qt 4.3.

Packed with realistic examples and in-depth advice, this is the book Trolltech uses to teach Qt to its own new hires. Extensively revised and expanded, it reveals today's best Qt programming patterns for everything from implementing model/view architecture to using Qt 4.3's improved graphics support. You'll find proven solutions for virtually every GUI development task, as well as sophisticated techniques for providing database access, integrating XML, using subclassing, composition, and more. Whether you're new to Qt or upgrading from an older version, this book can help you accomplish everything that Qt 4.3 makes possible.

• Completely updated throughout, with significant new coverage of databases, XML, and Qtopia embedded programming

• Covers all Qt 4.2/4.3 changes, including Windows Vista support, native CSS support for widget styling, and SVG file generation

• Contains separate 2D and 3D chapters, coverage of Qt 4.3's new graphics view classes, and an introduction to QPainter's OpenGL back-end

• Includes new chapters on look-and-feel customization and application scripting

• Illustrates Qt 4's model/view architecture, plugin support, layout management, event processing, container classes, and much more

• Presents advanced techniques covered in no other book—from creating plugins to interfacing with native APIs

• Includes a new appendix on Qt Jambi, the new Java version of Qt

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 16 Ratings

By far the best book on Qt, the best library - 2009-06-23
Reviewer Rating:
This book contains the most thorough coverage of the many functionalities in Qt. The second edition is also the most current of all the books (a fleeting feature, but noteworthy depending on what you want to learn). Its well written and after over 1 year of working with the book I have yet to find any erroneous information of code.

We own all of the Qt books, but we use this one for teaching Qt in our Internship program. The Basic Qt Section starts simple and builds up from individual widgets and signals/slots to dialogs to windows to the full fancy application functionality (menus, toolbars, docking objects, tabs, MDI windows) that Qt makes pretty effortless in a number of ways.
The book covers the very powerful Model-View structure very well. We have also benefitted from the XML, layout and networking chapters. The book has also been of help in dealing with look and feel issues (stylesheets and subclassing QStyle). It also covers a number of fascinating topics that I've read about but just never used professionally, such as plug-ins.

Some criticized its style of covering the development and structure of a small (spreadsheet-type) application. This is actually the most beneficial way to learn how to use the library since you wind up with the ability to see how the pieces interact with each other. Its easy to show how a QAction works; showing how to make it flow through an MDI to the right window, however, is much easier in a whole application context. This book is not a book on computer science (algorithms, etc); its certainly a book on the specifics of how to work with the Qt library and its also a book on application development generally. The downloadable code from InformIT is a nice bonus.

The Qt library, like any actively developed library, is constantly evolving so it should be no surprise that there are some features added since publication. I think its more a positive about Qt than a negative about the book. Each chapter is well organized, with each chapter covering one of the many aspects of Qt programming. Its impossible to cover every class and method because the Qt library is huge. This book clocks in at over 700 pages and, in my opinion, more than hits the highlights. I have no problem hitting the web or documentation for more in depth info. But with this book, I feel like I've got enough background to tackle the issues.

Lastly, in response to those who criticize Qt: I have tried a number of the other major libraries and I have found nothing better for GUI than Qt. But Qt covers so much more. It provides data types and containers (eg QString, QList, QHash), model-view-controller GUI, networking, regular expressions, signals-slots. I've moved my apps from using a mix of MFC, boost, and other libraries to just using Qt. Qt is highly consistent and all data can be moved from one class to the next with minimal effort. It truly is the best available and this is easily our book of choice for training with the Qt library.

Decent read, but not for the price. - 2009-06-20
Reviewer Rating:
I bought the book from Barnes & Noble for about $65. I like the fact it's a hardback, and I was extremely anxious to dig in and start developing Qt4 GUI applications.

The first couple chapters are great. Very easy to follow, just type in the examples as the book tells you to, and then it explains it (though not as much as I'd like).

As some other reviewers have said, you don't really get a clear picture of what Qt4 is all about. It doesn't really explain WHY the code works as it does. You don't learn how all of the objects mesh together.

After you get through the first couple easy chapters, it feels like you're thrown into the deep end! Not in complexity of the concepts or code so much maybe, but in the even moreso LACK of explanation.

I just ordered "Foundations of Qt Development" on Amazon, I'm really hoping this book is better.

Good start for learning Qt - 2009-09-08
Reviewer Rating:
This book is almost essential for getting started with Qt, as it explains the philosophy of the package and how to think about finding a way to make it do what you want. Chapters are nicely arranged in "basic", "intermediate", and "advanced" sections. It has material at the end for adapting to C++ for programmers used to working in other languages. My only caveat is that a lot of details are missing, even in 700+ pages, so pretty soon you have to learn to use the online documentation alongside the book. (They tell you this right up front).

Lots of up-to-date information - 2009-08-14
Reviewer Rating:
This book was my first introduction to Qt, and I've been using it for about two weeks now on a project. Other reviewers have argued that it doesn't give enough of a big-picture view. It is true that the book has many pages of annotated source code. I started off thinking the verbosity was daunting, but when I actually tried to start using Qt, I quickly appreciated all the little details in this book and the very complete index (the index is over 50 pages long). The Trolltech website is a good reference for putting everything in one place, but this book is great for stepping through an example in detail.

One caveat: I've used other widget sets (Gtk, Tk) before with other languages, but have no previous experience with Qt, and not much experience with C++ (so I found the "Intro to C++" chapter for Qt programmers a helpful summary).

OO problems - 2009-10-19
Reviewer Rating:
I realize its difficult to make examples that appeal to everybody. This book have some very good example ideas, but often lack in execution. Having spent the last few years with Java & C# it annoys me a lot that C++ programmers still continue to place a lot of initialization code into main(). In this book, eg. in chapter 5 the authors creates a custom plotter widget, that would be very useful as an example if it wasn't half made. Remember that Qt is OO and then you don't require the user to modify the class initialization in order to use the class. Every class needs to be able to stand on its own and initializations come in the constructor.

Like a previous reviewer I would also like to see a Qt book that doesn't follow the exact same topic layout as the official manual, variety is always good.

I'd like to end with saying that this is good book, however there is a bit too much information in some of the lengthy examples. If you manage to get through the chapters though, I'm sure you're well set up for a job as a Qt programmer.

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