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 18 Ratings

A nice companion to the Qt Assistant - 2009-11-08
Reviewer Rating:
This review is based on the first printing June 2006. Qt has notched up some minor versions since that, but for the purposes of this evaluation that makes little difference. C++ GUI Programming with Qt 4 is divided into three numbered sections, Basic,Intermediate and Advanced. In total it is comprised of 21 chapters covering topics from the venerable "hello world", via common GUI elements, graphics, XML, databases to internationalization and multithreaded programming. Many of the elements needed to put together a fully fledged application are given the first and basic coverage. The book has a very nice form factor and can easily be read in bed or brought along if you are traveling. I find the language used very comprehensible and "light" in a positive sense. There is quite an abundance of code snippets to examplify things. You may or may not like that. However, code is after all what it all boils down to so for me that was fine. Also, it is good to get introduced to c++/Qt oriented code. If you end up working with Qt one thing that you will be doing is to browse the sourcecode of Qt hunting for techniques and solutions. Therefore, being able to quickly read and understand C++ the Qt way is a good skill to have, and one that you might as well start to learn reading the book. I have read most parts of the book more than once. However, my best experience was with chapter 18 "Multithreading". I needed to implement a particular part of the application I was working on as a multithreaded piece. I was able to "lift" all necessary ingredients from chapter 18 and directly into a nicely working piece (that has kept me happy for more than two years after). However, you should keep in mind that the book is only an introductory text even if it has the "intermediate" and "advanced" parts. So you might say that the "Advanced" part is really an introduction to some advanced Qt topics from a very basic level. At least one of the authors of the book (Jasmin Blanchette and Mark Summerfield) has played a major role in creating the documentation for Qt, naming of classes etc. In my opinion the Qt naming scheme in conjunction with the documentation using theQt Assistant is quite fantastic. If you can guess a name for what you are trying to do and type in in the assistant you will most likely find that is the name used by Qt. But at first you need a lightweight introduction and the book is a very nice basic introduction to Qt for someone that seriously wants to or has to work with Qt. You need at least a passing knowledge of object programming to benefit from the book. In that case you will read through this book in a few hours and it fits in your travel pack. It will arm you with a certain overview that is indispensable as you hit Qt hard later on. It does have a couple of appendixes too. One concerns installation. That should be a breeze by now anyway. The other is an introduction to C++ for Java and C# programmers. If you are looking for a much more advanced text, one that you can use to architect that serious application related stuff in depth you should buy "An introduction to design patterns in C++ with Qt 4" by Alan and Paul Ezust along with the book by Blanchette and Summerfield.

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).

Great introduction for advanced programmers - 2009-11-20
Reviewer Rating:
If you have never developped GUI applications using object oriented techniques I would reccommend you stay away from this book it jumps into the details too quickly.
Try Foundations of QtAr Development (Expert's Voice in Open Source) instead. Sooner or later, you'll have to have this book, though, to get you to the next level. There seems to be room for yet another book which discusses the organisation of the Qt libraries.
But if you have experience in other frameworks (like .NET) then this can be a very good book. The style is very tight, with plenty of sample code, and you can get many applications going by just following the code and adapting it to your needs. I got my windowing application with menus and toolbars in an evening by just following a chapter in this book.
It is not a reference book, but it is closer to that than the other books I have seen. Still the Qt Reference is good.

I'm surprised that some other reviewer said that Qt is disorganised compared to Java. Maybe it's because I'm thinking of my experiences with Java a long time ago, but I remember thinking that Java Libraries were all over the place. However C++ is a very complicated language, and I guess Java is much easier to get into.

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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