Deploying 3rdparty Qt Quick plugins on macOS

Ilya Bizyaev · wrote on 1 Oct 2018, 10:16

Hello,

I am trying to build a macOS application which uses KDE's Kirigami framework for its UI. On Linux I am able to install Kirigami to a standard location so that Qt could automatically locate it. On macOS I use macdeployqt, but it only copies Qt's own Qt Quick libs (e.g. QQC2), so I have to script cp/ln/install_name_tool.

Is it possible to make macdeployqt add Kirigami automatically? Or, alternatively, can I use CMake or some macOS tools to do the job?

Ilya Bizyaev · wrote on 5 Nov 2018, 15:44

Starting from Qt 5.13, there will be a -qmlimport macdeployqt option to specify additional QML module search directories.

AndyS · wrote on 1 Oct 2018, 12:33

Hi @Ilya-Bizyaev,

Provided that your QML imports it and you have your QML2_IMPORT_PATH environment variable set to include the location of the import then macdeployqt should take care of this for you and pick it up as a result. This way macdeployqt can see that it requires it and will deploy it with the other plugins.

Ilya Bizyaev · wrote on 1 Oct 2018, 21:10

Thank you for your reply!

Unfortunately, macdeployqt does not seem to take QML2_IMPORT_PATH into account. I managed to make it find Kirigami by symlinking from inside Qt's qml folder to the library's location, but it feels hacky.

SGaist · wrote on 1 Oct 2018, 21:34

Hi,

There's the -qmldir option of macdeployqt that you can use but AFAIK, it only takes one path currently.

Ilya Bizyaev · wrote on 2 Oct 2018, 21:58

Thanks for the reply :)

According to the macdeployqt manual:
-qmldir=<path> : Scan for QML imports in the given path.

This argument is used to specify the application's qml source directory to be scanned for import * statements. It can accept multiple paths, but these are not used as library search paths.

To specify a library search path, macdeployqt would need to pass it as an -importPath argument to qmlimportscanner, but it only passes Qt's default library location: http://code.qt.io/cgit/qt/qttools.git/tree/src/macdeployqt/shared/shared.cpp#n1236

As a hack one can create a link to the custom location from inside the Qt installation, and that's what I use for now, but I think there has to be a better way.

SGaist · wrote on 2 Oct 2018, 22:03

A feature to add to macdeployqt: an option to give additional import paths.

Ilya Bizyaev · wrote on 2 Oct 2018, 22:27

Should I open a feature request?

SGaist · wrote on 2 Oct 2018, 22:28

If you don't find any yet, yes. If you can provide a minimal buildable sample application that shows that behaviour it would be great.

Out of curiosity, how did you got Kirigami for macOS ?

Ilya Bizyaev · wrote on 6 Oct 2018, 17:09

@SGaist I reported the issue as https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-70977 and opened a revision at https://codereview.qt-project.org/#/c/242083/

Ilya Bizyaev · wrote on 6 Oct 2018, 17:12

Kirigami works just right on macOS, here are some screenshots:

The app is on its early stages, though.

SGaist · wrote on 6 Oct 2018, 20:57

Thanks for the submission !

One small fix to the commit message to do :)

Ilya Bizyaev · wrote on 5 Nov 2018, 15:44

Starting from Qt 5.13, there will be a -qmlimport macdeployqt option to specify additional QML module search directories.

SGaist · wrote on 5 Nov 2018, 20:37

If needed earlier, macdeployqt can be manually built from the dev branch.